Chapter 34 #2
Vaughn hasn’t texted me in three years. The last message in our thread is from me—a birthday text I’d sent. The kind of careful, brief message you send when you’re not sure if someone wants to hear from you, but you can’t quite bring yourself to stop trying. He never replied.
I open the message.
It’s a meme of a squirrel. A fat, outraged-looking squirrel clinging to the side of a bird feeder that’s clearly not designed for squirrels, cheeks stuffed to capacity, staring directly at the camera with an expression of absolute defiance. Underneath, in block capitals: CAUGHT. NOT SORRY.
My heart stops.
Because this isn’t just any squirrel meme.
When I was about five, a squirrel got into our kitchen through a window someone had left open.
Vaughn and I came downstairs for breakfast and found it sitting on the counter, surrounded by the wreckage of a box of cereal it had torn open, cheeks bulging, staring at us with zero guilt.
Zero fear. Just pure, brazen, Cheerio-fueled defiance.
Vaughn had wanted to chase it out, but I’d wanted to keep it. We’d compromised by naming it—Dr. Nutsworth, Professor of Cereal Studies—and watching it eat for another ten minutes before Mom came downstairs and screamed loud enough to send it back out the window and halfway across the yard.
For years after, squirrels had been our thing.
Vaughn gave me a stuffed squirrel for my birthday.
At our grandparents’ lake house, we’d spent an entire afternoon trying to lure the squirrels closer using a trail of crackers, narrating their movements using nature documentary voice-overs.
When I was ten and having problems at school, Vaughn hid peanuts in my backpack every day for a week and told me Dr. Nutsworth was leaving me care packages.
Then, when Vaughn went off to college, we started exchanging the most ridiculous squirrel memes and photos.
It escalated to the point that Vaughn once interrupted a family dinner to show me a squirrel waterskiing.
“Archie?” Jaymee’s voice sounds far away. “You’ve gone white. What is it?”
“My brother just texted me.”
“Your brother? The one you don’t talk to?”
“That’s the one.”
I stare at the screen. I shouldn’t read into this. He probably sent it to the wrong person. He was scrolling through his contacts and hit my name by accident.
But this isn’t just any meme. This is a meme that only someone who remembers Dr. Nutsworth would find funny.
My fingers are already moving, finding a picture that I saved years ago and never deleted. It’s of a squirrel in a tiny knitted hat, looking profoundly smug. I caption it: Dr. Nutsworth finally got his tenure!
I send it before I can talk myself out of it.
Then I put my phone face-down on the table and try to remember how to breathe.
“What just happened?” Jaymee asks.
“I don’t know yet.”
My phone buzzes.
Dr. Nutsworth never did give back our Cheerios.
I choke on something between a laugh and a sob.
He ate an entire box. I respected his commitment.
You wanted to adopt him.
I maintain that was a reasonable position.
A pause. Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
How are you, Arch?
Arch.
He hasn’t called me Arch in years.
My eyes are burning. This is ridiculous. I’m a grown man sitting in a pub in Peckham, getting emotional over a squirrel and a nickname. And if anyone could see inside my head right now, they’d have me committed.
Though it appears Jaymee can see inside my head, or close enough. She’s watching me with the careful attention of someone who knows better than to interrupt.
I’m good. I’m currently sporting a walking boot. Very space age.
What happened?
Long story. Broke my ankle a while back. It’s healing.
Shit. Sorry to hear that. You okay?
Yeah. I’m fine. Healing ahead of schedule, which I’m attributing to superior Mansley genetics.
Bold claim from the kid who couldn’t ride a bike until he was nine.
I was a CAUTIOUS CHILD. I had a healthy respect for gravity.
You fell off twelve times in your first attempt.
Eleven. One of those was a controlled dismount.
A controlled dismount. Into a bush.
I’m laughing. Actually laughing, in a pub booth, tears threatening at the corners of my eyes.
How are you?
There’s a longer gap before he replies.
I’m okay. Listen, I know it’s been a while. And I know I’ve been shit. But I was thinking maybe we could really talk sometime. I’m coming to London for a few weeks for work. Do you want to catch up then?
I read the message three times.
If you want is implied in every word. Like I might not want to. Like there’s a universe in which I wouldn’t want my brother back.
I’d like that.
Yeah?
Yeah.
I put my phone down. Jaymee hasn’t said a word. She puts her hand on mine and squeezes once.
One of the things I love about Jaymee is that while she’ll poke at anything most of the time, she also knows when to leave things alone.
We walk out into the cold night air. The street is quiet except for the distant sound of a bus and my walking boot clunking against the pavement.
My broken ankle has almost healed.
My broken heart is still broken though.
But…
I pull my phone out one more time and look at the squirrel meme.
Dr. Nutsworth stares back at me, fat and brazen and completely unrepentant.
Maybe he’s proof that some things do survive, even when you think they’re gone.