Three Weeks With My Brother

by Nicholas Sparks

  “And this . . . this is the jar they used to store water!” they’d say. “And now, over here—notice how different it is when compared to one used to store their wine! Can you see the different shape and color! It’s even a different size! It’s amazing to comprehend how advanced they were as a civilization. Different liquids, different jars! Just imagine it!”

  “Wow,” Micah would echo. “Just imagine it!”

  “I’m trying,” I’d add.

  “Different liquids! Different jars!”

  “It boggles the mind, doesn’t it?”

  Occasionally, we’d learn something truly intriguing. Bones, for instance, usually made us pause. And weapons. And skulls. Especially the skulls. In the Cuzco museum, there was a collection of skulls behind glass. Though the placards were in Spanish, we were able to decipher a bit of the exhibit, and make out the word surgery.

  Our guide wasn’t nearly as excited about the skulls and the idea of primitive surgery as we were. He seemed to want to downplay what Micah and I were seeing, as if it somehow cast doubt on the gentility of the early Incas.

  “This is not important,” he urged. “Come—let me show you the jars and bowls. There are more up ahead.”

  “We’ll catch up,” we said.

  It turns out the Incas engaged in brain surgery, which fascinated us. We could see the holes where they’d bored through the skulls. The holes were as big as quarters, and from the number of skulls and variations in the placement of the holes, it wasn’t an uncommon practice. As we stared at them, I tried to imagine what the patient must have been going through, or what the chief said when explaining why the surgery was necessary.

  “Mmm. You’ve been depressed, huh? Well, I’m pretty sure you have animal spirits between your ears. I think we’d better dig them out.”

  “Okay, Chief. As long as you know what you’re doing.”

  “Of course I know what I’m doing. Haven’t you seen our jars and bowls? We’re an advanced civilization. Now hand me that jaguar bone, lean over the rock, and let me dig in.”

  “Okeydokey.”

  The next morning, we drove to the train station in Cuzco, to embark on the ride through the legendary Urubamba Valley on our way to Machu Picchu. Our guides had described the valley views as some of the most beautiful in the world, and our trip was everything it was advertised to be and more. Micah and I spent three and a half hours gawking through the windows, staring up at the towering granite cliff sides, and marveling at the river that often seemed close enough to touch. In places, it was possible to see Incan ruins that had fallen into disrepair; a wall here, a storage building there.

  As we first descended through the valley, then started climbing into the Andes, the blue skies gave way to white, mist-filled clouds. The Andes became green with forest, and we disembarked at a ramshackle village perched on the banks of the by then raging Urubamba River. It was raining as we made our way down a narrow street, crowded with vendors, which also served as the town market. From there, we boarded a bus that would travel along the narrow switchback roads that ended at Machu Picchu, more than two thousand feet up.

  The tale of a lost Incan city high in the Andes was regarded as little more than folklore when Hiram Bingham arrived in Peru in 1911. Wanting to prove its existence, he hired local guides and embarked on a quest to find it. The guides had been chosen because they supposedly knew its location, and after making their way through the valley, they eventually led him to a cliff whose top was shrouded in the clouds. As he and his team made their way up, they met a few natives, who remarked on the “houses just around the corner.” Within minutes, Bingham soon came across the ruins of the fabled city, one that was estimated to have housed more than 2,500 people. To this day, no one is sure why the city had been built. It may have served as an outpost against invading Spanish marauders; other discoveries suggest that it may have been a place where the king rested, much like a vacation hideaway. Others have pointed to evidence that most of the occupants were women, which further complicates the theories. What is known is that the city was abandoned soon after the Spanish arrived.

  Micah and I got off the bus, and at first the mist and cloud cover was thick enough to prevent us from seeing anything. Instead, as we were snaking along the edge of a cliff, the ruins materialized slowly, almost as if being casually unveiled. First, nothing was in focus; gradually images formed. Then, all at once, we could see everything, and it was enough to stun us into silence.

  Part of the impact of Machu Picchu is due to sheer location; while some of the ruins are at the top of the mountain, other parts are built directly into the sides of the cliff. Terraces look like giant steps carved out of the cliff side, and just beyond them are the granite-block dwellings and temples of the ancient Incas. The roofs, originally made of wood and thatch, have long since decayed, but we could see the structures themselves. Interconnected like apartments in places, steep steps interweave among the buildings. Places to worship dotted the settlement, with open areas complete with sacrificial slabs. All around us, the lush slopes of the Andes towered in the distance. Wisps of clouds snaked through the peaks. If we’d been amazed by Tikal, we were literally rendered speechless by the architecture of Machu Picchu. It would be my favorite stop on the entire journey.

  We made our way through the ruins with a guide on hand to tell us about the history and culture. Yet over and over, I felt compelled to break away from the group, simply to stand alone for a while. It was the kind of place that one should experience, not simply visit. Micah felt the same way. At one point, we sat quietly on the edge of one of the ruins with our feet dangling over, drinking in the spectacular view, neither of us feeling the urge to break the silence.

  Over the next few hours, we continued to explore the ruins. Afterward, we were supposed to have lunch in the restaurant. Micah and I would have stayed on at the site, but the tour schedule didn’t permit it, and we grudgingly made our way to join the others.

  After lunch, we headed back to our hotel in Cuzco, and arrived just after dark. One of the lecturers on the tour called our room and told us to come over; when we arrived, we saw what he’d ordered from a local restaurant.

  Roasted guinea pig.

  “Come on,” he said, “let’s try it. I had one of our guides order it from a local restaurant. We’ll get pictures.”

  Looking at it made me feel suddenly queasy. I leaned toward Micah. “It still has the head. And the claws.”

  Micah shrugged. “It is supposed to be a delicacy. And besides, the painting shows that it’s what they served at the Last Supper.”

  “You’re not really thinking of eating it, are you?”

  “I might taste it . . . it’s the only chance I’ll get. It’s not like they serve it where we live.”

  “Really? You’re going to take a bite?”

  “I think I have to. And do me a favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Get a picture. For Alli.”

  “That’s mean. She’s going to scream.”

  “No, she won’t. She’ll think it’s funny. And I’ll get a picture of you taking a bite, too.”

  “Me?”

  “Of course. I can’t let you throw away a moment like this. Like they say, When in Rome . . .”

  I looked at the guinea pig again. “It makes me a little nauseated to even consider it.”

  “That’s why I’m here. To help you experience new things. To make you stretch.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Hey,” he said, shrugging. “What are brothers for? Now get the camera ready.”

  I did and snapped the picture as he took a bite. He did the same for me when I took a small bite, my stomach churning like a lava lamp on amphetamines.

  “Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “I think I’m going to throw up,” I admitted.

  He laughed before putting his arm over my shoulder. “Think of it this way—it’s just the latest in a long line of stupid things that we’ve done.
And this time, it wasn’t even dangerous.”

  During those first years in Fair Oaks, even as we began to test the limits of our courage through daredevil stunts, we continued to drift apart. Micah was spending more time with his friends, and I was spending time with mine. Occasionally, our friends would end up in the same place, but more often than not, they didn’t.

  Still, there were certain rites of passage that we both underwent, albeit at different times. With the fields and woods in our neighborhood disappearing as new housing developments sprang up, we both began spending more time at the nearby American River. There were bike trails and places to skimboard (sort of like water-skiing, only the board is larger and tied to a tree along the bank instead of a boat; the current keeps you upright). There was also a pedestrian bridge that spanned the river about forty-five feet above the water, and it was an accepted ritual of childhood to jump from the bridge into the chilly water below. Land wrong and the breath would be knocked clean out of you. I first jumped from the bridge when I was ten; Micah had done it a year earlier. Later, I jumped from the fence atop the bridge (intended to keep jumpers from jumping, of course), which added another ten feet to the jump. Micah had done that jump, too, well before I did. Our favorite activity, however, was riding the rope swing, and we could spend hours at it. Tied to the center of the bridge, the rope was stretched taut and with a board fastened to it. We’d jump from the bridge with the board between our legs, and clinging to the rope, feel the g-force as we swooped over the water at eighty miles an hour before swinging up toward the bridge again. It was dangerous and illegal, and frequently the sheriff arrived to confiscate our rope swing. As he did so, he’d eye me or my brother.

  “Don’t I know you?” he’d sometimes ask.

  “I don’t see how,” we’d answer innocently.

  Micah and I also climbed the bluffs alongside the river. They were nearly vertical and the dirt unstable; both of us slipped on more than one occasion, sometimes falling as much as thirty feet and nearly breaking our ankles and legs. Once, I nearly lost a finger bluff climbing—the cut went clear to the bone of my knuckle—but my mom told me not to worry because she knew exactly what to do. (She put a Band-Aid on it.)

  But for the most part, Micah and I weren’t doing these things together. If I went to the river occasionally, Micah went there almost daily. If I jumped from the bridge once, he would do it ten times and find a way to increase the danger (let’s ride our bikes off it!). If I went over to a friend’s house on Monday, Micah would be at a friend’s each and every afternoon. Micah was simply more in everything, including the trouble he was beginning to get into. Though a relatively good student, he continued getting into arguments with teachers and fights with other students, and my parents were being called to the principal’s office at least three times a year. I, on the other hand, spent year after year garnering perfect scores on exams and doing extra-credit assignments, all the while hearing teachers remark, “You’re so much easier than your brother was.” And I read constantly. Not only the encyclopedias and the Bible, but almanacs and atlases as well. I simply devoured them and, strangely, the information just seemed to stick, no matter how obscure or irrelevant. By the sixth grade, I was prodigious with trivia: If someone pointed to any country in the world, I could recite statistics, name the capital, tell you what the major exports were, or recite the average rainfall months after skimming the information. Still, it wasn’t necessarily something that other kids my age found too impressive.

  A group of us might be standing around at recess, for instance, when one would say to one of the others:

  “Hey, how was your camping trip at Yosemite?”

  “Oh, it was great. Me and my dad pitched a tent and went fishing. Man, you should have seen how many fish we caught. And we saw the sequoias, too. Man, those are the biggest trees I’ve ever seen.”

  “Did you hike around Half Dome?” another would ask.

  “No, but the next time we go, my dad says we can. He says it’s supposed to be awesome.”

  “It is. I did that last year with my dad. It was so cool.”

  Meanwhile, noticing me standing quietly off to the side, someone might try to include me.

  “Hey, have you ever been to Yosemite, Nick?”

  “No, I haven’t,” I’d answer. “But did you know that even before it became a national park in 1890, the land was actually given in trust to the state of California in 1864 by the U.S. Congress, and signed into law by Abraham Lincoln? You’d think that with the Civil War in full swing, he wouldn’t have had time for something like that, but he did. And in the end, the use of land trusts set the stage for Yellowstone to become the first official national park in 1872. And did you know that Yosemite Falls, which are the fifth tallest in the world at 2,450 feet, is actually made of three separate falls? Or . . .”

  My friends’ eyes would glaze over as I went on and on.

  Yep, that was me. Mr. Popularity.

  My sister, too, was becoming her own person. Like me, she got along with her teachers, although her grades usually hovered around a C in nearly every class. Though my parents were both college graduates and viewed education as important—my mother had received her degree in elementary education, and my father was a professor—neither seemed concerned about my sister’s academic performance. They didn’t push her to work harder, nor did they help her with her studies, nor did they mind if she brought home poor grades, the reason yet again being, “She’s a girl.”

  They did, however, enroll her in horseback riding lessons, thinking a skill like that would serve her well in the long run.

  The more I excelled in school, the harder I tried to do even better, if only to stand out from my siblings. Somehow, I believed that my parents would then shower me with the attention I felt was given automatically to my brother and sister. If Micah got attention because he was the oldest and my sister got attention for being the only girl, I wanted recognition for something, anything. I yearned for moments when I could be the center of attention at the dinner table, but no matter what I did, it never seemed to be enough. While I never doubted that my parents loved me, I couldn’t help but think that had my mother been given Sophie’s choice, I would have been the one sacrificed to save the other two. It was a terrible thing to believe—and as a parent now, I know that attention isn’t the same as love—but the feeling wouldn’t go away. Even worse, I began to notice those moments with ever increasing acuity. In the fall, when it was time for new school clothes, I would get a couple of new items and Micah’s hand-me-downs; both Micah and Dana would receive far more than I did. And my mom, if she acknowledged my feelings at all, would simply shrug and say that “Micah’s clothes are new for you.” As I grew older, both my parents seemed oblivious to how a child like me would view their actions.

  I’ll never forget one Christmas when we woke up to find three bikes under the tree. Christmas was far and away the most exciting day of the year for us, because we seldom got anything we wanted the rest of the time. We would count down the days and talk endlessly about what we wanted; that particular year, bikes were on the top of the list. Bikes meant freedom, bikes meant fun, and the ones we’d owned previously had become unusable through sheer wear and tear. When we crept out to the living room, the tree lights were glowing and we stared at our gifts with wonder.

  Micah’s bike was new and shiny.

  Dana’s bike was new and shiny.

  My bike was . . . shiny.

  For a moment, I’d thought it was new as well. But . . . then, ever so slowly, I began to recognize it, despite the new paint job. Like a bad dream, I realized that my parents had given me my own bike—albeit, a repaired one. Granted, it had cost money to repair, but still, it crushed me to think I was given a gift that I already owned, while Micah and Dana got new ones.

  When it came to grades, our parents used to post our report cards on the refrigerator, and I couldn’t wait for my mom to get home so I could show her how well I’d done. When she saw my r
eport card, she said that she was proud of me, but when I woke the following morning, I noticed that the report cards had been taken down and slipped into the drawer. When I asked my mom why, she said, “It hurts the other kids’ feelings.”

  After that, the report cards were never posted at all. Perhaps, only later did I come to realize, Micah and Dana had had their own insecurities as well.

  Despite these perceived childhood slights, I adored my mom. Then again, so did everyone who knew her, including all my friends and our dog, Brandy. At night, Brandy—all eighty pounds of her—would crawl up and lie in my mom’s lap as she sat reading in the living room.

  My mom’s attitude made it hard not to like her. She was always upbeat, no matter how terrible things were, and she made light of things that most people would have found unbearable. For instance, my mom worked (as many mothers did), but she had to ride a bike to work. Whether it was pouring rain or 105 degrees, my mom would dress for work, hop on the bike, and start pedaling the four miles to the office. Her bike had a basket on the handlebars and two more behind the seat; after work, she’d ride the bike to the grocery store, load in whatever we needed, then ride home. And always—I mean always—she beamed when she walked in the door. No matter how hard the day had been, no matter how hot or wet she was, she made it seem as if she were the lucky one and that her life couldn’t get any better.

  “Hey guys! It’s great to see you! I can’t tell you how much I missed you today!”

  Then, she’d visit with each of us, asking about our days. And one by one, Micah, Dana, and I would fill her in as she began cooking dinner.

  She was also a giggler. My mom could laugh at anything, which naturally drew people to her. She wasn’t Pollyanna, but she seemed to realize that life had both ups and downs, and it wasn’t worth the energy to get upset about the downs, since not only were they inevitable, but they’d pass as well.