My Brother's Girl

by Sienna Blake

  It was not the kind of day for graves.

  “Wait, what did you just say?” I asked Eoin, eyes wide as I tugged at my seatbelt so I could turn fully to face him in the passenger seat.

  Eoin shifted uncomfortably and busied himself with readjusting the rear-view mirror he’d just checked moments ago. “Um, yeah, the cemetery isn’t too far and it won’t take too long, I prom—”

  “Eoin,” I interrupted, laying a hand on his forearm. “Eoin, that’s not what I meant. I just, I just had no idea you had a brother who…”

  Eoin nodded as his hands fidgeted on the wheel. “We, um, we don’t talk about Jaime much,” he explained. “It happened nine years ago, but I think it still hurts Darren. He was his twin.”

  “Darren had a twin?” I blurted out, blushing when I realised how insensitive it sounded in the tight confines of the car.

  Eoin remained silent.

  I sank back into my seat and pulled off my beanie to drag my fingers through my hair, still shocked by all of this. “He never told me…”

  I muttered this more to myself than to Eoin, but he nonetheless glanced over at me with a pitying smile.

  “Don’t take it personally, Kayleigh Bear,” he said. “Darren locked that vault and threw away the key a long, long time ago.” Eoin patted my leg with his big bear paw before he pulled the car out onto the street.

  I stared at the road rolling away beneath us, not seeing a single yellow stripe. I wasn’t seeing anything but the little lines on the corner outside the kitchen in Ma’s house marking five heights for four brothers—I hadn’t thought anything of it until now. I wasn’t seeing anything but the little macaroni and crayon signs with the brothers’ names on every bedroom door, save one. I wasn’t seeing anything but Darren in the shadow of the fireplace in the living room, half present with his family. Half not. Like something was missing. Like someone was missing.

  “It’s a wound that’s still healing for all of us,” Eoin said quietly, his voice sombre for the first time. “But for Darren it’s like the wound is just getting longer and deeper and more painful. And we don’t know why.”

  I looked over at Eoin, who sighed.

  “Darren tries to hide it,” he continued. “He thinks he’s convinced us that he’s fine, but I see the truth because I’m his brother. I just don’t know how to help him.”

  I reached across the centre console and intertwined my fingers with Eoin’s and squeezed. It had nothing to do with romantic love or the fact that we were still technically dating. It was just one heart reaching out to another heart to try to simply say, “I’m here.”

  We rode the rest of the way to the cemetery in contemplative silence. I found a new respect for Eoin. Under all that flirty banter and confidence bordering on arrogance, he was thoughtful and sweet and, above all else, cared for his brother.

  We walked hand in hand toward Noah and Aubrey as the dead leaves crunched beneath our boots. Eoin’s other hand held a bouquet of lilies that he gripped so tightly, I could hear the stems snapping. But I understood he needed to hold on tight, so I said nothing.

  Michael and Ma soon joined us at a simple white headstone engraved with Jaime’s name, the years of his life, and these words:

  Little Brother, Big Brother, Twin Brother.

  A few of the last remaining withered leaves tumbled from the limbs above Jaime’s grave in the slight breeze as the family took turns laying their flowers at the base of the headstone. We silently regarded the words engraved in stone. I glanced over my shoulder at the small parking lot at the edge of the cemetery. My eyes skimmed the line of grey and blue cars for any sign of a motorcycle but saw none.

  Tears streamed down Ma’s eyes as she held her black shawl tight around her shoulders. “Jaime, honey, I’m going to add an extra stick of butter to the mashed potatoes for Christmas this year. Just the way you always liked them.”

  The O’Sullivan brothers all chuckled amongst sniffles and swipes of the sleeves of their wool coats over their red eyes. I couldn’t help but search behind me to see if Darren was hurrying through the gravestones toward us. But the labyrinth of stone and weeds and shrivelled flowers behind me was empty, save the wind and brilliant sunshine.

  Where was Darren? Where was more important than being here with his family and his twin this morning? Was he caught in traffic? Had his motorcycle broken down on the highway? Run out of gas? Did he get a flat after hitting a stray piece of glass?

  Was he calling one of his brothers for help? Was he trying to fix it himself? Had he run home to change and clean the grease off of his hands and fingernails before coming?

  Was that why he wasn’t here?

  As the family went around saying sweet little things to their lost brother and son, I realised that wasn’t the most pressing question. The question that really needed answering was why didn’t anyone seem to notice that it was not one, but two members of the family who were absent?

  Leaning over to Aubrey next to me, I whispered, “Aren’t we going to wait for Darren to start?”

  Aubrey dabbed at her eyes and whispered back, “Darren never comes to these.”

  I frowned in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  Aubrey shook her head and answered, “I don’t know. Noah won’t tell me much about it either. All he has told me is just that Darren doesn’t come to visit his twin’s grave with his family. He never has, apparently.”

  I nodded and whispered a “thanks” before turning my attention back to Jaime’s gravestone along with the rest of the family. Despite Aubrey’s answer I still glanced once more over my shoulder.

  It should have come as no surprise that the only other human I saw was the gardener lazily snipping at a row of shrubs along the fence line with a rusted pair of shears.

  Where was Darren then? Was he in the dim light beneath the undercarriage of that Honda? What was he trying to find down there? Or…what was he trying to hide from down there, alone in the dark?

  We walked back to the little parking lot together in a sombre silence. Ma moved over toward me. I fidgeted with my gloved hands, unsure of what exactly to say to a grieving mother on the anniversary of her son’s death.

  “What did Eoin tell you?” Ma asked before I could stumble over my own words.

  “He…told me in the car on the way over here that we were visiting his brother’s grave.”

  Ma nodded. She linked her arm around mine as we walked together. “Jaime was in a car accident. We were all lucky enough to be able to say our goodbyes before he passed,” Ma explained. “But Darren got to the hospital ten minutes too late.”

  My heart sank. Fresh tears pricked at my eyes as sadness threatened to drag me under.

  “Eoin won’t tell you that because it’s not something that is ever spoken by anyone in the family,” Ma went on. “As if guilt can be healed by silence.”

  I nodded. My fingers felt numb and it had nothing to do with the cold.

  “It’s impossible for most people to understand why someone wouldn’t come to his brother’s gravestone with the rest of his family on the anniversary of his death,” she said, “let alone when those brothers were twins.”

  I glanced over to find Ma’s eyes waiting for mine. Her sharp blue eyes held my gaze like she desperately wanted to communicate something to me.

  “I don’t believe you’re most, Kayleigh,” she finally whispered. “I think you understand Darren.”

  Throat tight, I nodded.

  Ma squeezed my arm before following after Michael, who held open the passenger door for her to slip inside his Mercedes.

  I found Eoin already at his car. “Do you want to go get lunch with us, Kayleigh Bear?”

  As I climbed into the car, I shook my head. “Could you actually drop me off somewhere?” I asked. “I’ve got something I’ve got to do.”

  “Sure.” Eoin smiled, leaning over to kiss my cheek. “Anything you want.”

  But it wasn’t what I wanted. It was what I needed.

  I needed to
find Darren.

  I had a hunch I knew right where to look.

  “Where should I take you?” Eoin asked.

  “The garage.”

  Darren

  Every year when my family went to visit Jaime’s gravestone for the anniversary of his death, I dragged in the oldest, most beat-up piece of shite clunker I could find with no hope in hell of ever running again and crawled beneath it for the day. It didn’t take a psychologist to point out the distressing similarities between that dark, confined space and the dark, confined space where my brother would remain forever, but they could shove their diplomas right up their ass.

  Because it was where I wanted to be.

  Where I needed to be.

  It was where I deserved to be.

  That morning I kept the door of the garage pulled down because I didn’t want to see the fecking sunshine. The chirping of birds made me want to gag.

  All I wanted to do was disappear beneath the undercarriage and squeeze the wrench with my bandaged palms till blood soaked through and made my grip slippery. I wanted to emerge from darkness into darkness and drive my motorcycle home late at night, clinging onto the useless hope that I might actually be able to get to sleep.

  I heard the garage door clank and clatter nosily as it rolled up on the metal tracks.

  Pulling myself out from beneath the undercarriage with the heels of my boots, I winced in the sudden sunlight and held my hand over my eyes to see Kayleigh, of all people, walking toward the toolbox at the back of the garage. She stalked right past me.

  I frowned in confusion as I watched her pull off her white beanie, her scarf, and her coat before tossing them haphazardly onto a Kawasaki motorcycle that still needed fixing.

  My mouth fell openly dumbly to ask her what the fuck was going on, but I couldn’t manage to form the words as Kayleigh rolled up the sleeves of her nice blouse, tugged on a dirty pair of work gloves, and grabbed an extra creeper from the side of the toolbox.

  Without a word she came over to the other side of the rusted junker I had been working on, got down on her back, and rolled underneath.

  “What are we working with here?” she asked, her voice muffled by the tight space of the undercarriage.

  When I remained dumbfounded and silent, Kayleigh whistled and added, “Jaysus, this is a piece of shite.”

  I leaned my head down to see her click on her headlamp and whack her wrench against a pipe, which rained specks of rust and dirt down on her. She coughed but did not move to wipe the mess from her fancy shirt.

  “Kayleigh, what are you doing?” I finally asked.

  Kayleigh’s only response was to bite her lip in concentration, test the stabilizer link, and shake her head. “How in the world is this thing still in one piece?”

  “Kayleigh?”

  “I mean, the ball joint is worn down to almost nothing and this bit here is pure rust,” she continued, oblivious that my neck was aching craning down to look at her. “I’m afraid if I touch it, the whole thing will disintegrate.”

  “Kayleigh?”

  “Can you come hold the centre link for me?” she asked, still ignoring my question. “I forgot to bring a winch under with me.”

  With a sigh, I leaned back down onto the creeper and with my heels, rolled myself beneath the undercarriage next to Kayleigh. I rested my cheek against the grease-covered plastic and looked over at her in the dark, but her eyes were focused up on the car.

  “Right here,” Kayleigh said, reaching down for my wrist.

  I relented and let her guide my hand to the centre link, a bar that stretched across the width of the undercarriage above us.

  Kayleigh’s gaze remained fixed on the car, but I caught the sharp rise and fall of her chest as she sucked in a ragged breath in the small space. She licked her lips and exhaled shakily as she placed my hand on the centre link.

  “Um, over this way just a bit,” she whispered and I could almost feel the heat of her breath next to me.

  The rough leather of her work glove skimmed over the back of my hand as she guided it gently toward her along the centre link. I gripped my other hand over the edge of the creeper to keep myself from screaming.

  “Yeah,” Kayleigh said, her voice reaching straight through my chest right into my heart. “Yeah, right there.”

  Kayleigh’s hand was holding mine as I held the centre link, and she did not move it to begin work. Instead she turned her head, rested her cheek on her creeper, and searched my eyes, blinking slowly, like time itself moved slower down here in the dark.

  “What are you doing, Kayleigh?” I asked.

  Kayleigh’s breath came in little gasps as she continued to stare at me. Beneath the undercarriage of the car, her lips seemed impossibly close. I watched as they parted just slightly.

  “I want to help you,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

  Her fingers pushed mine apart so hers could intertwine with mine as we continued to both hold onto the centre link. I wanted to resist; fuck, I wanted to. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

  “This thing is never going to run,” I said, keeping my eyes on Kayleigh’s. “There’s no point in helping. It’s useless. It’s a waste of time.”

  Kayleigh’s eyelashes were dusted with specks of rust from the ball joint. Those eyelashes were meant for catching snowflakes or raindrops in a sun shower. They were meant for tangling with pieces of confetti and champagne as someone deserving held her tight on New Year’s Eve.

  “I don’t want it to run,” Kayleigh whispered. “And I don’t need it to be fixed. I just want it to…” Kayleigh squeezed my hand and the look in her eyes intensified, the green somehow burning brighter even in the dark. “I just want to be here for you, Darren,” she whispered. “I just want to be here with you.”

  Either I could hear both of our hearts pounding in the confinement of concrete and metal or mine was beating so quickly and so erratically that it sounded to my ears like two instead of just one. It was the first time either of us had dropped the pretext between us. Kayleigh was no longer hiding behind metaphor, innuendo, allusion. Gone was the subtlety of a sneaked glance over the shoulder or a passing glance of pinkies at the family dinner table or a whiff of her perfume caught up and carried to me on the winter wind. This was out in the open, in plain language, stripped down and laid bare honesty.

  It scared the hell out of me.

  Because it was what I wanted. Of course it was what I wanted.

  “Your ma told me what happened with Jaime that night.”

  Lost in the hurricane of my own thoughts, I almost missed what she said at first. But when I caught it, it was as if the whole weight of the iron and aluminium junker collapsed onto my chest, crushing my lungs and stealing even the hope of a breath.

  “What?” I asked, voice thin as dark spots flashed in my field of vision. “What did my ma tell you?”

  It was as if I suddenly developed a debilitating case of claustrophobia as the worst panic I’d ever experienced flooded my chest. Did Ma know? How did Ma know? I’d kept my secret locked up tight since that night. Every breath where I managed to not scream the truth to anyone around was agony, but I’d managed. And I’d promised to keep managing till the day I died.

  How did Ma find out?

  “Darren?” Kayleigh reached over to me as my breath grew ragged in the tight, and only growing tighter and tighter, space beneath the undercarriage. “Darren, what’s wrong?”

  “I have to get out of here,” I gasped. “I— I— I have to—”

  My boots couldn’t find purchase on the concrete floor as I scrambled to pull myself out from beneath the rusted car. I clawed at the metal pipes and covers above me, now entirely unable to see it as anything but the top of a coffin.

  “Darren…” Kayleigh’s voice shook with concern as I finally managed to escape the tomb beneath the car.

  I staggered to my feet and stumbled away, Kayleigh’s voice echoing in my ears. I sagged against the toolbox in the back of the shop, turning my
head away from the car because even just the sight of it constricted my lungs in a vice grip.

  “Darren.” Kayleigh’s hands, rough from the leather of the work gloves, were on my cheeks as her wide eyes searched mine. “Darren, please talk to me.”

  “What did she say?” I held my throbbing chest as I sucked in shallow breaths of air. “What does my ma know?”

  Kayleigh’s eyebrows furrowed together, but she quickly answered, “She said you didn’t make it. She said you were too late to say goodbye to Jaime.”

  I turned my head toward Kayleigh. “That’s it?”

  The confusion in her green eyes only grew. “What?”

  I swallowed heavily and leaned further on the toolbox. “That’s all my ma told you?”

  She nodded. “That’s all she said. Darren, are you alright?”

  I exhaled in relief. I expected the tightness in my chest and the pain in my heart to lessen. But they didn’t. They only got worse.

  Because my secret was still a secret. The infection in my heart still festered. The disease in my soul still stank like blackened tar. The sin I committed that night was still dragging me to hell.

  I missed the one and only chance to say goodbye to my most beloved brother because I put myself first. Here on the anniversary of his death, I wanted to do the same exact thing.

  I wanted to put my desire for Kayleigh above Eoin. I wanted to throw away my commitment to my family for another woman. I wanted to hurt my brother just so I could have what I wanted.

  What the fuck was wrong with me?

  One of Kayleigh’s hands moved to the back of my neck and the other moved to rest over my thundering heart. Just looking into her eyes felt like a betrayal of the worst kind.

  Kayleigh’s sweet pink lips parted. “Darren, I know you’re hurting and—”

  “I’m not.”

  Kayleigh’s head jerked back a little at the abruptness of my tone. “What do you mean?”