Page 30 of You'll Never Know
He bangs again, and I startle. Lead lines my stomach as I drift toward the door. When I open it, Ben lurches past me, crackling with angry energy, his cane clacking against the tile like a drum.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Nothing. Why are you here?”
A deep V creases his brow, and he shakes his head. “Don’t try to change the subject.” He waves at the pills on the table. “Bailey, what the fuck?”
I raise my fingers and pinch the bridge of my nose, say nothing. I can’t; I’m too tired for this, but my silence is answer enough.
His face falls. “Jesus, Bay …”
“Ben, it’s not what it looks like.”
“Yeah? Because it looks pretty fucking bad.”
“I’m just—”
“What?” he says, clicking closer. “Going to kill yourself?”
“No, I mean—”
“Stop it. You aren’t the only one who’s suffered here!”
I stiffen. “Don’t you think I know that?”
“Do you?” he asks, drawing so close I can smell the coffee staining his breath. “Because what you’re about to do says you don’t. And I’m telling you …” His voice splinters, and he shakes his head. “I’m telling you that youdo notget to do this to me,too.”
“I don’t know how to go on anymore. I can’t. I’ve tried.”
Ben stares at me, the whites of his eyes going pink before he wraps me in a hug. I dissolve into him and sob against his shoulder. He cups the back of my head and pulls me closer. I feel his chest shudder. Neither of us say a word. We simply stand there, both of us crying, until he finally breaks free and leads me to the couch.
“Sit,” he says, wiping his eyes. “I’ll make us some tea.”
He sets his cane on the couch and hobbles into the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with two cups of Masala Chai. He hands me one and then eases into the club chair on the other side of the coffee table and takes a sip from his mug.
I study him in a daze. Life hasn’t been kind to my brother. At seventeen, he took a position as a construction hand downtown, working on a new high-rise. Three weeks into the job he fell through an unmarked skylight. He plummeted two stories and sustained thirty-three fractures as a result. The only reason he lived was because, after hitting a railing midway down, he flipped end over end and crashed into a pile of empty cardboard boxes that cushioned his fall. His surgeon said he was lucky, that if he’d landed two feet to the right or left, he would have died. I’m so very grateful for those boxes.
Until my wreck, watching him recover was the single most difficult experience of my life. He had brain damage—he didn’t speak right for months. A single step was cause for victory. We all cheered him along. The fact he’s sitting here with me right now, functioningnormally after everything he’s endured is nothing short of a miracle.
We’ve both lost too many people. Our father passed from a massive coronary a couple of years before my wreck. His death hurt me, but it hit Ben especially hard. He and Dad were close—more like brothers than father and son. They went fishing on the weekends, attended concerts and art shows. Growing up, Dad knew how to talk to Ben better than any of us, knew how to reach him when he was down. Any hole Ben fell into, Dad pulled him out of. And there were a lot of holes, especially after Ben’s accident. When Dad died, Ben not only lost a parent, he also lost his best friend.
Our mother followed shortly after. With Dad as her anchor, her early-onset dementia was semi-manageable. She was forgetful but content. But after he passed, Ben and I were forced to put her in a memory care facility. We didn’t want to, but neither of us could take care of her. Neither of us had the time or resources. Worse, without Dad, her good nature swung toward something darker. She became angry and bitter, turned her words into weapons:You’ve never been a good mother, Bailey. All you do is work. You didn’t learn that from me. I don’t know where I went wrong with you.
She died while I was in the hospital. Ben had to shoulder it all. He didn’t even tell me she’d passed until several months later. And I didn’t ask; that’s how gone I was at the time. I didn’t care about anyone else’s pain. I was too lost in my own. When Ben finally shared the news, I didn’t even shed a tear. I couldn’t. I didn’t have any left.
He takes another drink of his tea and appraises me.
“What?” I ask.
“I’m moving in with you.”
I gawk at him. Ben lives in a mid-century modern home in the city with his longtime boyfriend, Owen Grayson, a prominent local architect. They spend their free time perusing art galleries and museums and their evenings attending plays and shows. A perfect weekend for my brother means evenings spent at wine bars and lazy morningseating bougie breakfasts, not sitting here on my couch drinking lukewarm cups of Starbucks. The city fits him. The suburbs don’t. Him moving in with me is out of the question.
“It’s not happening,” I say.
“Fine. Then you’re moving in with me and Owen. You need a change, anyway.
I nearly snort. Their home is charming but small with barely enough room for the two of them. With me there, it would be bursting at the seams. “You know I wouldn’t do that to you.”
