Chapter 2
TWO
Next of Kin
There’s a reason ICU patients are always in comas. It’s literally their only hope of getting any rest.
Every few minutes, someone in scrubs comes into my brother’s room.
Some of the people actually look at him, but mostly they poke the machines responsible for the ICU white noise—loud, random beeping, whirring medication pumps, the airy piston noise of the ventilator—half a ton of machinery to keep an eighteen year-old boy alive.
I’ve been asleep for maybe twenty minutes when the sun rises again like a big, solar-powered fuck you. My eyes burn. My memory burns. I cover my face with my arm to block out the aggressive morning light.
“Good morning!” a chipper voice rings out.
Groaning, I clench the pillow in my fists.
It’s shift change.
Great.
“Why don’t you go get some coffee while I tidy things up?” the young nurse in royal blue scrubs says. It’s not a suggestion.
“How’s he doing?” I ask as I drag myself to my feet and pat my pockets to check for my wallet.
What I feel instead are the keys the attorney gave me yesterday.
What I also feel is a sharp pain in my neck that I can only describe as a white-hot whip sting from shoulder to jaw.
I’m miserable in about a hundred different ways, but if I get a shower and some sleep, that might fix about ninety of them.
In my life, I’ve learned sleep fixes just about everything.
“Looking good. Stable. We’re planning to extubate today, see how he does.”
None of that means much to me, so I just thank her and say, “I might be gone for a few hours. Is that okay? You guys have my number?”
“We do. We’ll call you if anything changes.”
Twenty minutes later, in West Austin, I pull into the circular driveway of the house I still have nightmares about and turn off the car I rented at the airport.
My palms slip on the steering wheel, slick with sweat. My t-shirt feels like it’s choking me again. I tug at the collar. I breathe. White stone, glass, a red door, and a small fortune's worth of landscaping stare back at me.
The heat inside the car rises fast once the A/C is off, so I grab my backpack and head for the house. Using the key the lawyer bequeathed to me, I open the door. The second I step inside, my fight or flight kicks in, dilating my pupils and setting my heart off at a sprint.
Round, green leaves of eucalyptus arch from the crystal vase in the foyer, and their dusty scent reminds me of everything.
Of all of it. Not one particular moment, which might be easier to take, but all the moments, rolled together in an avalanche of images so vivid, they stop feeling like memories.
Could this be a trap?
I hesitate in the foyer, expecting to hear the deliberate click of my mother's footsteps, but my sudden paranoia is met with silence.
Momentarily reassured, I pass through the formal living room, all stained oak and striped chintz.
The tick tock of the grandfather clock marks my footsteps until I find myself standing on the threshold of the kitchen.
My heart pounds. I lose the ability to swallow.
Why the hell am I here?
A shower. Sleep?
I thought I could sleep here? I must be beyond exhausted.
Wanting the shower at least, I drop my bag on the counter and take a quick look around.
The mess I find gets to me—disturbs me on so many levels I can’t describe it.
A cereal box left open on the counter. Half-filled glasses of stagnant orange juice.
Dishes piled in the sink waiting for someone to put them in the dishwasher.
The smell borders on foul, and the way it’s mixing with the house eucalyptus isn’t helping.
I resign myself to this one task, boldly stepping behind the island.
The trash goes first, then I load the dishwasher, clear the counters, find some Comet under the sink, and go to work on the countertops.
The kitchen’s been remodeled since I lived here, and so it’s unfamiliar both in its layout and its finishings.
For the moment, it’s easy enough to pretend I’ve never been here, though I am surprised my parents never upgraded to a bigger house.
Given the incomprehensible wealth my father seems to have amassed, this one-story, five bedroom is downright modest and well beneath the means he had available.
These granite countertops, though…they’re nice.
Or they were.
I’ve ruined a large surface area before it occurs to me that maybe Comet, rage, and Scrub Daddies aren’t meant for use on granite. Oh well. Fuck you, mom. I almost laugh.
My shower is less funny, though, and finding a place to sleep is damn near sobering. My old room has been turned into a craft room. No surprise there. No bed either. Connor’s bed has an open violin case on it, which I don’t want to touch, so I move on to what used to be a guest room.
Reality smacks me in the face once again.
Yesterday I learned four people died in the car wreck that put my brother on life support.
My mother and father, the driver of the oncoming car, and the kid who lived in this bedroom.
They were all just words—theoretical—when I skimmed the obituary.
But they come back now. Bryan Jacob Brennan, age 6, attended St. Stephen’s School.
A St. Stephen’s pennant hangs on the wall opposite the door because four days ago I had two brothers.
Today I have one.
Four days ago, I didn’t know.
Today I do.
The numbness returns as I stand on the threshold.
I don’t enter the room because there are pictures on the wall, and I’m not ready to know what he looked like.
I already know he played baseball, and that’s horrible enough.
A tiny glove holding an orange and white ball rests on the floor next to my feet.
It’s the saddest fucking thing imaginable.
If they hadn’t died, would I have ever known?
Would I have ever stopped moving on for long enough to look back over my shoulder and check?
Had his life been okay? Or was it like mine? Is he better off where he is?
I close his door the same way I closed Connor’s, shutting everything his room contains away both literally and in my aching head.
Too wired now to sleep, and unable to handle any more blindsides, I park myself in the lounge just off the kitchen and tune the TV to ESPN.
In summer, there’s always a baseball game somewhere.
The sounds of the game and the familiar voices of the announcers drown out some of the strangeness of being back in this place. I have no idea who’s playing.
I call Carrie out of habit and wind up stalling out after I get the word “hey” out of my mouth.
“You gonna tell me where you are?” she asks after a few seconds of waiting for me to say something else.
“Austin.”
“Okay. I’ll bite. What’s in Austin.”
“This is where I’m from. My hometown.”
“Oh. I guess I didn’t know that,” she says.
“I’m sorry, Carrie,” I whisper, something inside me crumpling under the weight of all the things I’ve never told her. Things I still won’t tell her because they don’t belong outside of me. They’re not safe anywhere but stuffed inside my chest.
“Is everything okay?”
“My brother’s in the hospital.”
“Oh.”
She didn’t know I had even one brother. Somehow I’ve managed to be in a monogamous relationship with this woman for nearly two years and let her believe I materialized fully formed in Seattle as an incoming college freshman with no past, no family, and no baggage.
In my own defense, our conversations have never been exactly deep or reflective.
She’s an artist, I’m an artist. We exist in the same circle of friends, and we’re physically attracted to each other.
Enough life happens between us that the past rarely comes up besides the occasional random anecdote.
“He’s gonna be out of it for a while, and there’s some family stuff I need to deal with, but I wanted to let you know where I’m at, and I’m sorry I won’t be able to make your show this weekend.”
“Oh, Archer. Don’t worry about that. Are you okay?”
“I’m…” A billionaire? Confused? Terrified? Alone? “I’ll be all right.”
“Do you, uh…want me to see if I can come down there?”
Her question surprises me. It’s honestly the last thing I thought she’d offer, which I guess is weird when we call each other girlfriend and boyfriend, but those are just words, aren’t they?
Labels we’ve placed on a relationship that’s chill and consistent.
Going through something together doesn’t really feel like us. Do I want her here, though?
I cover my eyes with my hand when I realize the truth—the answer.
It’s no.
Even in this conversation where I can picture her perfectly—her baggy, paint-smeared white overalls, her curly hair, her funky glasses, and the worry line between her dark brows—she feels like a stranger.
“It’s not that serious,” I say with the full realization that I’m talking more about me and Carrie than the hell I’m trying to navigate here, and it’s the most depressing thought I’ve had all day. So far.
“Oh. Well, that’s good. And truly. No worries about the show. I’ll take tons of pics. Whenever you get back, I’ll give you the entire play by play.”
“Cool.”
“I miss you. Check in with me, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell your brother I said get well soon.”
I nod at the empty room around me, mumbling my goodbyes before I end the call.
Still using my phone, I search for a flight back to Seattle.
The cheapest leaves Tuesday at 5:45 a.m. That’s three days away for nearly seven-hundred dollars.
I can’t cover the cost until I get paid on Friday or the lawyer starts transferring me some money, but I can’t think about that right now.
All I can think about is how I’m stuck here either way for now without a clue what to do with myself besides sit vigil at the bedside of my comatose brother at the hospital.