The Half Brother: A Novel

by Holly LeCraw

  “Charlie, what the hell are you smiling about?”

  “It’s just strange.”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  “Nicky. It’s okay.”

  “No it’s not!”

  “I mean that we are all here together. I am just glad. Even though it’s like this. That’s all.”

  He looked searchingly at me, not that he ever would have disbelieved me. Rather he was looking for the quality of my reassurance. I shifted in the chair and tried to look solid, imperturbable. I am a rock. I am an island. An island broken off, because the solid ground itself of my solitude had turned out to be unmoored, and I was now marooned on a renegade sliver of it, floating away.

  Then Nick stood up, because May was there, in the door. “How is she?” she said, her eyes going from me, to Nick, to me. She was wearing the long red coat. Ah, here to take charge. Then Nicky was beside her, had her in his arms but really he was in hers, his head was on her shoulder, she was murmuring to him. He folded himself around her. I saw what he did, open, porous Nicky: he infused himself with the other person, made himself whole and strong that way, or at least a little closer to whole, a little stronger. I saw how thoroughly he had absorbed her. So she would be with us too. All of us together.

  I HAD THOUGHT life was full, but I had been woefully, laughably wrong. Now it was full: after only four days in the hospital and another four in rehab—surely losing an entire limb was more involved than that?—Anita was back home with me. There were physical therapy appointments to drive to and decent food must be available and a small cadre of nice women must cycle in and out of the house, at least for now, helping my mother with the things she temporarily (that was the attitude we were taking) couldn’t do, many of which I need not inquire about, and odd equipment appeared, and I had to account for my whereabouts, and plan. We had set up a bed in the dining room so she wouldn’t have to contend with stairs, but after the first week she nixed it. The stair chair, as Nick called it, was installed, and she said she could manage just fine with that thank you very much. Her arms were surprisingly strong. She scooted the wheelchair around and handled the crutches without complaint. Nicky and I rolled up all the smaller rugs and put them away so she wouldn’t trip. I tried not to look at the pinned-up pants leg, or the remaining, still-shapely leg emerging from a skirt. The stump was an obscenity. She shooed me away from it herself. She had taken it on; it was her job.

  One evening, when Nick wasn’t sleeping over, I seized the opportunity and said, “Just how did you think this was all going to work? Were you going to do this all by yourself?” She didn’t answer. “You’ve been planning. It’s why you were going to retire.”

  “Of course it was,” she said. “And there’s money. That’s what we have, Charlie, money, and I would have worked it all out.”

  “And you weren’t going to tell either of us.”

  I was baiting her. We both knew it. Telling me anything would have been breaking our rules of engagement.

  “There was no sense in worrying you,” Anita said.

  How many hundreds of times in my life had I heard Anita begin a sentence with There’s no sense in …? I nodded. “And then you started working out,” I said. “For the crutches. Since when do you have arms like a weightlifter? You can’t fool me.”

  Her face had its usual stubborn, inward look. Then all at once she lifted her arm, shook her sleeve down toward her shoulder, and flexed her biceps for me. “That’s pretty good. Isn’t it.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said, both smug and, finally, surprised.

  She pulled the sleeve back down. “Well, it was something to do.”

  “It was smart, all right.”

  We were in the living room, with a fire going. I was grading papers and Anita was doing Sudoku. In deference to me, the TV—a new addition—was off, but she didn’t seem to mind. I told myself we were not in limbo. I told myself this was the new normal. We were waiting for nothing.

  As if determined to contradict my fragile peace she said, “Charlie, I am not going to stay forever.”

  “You can’t fly, Mother.”

  “Well, I will be able to soon.”

  “I was talking with Nicky. We’ll drive you down at spring break.” She didn’t answer. “I know it’s a long time to wait. Maybe we could take a week sooner.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Well, one of us is going to fly down and check on the house for you though.”

  “Dodie’s taking care of it. Lord knows she needed a project. It’s fine.”

  A silence. “You need to sell it.”

  “I know.” I started to speak again; she waved a hand. “Nicky’s been talking to me, Charlie, I know all about it. You two have it all worked out.” I saw that the you two gave her pleasure. “Now. It’s about time for me to turn in.”

  “It’s only eight thirty.”

  “I’m tired.”

  But I had seen her face hardening as we talked, a barrier to a different feeling. “Mother. You need to take one.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “It’s only been two weeks. Good God. Take the pain meds. They prescribed them for a reason.”

  “I’ve seen what that stuff does to people.”

  “Those are people who don’t have legitimate pain.”

  “I’m fine.” She reached for her crutches. I helped her up off the sofa and then let go at the first possible moment, the first instant of her balance, so she wouldn’t bark at me. She inched over to the stairs, not looking back at me, pretending she didn’t know how closely I was following her.

  Just before she got in bed, she relented, and took a pill. Just one.

  THINGS ARRIVED FROM ATLANTA. Aunt Dodie, Hugh’s sister, had overpacked. “I don’t know what Dodie thought I was going to do with all of this,” Anita said. “She sent everything. Summer clothes too.”

  “We do have summer up here,” I said.

  “Summer’s a long way off,” she said, exasperated. “Does she think I’m never coming back?”

  “Aunt Dodie likes to be thorough,” I said.

  “She likes to overdo.”

  Anita was sitting on her bed, taking things out of the boxes. Smoothing the folds, stacking clothes in piles. It was something to get used to, her staying in one place for minutes at a time; I hadn’t realized until now how she had always been moving—not restless, just purposeful. Now she purposefully planted herself somewhere, gathered her energy in, resisted asking for help as long as she could. “Well, the dresser over there is empty,” I said. “You can fill it up, and the one in the other bedroom too, if you want.” Although Anita had never had that many clothes in her life.

  “I’ll get May to help me,” Anita said.

  “May?”

  “She wanted to come visit. She called.”

  “Oh.”

  She looked up at me. “I wanted to tell her not to come but I wasn’t sure how to put it.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “This is your house, Charlie.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “So she doesn’t have to come here.”

  “There’s no harm,” I said. “She’s been here before.” I let that marinate.

  But Anita would refuse to acknowledge a sexual innuendo even if it came and sat in her lap. Instead she regarded the stacks of clothes in front of her with a casual disapproval. Then she opened another box, leaning awkwardly over her stump. If her leg had been there, the box would have been sitting on top of it. This one was full of odds and ends—toiletries in a quilted bag, books, and several pairs of shoes. She took out a pair of sneakers and looked at them sternly. In the olden days, this was when she would have taken a long and contemptuous drag on her cigarette. I thought I saw her fingers twitch.

  She set the left one on the bed next to the clothes and tossed the right one into an empty box on the floor. “I don’t need the visiting nurses as much now. I’m going to redo th
e schedule.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  “And I’m going to have the PT come here. It will cost an arm and a leg but what is the point of having all this money?” Money again. She sounded fretful, aware of yet unwilling to acknowledge her joke.

  “Anita, you can do whatever you want.”

  She ignored me. “Lord above,” she said. “She sent bathing suits.”

  “You’ll use them eventually,” I said. “What? You’re never going to swim again?”

  She kept looking into the box, her face filling with something like surprise, lips pressed together, toughness gone. It was a sudden self-pity, the first I’d seen, and who could blame her? That handsome body, the shapely leg. Still it made me wild. I didn’t know if I could stand it. I clutched my hands at my sides, wanting to shake her, to throw something—then I realized she wasn’t on the verge of tears, not at all; instead she was trying not to smile. “What?” I said. “Goddammit, what?”

  She started a little at my tone, but still looked amused. “The problem,” she said, “is that I might go in circles.”

  “What the hell—oh.” I felt myself deflate. “Swimming?”

  “That’s right.” Her shoulders shook. She covered her mouth with her hand.

  I was trying to think when I’d seen this Anita before. “No more straight lines for you,” I said.

  “That’s right,” she said. “My rudder is broken. Around and around in circles. Oh, my.”

  I pictured her in Abbott Pond, in the shining blue center, making endless rings. “You’ll never get anywhere,” I said.

  “Nowhere.”

  “You’re stuck.”

  “Stuck. Oh, my.” She held up a bathing suit, bright red, by the straps, and made it do a dance. In amazement I watched the mother of my youth.

  BEFORE THE BREAK ENDED, Divya asked if I wanted to offload a course or two. “No, thanks, I’ve just got three this semester, and Nicky already dropped one of his,” I said. “We’ll be fine, and frankly, I need to get out of the house, Div.”

  “Is someone going to be there all the time?”

  “Most of the time. She is refusing to be babysat. Nick and I have figured out a schedule. And, um, May is going to help out too.” Divya raised an eyebrow. “And there are visiting nurses coming, and physical therapists and all that.”

  “I think you are crazy.”

  “This is all temporary.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’ve got good subs available. A very nice woman who used to teach at Northfield Mount Hermon. You don’t know what might come up. Maybe just drop the seniors. There are other electives open. That would be best—”

  “Absolutely not. That’s my baby, Div, come on. It’s a great class. I didn’t think I’d get anyone for Rilke and Eliot, but there you are.”

  “Charlie,” she said. “You silly man. They’re there for you, and you know it.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “False modesty doesn’t become you. What about Nicky?”

  “Good luck if you try to take him away from anyone else.”

  “But, I mean, how is he?”

  “Fine.”

  She tipped her head, a telltale sign of exasperation. “Charlie, listen to me. May told me he’s having nightmares. She said he’s not sleeping at all.”

  “He’s okay at my house. Sleeps through the night.” Like a good child.

  “Are you sure he’s sleeping? Or is he wandering around?”

  “Of course he’s not wandering around.”

  “Because that’s what he’s doing at May’s,” she said. “And of course, Charlie, she couldn’t talk to you about this.”

  “Of course she could.”

  “Charlie.”

  A few days after that, or nights, when Nick was next sleeping over, I woke up and heard the creak of floorboards. Footsteps only, no crutches, no chair. We had walkie-talkies set up for when Anita needed us; mine was silent.

  I heard him going down the stairs. No lights went on. I heard the back door open and close.

  I refused to look at the clock. I didn’t want to know. It was dark, deep dark, one or two o’clock with any luck, with a cushion of real night left; there was time to get back to sleep, to recover, to have these sentient moments seem like a dream, if I remembered them at all.

  Was he wearing a coat? Was he even wearing shoes? Was he hungry? How long had he been awake?

  The creaking steps, silent, was that a sound, no, I listened for the door, I felt my body grow less heavy. Awareness beckoned. If I tipped over into it. And the gray light would begin to edge the windows. And the night would be over and day would begin and I could not. Could not.

  Could not.

  Nicky sitting motionless on the patio. He had taken himself there. I turned over and fell back to sleep. It was much easier than I had thought it would be.

  ONE DAY I WALKED PAST Nick’s classroom and saw Celia Paxton huddled at the seminar table, her shoulders heaving, Nick beside her, a decent distance away. And the door was widely, properly open—why wouldn’t it be? I lingered at the door for a moment, and finally he saw me and shrugged. He looked concerned but preoccupied; he didn’t have that rapt, tragic look I watched for, the one he got right before he was sucked down his vortex of empathy.

  He told me later that she wanted to feel bad about breaking up with Zack, but didn’t.

  “Is that all?”

  “They were together a long time,” he said. “He’s pretty wrecked about it. She feels like a bad person. She asks me these questions. What is selfishness? What is love? So, yeah, Charlie, that’s all.”

  “And what do you say?”

  “What do I say?” We went outside and he turned right, without comment, in the opposite direction from the parking lot, and so I knew he wanted me to walk to his apartment with him, or just walk—we did that sometimes, walked in circles, and I didn’t ask where he wanted to end up. “I don’t know,” he said. I heard the edges of his voice fraying. “I don’t even know what I say. I tell her I have no idea. Charlie, why do people come to me? Why does anybody ever come to me?”

  I stopped and turned to him. I wanted to shake him senseless, to smooth him down, to fold him up, put him to bed and watch serenity overtake his face, tuck him away, sleeping prince. There were circles under his eyes. “Tell them not to,” I said. “Especially Celia. Tell them to go away. Tell them to come to me. Anything.” I held the knobs of his shoulders in my hands, held them too hard, but he just stood there. Why did they think he was bottomless? That he of all people could carry extra weight?

  Next time I would get up. I would sit with him outside in the snow all night long if I had to.

  “Nicky,” I said. “I know you’re not sleeping. You know Mom is going to be okay, right? She’s here with us. She is going to be fine. She’s safe at home in my house and she’s going to be fine.” He glanced up at me and gently stepped out of my grasp, and I thought that the look on his face was the closest he’d ever come to disappointment with me—but if he had fully admitted it, he would have also had to say the unsayable to himself.

  And after that? I could have gone to May. Or Divya, or Celia’s advisor, Louise Henri. I could have called in reinforcements. This was Abbott, we knew our kids, this was the kind of thing we didn’t let go under the radar, that we didn’t let fester, or blossom. I could have gone to them; I could have.

  ANITA SAT ON THE STEPS of the church in noonday heat. Her granddaddy was inside, in his office, and she was waiting for him. She had new sandals, with two straps over the foot, and absolutely flat soles. They meant summer. She stood up and walked across one of the long steps and back and listened to their slap slap. She sat down again and looked around her, closer and closer. The light so bright. Along the step, a line of ants, walking like crumbs. She was not alone. Creatures of the earth.

  She was four or maybe five or maybe six. Old enough to remember.

  Then there was larger movement and she looked up. A man was approaching, fami
liar, as most adults in the town were familiar to her, but she didn’t know his name. He was wearing overalls and work boots and no hat. The white lines in his red face were wrinkles from squinting into the sun. He walked along the road from outside town, came up the sidewalk to the church, stopped in front of her, and considered her awhile. “I hope you’re grateful to your granddaddy,” he finally said. “Taking you in like he done.”

  She wasn’t afraid because she knew that adults said anything they wanted to to children. But she didn’t answer.

  He seemed to expect shame. He was telling her the answer to a question that was a constant in her life, a condition. This taken in. How her mother did not live in their house, or town—how she would reappear with no warning, blond, beautiful, wholly unlike Anita, and then leave again. Her own presence, her mother’s absence, her father’s seeming lack of existence were facts; they snapped into a whole and made her. She did not understand it, but now, all at once, she believed it.

  The man exuded a baleful patience. And then, abruptly, he turned and walked away. The bulwark of Granddaddy’s church was behind her and she waited for the inrush of safety, but she hadn’t felt what she was supposed to, she’d refused the shame that was her due, and so the safety didn’t come.

  Nineteen

  I was waiting at the house for Nick to show up so I could run some errands. Anita scoffed at our caution, but I didn’t feel good about leaving her alone with the stairs and her crutches for too long, and Nicky enthusiastically agreed. He’d said he’d be there as soon as his last class was over.

  But instead the doorbell rang, and it was May.

  “Nicky had to stay for some conferences,” she said. “I guess there’s a test tomorrow and people are freaking out.”

  “He didn’t mention that.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t. He thinks everyone’s brilliant. He thinks his tests are easy.”

  She was carrying several bags. She was going to make us dinner. Nicky hadn’t mentioned this either. She was going to make a double batch of this chicken dish, no, coq au vin, that was the official name, she said that, and then we could freeze some. She also had soup, muffins, spaghetti sauce. “I didn’t know you cooked,” I said.