Chapter Four #3
Dean followed her into the living room, where a fire crackled in the huge hearth.
The furniture he remembered from childhood still cluttered the big space.
Cream-colored sofas on carved wooden legs faced each other.
A large, oval-shaped rosewood coffee table stood between them, a beautiful Lalique bowl on its gleaming surface.
The room was gorgeously decorated in a timeless style. Not a thing was trendy or cheaply made. Every item reflected his mother’s impeccable taste and boundless bank account.
The only thing missing from the room was life. No child had ever been allowed to sit on those perfect sofas, no drink had ever been spilled on that Aubusson carpet.
Dean glanced toward the stairway. “How is he?”
Lottie’s green eyes filled with sadness. “Not so good, I’m sorry to say. The trip up here was hard on him. The hospice nurse was here today. She says that the new medication—something called a pain cocktail—will help him feel better.”
Pain.
That was something Dean hadn’t thought about, although he should have.
“Jesus,” he said softly, running a hand through his hair.
He’d thought he was ready. He’d been mentally preparing himself, and yet now that he was here, he saw what an idiot he’d been.
You couldn’t prepare to watch your brother die. “Did Eric call our parents?”
“He did. They’re in Greece. Athens.”
“I know. Did he speak to Mother?”
Lottie glanced down at her hands; he braced himself. “Your mother’s assistant spoke to him. It seems your mother was shopping when he called.”
Dean’s voice was purposely soft. He was afraid that if he raised it, even a bit, he’d be yelling. “Did Eric tell her about the cancer?”
“Of course. He wanted to tell your mother himself, but . . . he decided he’d better just leave a message.”
“And has she returned his call?”
“No.”
Dean released his breath in a tired sigh.
Lottie moved toward him. “I remember how you boys used to be. You’d walk through fire for one another.”
“Yeah. I’m here for him now.”
“Go on up.” She smiled gently. “He’s a bit the worse for wear, but he’s still our boy.”
Dean nodded stiffly, resettled the garment bag over his shoulder, and headed upstairs. The oak steps creaked beneath his feet. His hand slid up the oak banister, polished to sleek perfection by the comings and goings of three generations.
At the top of the stairs, the landing forked into two separate hallways. On the right was his parents’ old wing; his-and-hers bedrooms that hadn’t been occupied in more than fourteen years.
To the left were two doors, one closed, one partially open.
The closed door led to Dean’s old room. He didn’t need to enter the room to picture it clearly: blue wool carpeting, maple bed with a plaid flannel bedspread, a dusty poster of Farrah Fawcett in her famous red bathing suit.
He’d dreamed a million dreams in that room, imagined his unfolding life in a thousand ways .
. . and none had presaged a moment like this.
Tired suddenly, he rounded the corner, passed his old bedroom, and came to Eric’s door.
There he paused and drew in a deep breath, as if more air in his lungs would somehow make things better.
Then he walked into his brother’s room.
The first thing he noticed was the hospital bed. It had replaced the bunk bed that once had hugged the wall. The new bed—big and metal-railed and tilted up like a lounging chair—dominated the small room. Lottie had positioned it to look out the window.
Eric was asleep.
Dean seemed to see everything at once—the way Eric’s black hair had thinned to show patches of skin .
. . the yellowed pallor of his sunken cheeks .
. . the smudged black circles beneath his eyes .
. . the veiny thinness of the arm that lay atop the stark white sheets.
His lips were pale and slack, a colorless imitation of the mouth that had once smiled almost continually.
Only the palest shadow of his brother lay here . . .
Dean grabbed the bed rail for support; the metal rattled beneath his grasp.
Eric’s eyes slowly opened.
And there he was. The boy he’d known and loved. “Eric,” he said, wishing his voice weren’t so thick. He struggled to find a smile.
“Don’t bother, baby brother. Not for me.”
“Don’t bother what?”
“Pretending not to be shocked at the way I look.” Eric reached for the small pink plastic cup on his bedside tray.
His long, thin fingers trembled as he guided the straw to his mouth.
He sipped slowly, swallowed. When he looked up at Dean, his rheumy eyes were filled with a terrible, harrowing honesty. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
“Of course I came. You should have told me . . . before.”
“Like when I told you I was gay? Believe me, I learned a long time ago that my family didn’t handle bad news well.”
Dean fought to hold back tears, and then gave up. They were the kind of tears that hurt deep in your heart. He felt a stinging sense of shame.
Remorse, regret, boredom, anticipation, ambition .
. . these were the emotions that had taken Dean through life.
Those, he knew how to handle, how to manipulate and compensate for.
But this new emotion . . . this feeling in the pit of his stomach that he’d been a bad person, that he’d hurt his brother deeply and known it and never bothered to make it right . . .
Eric smiled weakly. “You’re here now. That’s enough.”
“No. You’ve been sick for a long time . . . by yourself.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Dean wanted to smooth the thin strands of hair from Eric’s damp forehead, to offer a comforting touch, but when he reached out, his hands were trembling, and he drew back.
It had been years since he’d comforted another human being; he didn’t remember how.
“It matters,” he said, hearing the thickness in his voice. He would give anything right now to erase the past, to be able to go back to that Sunday afternoon, listen to that same confession of love from his brother, and simply be happy.
But how did you do that? How did two people move backward through time and untie a knot that had tangled through every moment of their lives?
“Just talk to me,” Eric said sleepily, smiling again. “Just talk, little brother. Like we used to.”