“Mm-Hmm. What do you say?”
“I’d say you officially sound like your mother.”
I pinned him down with my glare. “Careful now, Vito. I wouldn’t want you to wake up in the morning without any eyebrows.”
“Why are you the way that you are?”
“Brain damage… remember?” I said, tapping my skull.
I walked away laughing, then joined Nico and Max who saved me a spot in line.
I’d never had a line at a family dinner before, it was always just the four of us at Christmas or Thanksgiving, and even that sometimes was too much.
Now it was just the three of us, but really only my mother and father. I’d never join them for another family dinner. The time had passed, and it was time we moved on from fake get-togethers where she did nothing but place herself in God’s shoes and judge me for everything she didn’t like.
We sat around the tables set outside, the children at their own, the adults at the long rectangular wooden table with Luca at the end, Nico on his left with Max beside him, and me seated at his right with my parents.
“Buòn appetito,” Luca said.
The family made conversation with boisterous laughter and voices, making my heart sing with familiarity and belonging.
My new family.
The one that accepted me with open arms and embraced me.
I reached over to Luca’s resting hand and gripped his fist with mine, squeezing.
He was real, they were real. All of this was my new reality, and I couldn’t be happier.
Four days later
I wore black.
Because it’s what you wore when you mourn but was I really grieving the loss of my brother?
I’d be lying to myself if I said I wasn’t.
The grass covering his gravesite turned brown with the cold weather, allowing my boots to sink in as I stared at his headstone.
His nameJoshua Lee Gibbonsengraved at the top with a darker stone inside the wide font scrawled across the top with an epitaph below spewing lies.
Beloved son and brother.
Until we meet again.
And there was the lie. We’d never see each other.
But he was loved.
And as much as I wanted to sit here and hold a heart of ice in order to protect myself from the sadness that lanced through it, I couldn’t.
My brother, the reason for all of this, laid in the grave beneath my feet, his body decaying while I lived the life he could've had.
I kneeled down on the dormant grass and placed my hand on his cold stone.
“You’ve made things so complicated, Josh.” I hung my head and slowly shook it. “I don’t know whether to spit on your grave or pretend you never existed.” A stroke of sorrow burned my eyes as the tears scorched my chilled cheeks. “But how do I do that when your death is all I see when I close my eyes?”
You bastard.I slapped his headstone. “You selfish bastard.”