Page 49 of Always on My Mind

“Hardly anyone knows this, but,” Jamie paused to clear her throat. “I have. . .hadan older brother.”

Lila raised an eyebrow. “Had?”

“He died. A long time ago.”

“How did he die?”

“He killed himself.”

Lila blinked. “I’m so sorry, Jamie. That must have been difficult.”

“It wasn’t, really. I wasn’t close to him. He was ten years older than me. And I was only five when he died. Nowadays, I can barely remember what he looked like.”

“That’s normal. Most adults have difficulty recalling anything earlier than six or seven,” Lila said. “Can you tell me what you do remember of him?”

“I remember that he was nice to me,” Jamie said. “All my friends with big brothers talked about how they pulled their hair and teased them, but not my brother. He doted on me. And I idolized him. He played football too. And Dad put a lot of pressure on him. I remember once, I came into his room and he was crying. He had his football in his lap, and he was crying over it. Of course, being a kid, I ran in and hugged him.”

“That sounds rather sweet. Do you remember what you said to each other?”

“No, not really,” Jamie shook her head. “But I remember feeling so. . . safe.”

She paused for a long moment, toying with the tag of her tea bag as she tried to remember more. But it was all hazy.

“I feel guilty sometimes that I don’t get emotional or anything when I think of him,” she said.

“It is hard to grieve for a person you hardly got the chance to know,” Lila replied. “And I cannot imagine his death being your fault.”

“No, it was. . . the pressure, I suppose,” Jamie continued. “My brother was good at football. Really good. Probably better than my dad was at that age. He was fifteen and there was already talk about his professional career. Maybe even playing for England. I remember my parents talking about it while my brother and I listened outside their door. But it seemed like the better he got, the more Dad pushed him.”

“Hence you found him crying in his bedroom.”

“Exactly. And I remember one fight in particular, after my dad found a note from a boy in Theo’s class in his school bag. He went absolutely mad, raving at Theo. He shouted so loud, I remember thinking the house was shaking. That was the night.”

Lila nodded. “What do you remember of that night?”

“I remember my mother screaming,” Jamie said. That memory was distinct. She had never heard that kind of a wail before and hadn’t heard one since. Filled with unimaginable agony. Complete and total despair. “I remember the lights when the ambulance came, and them carrying him out on a stretcher, a sheet over his body. Mum and Dad had a neighbor come over and stay with me while they went to hospital. I snuck into Theo’s room and took the note.”

“Were you able to read it?” Lila asked.

“Not until years later,” Jamie told her. “And it may not shock you to learn that it was a love letter between Theo and the boy at school.”

“It doesn’t shock me, but it does make me sad. For Theo, and for you.”

“And the worst part is, it’s all I have left of him.”

“You still have it?”

Jamie nodded. “Yeah. Dad got rid of every trace of my brother in the house. All the photos were put into an album. Theo’s trophies went into a box. It all went in the attic. All his clothes were donated. His room became my dad’s home office. It was like I never had a brother after that.”

“What did your mother have to say about all this?”

“Nothing. She’s been bedridden on mood stabilizers ever since it happened. She hardly speaks. She never leaves the house. She’s. . . a shell. We’ve never spoken about him since the day they told me he wasn’t coming home.”

Lila shook her head and put her tea on the end table beside her. “I have been a therapist for many years, Jamie, and that might be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Jamie wrinkled her nose. “Surely notthesaddest.”

“It’s up there,” Lila said. “You said before that it didn’t happen to you, but Jamie, it absolutely did. Watching your brothersuccumb to your father’s pressure and bigotry happenedto you. Watching your mother grieve so deeply she never escaped it, happenedto you. It left you alone with the man who drove your brother to take that drastic action. All when you were much too young to truly understand the depth of it.”

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