“I thought it was that way. Which way did you think it was?”
Jimmy pointed in the exact opposite direction. We both realized at the same time that we had no way to tell direction. We looked off into the mist. We listened for sounds from shore. We didn’t hear anything. We were pretty far out.
“Let’s wait,” I said. “Maybe we’ll hear something. Then we’ll know.”
We waited. We listened. The mists parted and curled around us. Every once in a while there was a lapping sound as the canoe shifted with our weight and a rounded, diminishing ripple was sent out into the silent, gray sheet surrounding us. Once we thought we heard a car horn, but when we heard it again we realized it was a Canada goose calling in the mist.
It was past seven o’clock. It would be dark in an hour. The darkness didn’t matter in itself, but if a storm came up without the fog lifting it could be dangerous. The water was in the low sixties. If we tipped there was no way we’d make it to shore.
“Which way did you think it was again?” I asked.
Jimmy pointed off into the fog.
“Let’s wait a little longer,” I said. “It can’t stay foggy forever.”
“But it might until the wind builds and a storm comes up.”
I hadn’t thought of that. A canoe wouldn’t be much good if the waves built up.
Silence, white mists turning gray. It was getting dark. And then, for a moment, it grew a little brighter, and the flat, perfectly round outline of the sun showed through the shifting veils of mist, low on the horizon, and in the exact opposite direction I’d expected. It looked like a nickel.
“If that’s west or southwest, then the shore must be this way,” Jimmy said.
We turned the canoe around and started paddling in the direction he’d pointed, going quickly, trying to get our bearings. The sun vanished after a minute, but we kept on paddling in what we hoped was a straight line. We’d stop, listen, and then paddle again. After twenty minutes, faintly, we heard the white noise of cars and traffic. Another twenty minutes went by and then the shore, suddenly, came into view. I saw the line of the harbor breakwall. We were farther south than we should have been. We paddled alongshore in the shallow, still water with the sandy, ridged bottom passing beneath us.
At the swimming beach we slid by three park workers in green hip waders walking waist deep, picking trash out of the sand with pointed spikes. I held the wet paddle up as we passed by and they each waved silently in the fog and we went on until we saw the looming bluff of Dyson’s Beach. We paddled in hard until the nose ran up and crunched to a halt on the soft, brown sand. An expanding, rippled path spread out behind us. Jimmy got out of the canoe and then I did. For an hour, while we’d been lost, I hadn’t thought of my brother or the party. We hauled the canoe onshore and stood looking out at the misty lake.
“That was kind of weird out there,” Jimmy said.
“Yeah. Kind of weird,” I said.
I took one end of the canoe. Jimmy took the other. On top of the bluff the sound of traffic became loud and intrusive and there was a feeling of coming back to the ordinary world. Jimmy and I looked out over the lake from the bluff. I had thought the water was completely flat, but it wasn’t. The water was coming out of the mist in lines of rounded, silvery undulations that moved toward shore slowly and broke with one-inch waves that, from the bluff, splashed on the wet sand, flattened out, and receded silently.
* * *
—
Cloth napkins and candles lit and flickering, all of us crammed together at the small table. It was Coyle’s last night, and I was sitting at the dreaded goodbye dinner. We had just finished dessert and I knew what was coming.
Dad leaned forward and put his hands on either side of his plate.
“Who knows how long it will be before we all sit around this table again? I just want to say a few words before Coyle goes on to further successes. Coyle, you are a great kid. You have worked harder than any of your friends. And because of the hard work you’ve put in, you are going to succeed at college and have an active, productive life. And it will be the same for everyone here. You’ll all do just as well.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Do you really imagine we’re all going to get full rides like Coyle?” I said.
“Try not to ruin things,” Mom said.
“I’m not ruining them,” I said. “I’m being truthful. A little lowering of expectations is not going to hurt anyone.”
“You’ll all do just as well in your own way,” Dad said. He was beaming and glassy-eyed. I could see he really believed this. “All of you are going to be superior human beings, and will have the opportunity to do whatever you choose.”
Coyle had given everyone else presents except me. He said he was going to give mine later. Now it was our turn to give presents back. Dad reached beneath the table and handed a wrapped package to Coyle.
“This is just a little thing. I hope you like it.”
Coyle took the package. Dad had written a note in his small, neat script. Coyle read it silently and nodded to Dad.
“Thanks,” he said.
He didn’t tell us what it said. He folded the note and put it in his pocket.
Then he unwrapped the present. It was an electric razor.
“A razor?” Fergus jeered. “That’s a present?”
“I like it,” Coyle said. “Thanks.”
“See,” Dad said to Fergus. “He can shave wherever he wants.”
“Or not shave at all,” Fergus said. “He’ll come back looking like ZZ Top.”
“He better not,” Mom said.
Then she reached beneath the table and held out a gift bag. Coyle took the bag and pulled out a hoodie sweatshirt with a big “V” on the front.
“Well, I like this,” Coyle said.
Fergus was momentarily silenced.
“You don’t have anything to say?” Dad said to Fergus.
“Nothing except Mom gave the better present,” Fergus said. “Not as good as mine, but way better than yours.”
“As usual,” Mom said, and Dad grumbled amiably. He wasn’t going to lose his temper, not at the family’s last supper.
Fergus reached beneath his chair and held out a large glass mug. He hadn’t even bothered wrapping it. There was a card in the mug that read: Good luck, Dude.
“That’s for all the beer you’ll be drinking. Probably the only present you’ll use.”
“I’ll definitely use it,” Coyle said.
“I hope not too much,” Dad said.
“You should use it tonight,” Fergus said, and Dad scowled at him.
“Eighteen-year-olds don’t drink,” Dad said, and Fergus made a scoffing sound, and Dad just laughed and no one said anything else.
Coyle’s eyes went to the clock. He was supposed to meet his friends in a few minutes. He knew he wasn’t supposed to rush the dinner, but he really wanted to get going. It was his last night.
Mom turned to Maddy, who reached beneath the table and held out her gift. It was flat and rectangular and wrapped perfectly. There were tears in her eyes.
“I’m sure you won’t like it,” she said.
Coyle took off the wrapping. Inside was a framed picture of the family.
“You can put that on your wall,” she said hesitantly.
“I’ll put it up. Thanks,” Coyle said.
“As a dartboard,” Fergus said.
“What a nice present,” Mom said.
“Thanks,” Coyle said again. “I will put it up.”
Maddy lowered her head. Now she was crying. Fergus gave her a look like she was insane. I sat looking at the table without moving. I had bragged about how I was being honest by not getting a gift, but I understood now that Fergus was right. It just looked small-minded not to join in the celebration. I was desperately try
ing to think of some lie that would make it seem like I wasn’t just a wound-up freak.
“Where’s your present?” Dad asked me.
“I haven’t wrapped it yet,” I said.
Fergus laughed.
“Go get it,” Dad said.
“I’ll give it later,” I said.
“He’s leaving tomorrow,” Dad said.
“I’ll give it in the morning.”
Dad’s eyes narrowed. A spark of annoyance.
“Just go get it.”
“I know about it already,” Coyle said quickly. “I can get it later.”
Mom looked away and said nothing. She knew what was going on. Everyone at the table understood except Dad. He worked so much and had such a rosy view of the family that he never really understood the depths of the rift between Coyle and me.
“Just go get it,” Dad said. “He’s your brother. Give him the present and don’t be an idiot and try to ruin things.”
I hesitated, trembling. I opened my mouth. I was going to say I hadn’t gotten him a present, that I wasn’t giving him one. I was going to say that Coyle and I had agreed not to exchange presents because we didn’t like each other and never had and they just needed to accept that. In my nervousness I was going to blast the whole party with some misplaced supposed truth-telling, but before I could speak Fergus stood up, holding a scoop of ice cream on his spoon, as if on display.
“Watch this superior training,” he said. Everyone looked up at him, and Fergus turned the spoon upside down. The ice cream fell to the floor with a plop. Fergus lifted his foot, held it above the ice cream, and stomped down. The ice cream splatted across the floor.
“Squash that fly!” Fergus said. He stomped on the ice cream. “Squash that fly!”
“Fergus!” Mom shouted.
Maddy was cracking up. It was not so much what Fergus said. It was his ridiculous manner, that bright-eyed look.
“Have you lost your mind?” Dad said.
“I thought I saw a fly,” Fergus said.
Fergus made as if he were following a fly. He was doing what he did best, playing the jester, distracting us from our squabbles. He started out of the kitchen, going out to the carpet in the living room with his ice cream–covered sneaker.
“Fergus!” Mom screamed.
“Gotcha,” Fergus said.
He took his sneaker off, turned it upside down, and held it beneath the faucet in the sink. He washed the ice cream off the sole of the sneaker, then put the sneaker in the dishwasher, shut the dishwasher, and turned it on.
“Good God,” Dad said.
Mom reached for the dishwasher. She turned it off. Fergus took his shoe out.
“See. All clean,” he said.
He put the wet shoe back on and began to clean the ice cream on the floor. The whole thing was meant to divert their attention and it absolutely worked. Coyle looked at the clock and stood up.
“All right. That’s it. I gotta go. I’m meeting friends. Later,” he said. “Thanks, everyone. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Dad looked like he’d try to hold him there for another moment, our last dinner as a single unit, but Coyle was already walking out. We heard Coyle downstairs. Then there was a honking outside and Coyle ran out to the waiting car.
“Bye, thanks,” he called again.
And that was it. After the months of silent resistance, the party was over in less than an hour. And nothing had happened. I’d slipped past the party without getting in trouble. It would have ruined the party to explain why I hadn’t gotten a present. We would have had one last blowout. But Fergus had saved me from a confrontation.
As I started to the bedroom Fergus walked behind me.
“You should have just gotten him a fucking present,” he said.
* * *
—
That night I had strange, twisting, vivid dreams of sailing out on the lake with ice-clogged water on either side. Then we were on a very long pier, the waves coming in, the dark water stretching out for as far as I could see, me slipping on the ice on the pier, getting closer to the icy water, falling beneath the surface.
I woke in the night with a single thought: Get Coyle a present.
I stood and got dressed and walked out of the bedroom and downstairs. I thought I could go to the White Hen, the twenty-four-hour store, and get some trinket, but there was no way I could do that without getting caught. Dad was a light sleeper and the bikes were just below his bedroom. I’d wake him. He’d ask where I was going. I’d have to tell him what was going on. That wasn’t an option.
So I thought I’d write out a letter to Coyle. That wouldn’t be as good as a present, but at least it would be something. It would be the gesture that counted. He would remember that I had at least done something. Mom had even said a letter or a poem was as good as a present.
I got a pen and a sheet of paper and sat there over the blank page but bit by bit I realized I couldn’t do it. My thoughts were too jumbled. And, anyway, something in me resisted putting any conciliatory thoughts into writing. It felt overblown.
So then I thought of going downstairs and waking Coyle and saying what I had to say right to him. I’d apologize for not getting a present and tell him I wished him luck and say that I’d miss him. I’d make me not getting him a present more of an afterthought than something I had planned. I’d make him understand that I wished him well.
But even as I had these thoughts I knew there was no way I would wake him up to say these things or even write them down. For one thing, I was still pissed off about those years of beatings when Coyle took his frustration out on me. I had probably deserved some of it, but not all of it. I didn’t want to apologize for things that weren’t my fault. And even if I could have parsed the good and the bad, I still didn’t want to forgive him. And I thought maybe he didn’t want me to. Not really. If I’d had to encapsulate Coyle’s attitude it would be that he thought I’d made a big deal about small transgressions and blamed him for things in the family that weren’t his fault. Coyle had the same hardships and the same punishments as I’d had, but he hadn’t made a big drama about it the way I had. We fought. So what? he thought. Everyone fought. Making a big deal about it was stupid.
But another part of me thought it was easy for him to say that. He’d had me to beat on whenever he felt like it. I thought some of his success was based on taking his frustration out on me. And he’d never had to get absolutely thrashed day after day the way I had. He didn’t know what it was like. I’d been beaten hundreds of times. I resented it.
And so, though I had some generous feelings toward Coyle, though some of the ice had melted, not all of it had. I half regretted pulling a gun on him, but I wasn’t ready to go back on it, either. Pulling the gun had worked. It ended the beatings. Our childhood had been arduous. Maybe our father’s methods had worked, but they’d also been excessive and extreme and difficult, and Coyle had made it more difficult for me. That was undeniable. I resented it.
Maybe if we’d had more time to come to some reconciliation things would have been different. But it was useless to think that way. He was leaving in the morning. And I was pretty sure there wasn’t going to be any resolution later on. We’d never come to terms as we got older. At least I didn’t think so. It would be a dwindling and fading. If I wanted to end things well, I thought I ought to do it right then, when I had the chance.
But I couldn’t make myself do it.
I walked back upstairs. I lay in bed. I told myself I could always say something later, but I knew that wasn’t really an option. Once Coyle was gone everything would be different and all those battles that seemed so important—the fight with the ice ball, all the stolen and destroyed items, the incident with the gun—all that would fade into insignificance. The time to smooth things over was right then, and I knew I ought to, but I couldn’t make m
yself do it.
I lay awake most of the night thinking about what I could say, but I never went down to say it, and around dawn I fell asleep. I did not wake until ten o’clock, which was the latest I had slept in my entire life.
* * *
—
I was half awake, feeling like something strange had happened. I opened my eyes. The light was at a weird angle. I sat up. The clock read ten o’clock but I thought it must be some mistake. When I realized it was actually ten in the morning and that Coyle might already have left, I leapt out of bed with a terrible booming in my chest. I went to the window and saw Coyle’s duffel in the driveway. Relief flooded through me. I realized I didn’t want him to leave without saying anything to him. I got dressed hurriedly and walked down.
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” Dad said as I came out the front door.
“We thought you were faking so you didn’t have to say goodbye,” Fergus said.
“Like Coyle cares if I say goodbye,” I said.
Coyle was bent over, tying his shoe.
“I care deeply,” he said.
Maddy came out carrying another duffel full of clothes.
“Go help your sister,” Dad said. “Seeing how you haven’t done anything else all morning while the rest of us have been working.”
“My plan has succeeded,” I said.
“Typical Willie,” Coyle said.
I walked back inside and went down to Coyle’s room, which was the converted, concrete-walled shed off the main room in the basement. I would get that room as soon as he left.
That converted storage room had pipes running along the ceiling and a concrete floor with a drain in the middle and one little window up near the ceiling. There was a desk to the right of the door and then his cot. There was a vacant feeling to it. Most of his things were in the car already, but there was a trunk on its side near the door. I lifted it and walked up the stairs and Coyle edged past me in the stairway. I heard him rummaging around in the drawers, getting his last things. I brought the trunk to Dad, who had meticulously arranged the back of the station wagon.
The Brother Years Page 21