Page 44 of Ask Your Mom If I'm Real

Being related to me really is the only gift you need.

—T-shirt

MARK

Present

I watched my father across the room, smiling and laughing with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“You okay?”

I looked over to find my brother, John, standing there.

“Not much choice, eh?” I asked, feeling the ache in my chest pulse.

Patty joined us moments later, pushed herself between the two of us like she’d done so many times in her life, and latched onto both of our arms.

“No crying, brothers,” she said softly.

I looked down at her. “I’m allowed to cry if I want to.”

She squeezed my arm with hers. “This is how it’s supposed to be, right?”

“Right,” I croaked.

A child was not supposed to die before the parent.

When Annie had died, I’d seen how much of the life had drained out of my parents’ eyes.

But still.

“I’ve never lived without him, Pat,” I said softly.

“None of us have,” John murmured.

John was always quiet.

He’d always been that way.

But tonight, he’d been even more quiet than usual.

Not that I blamed him.

After Dad had shared, a fucking anvil had taken place on my chest and hadn’t moved since.

“I don’t like this,” John continued. “I don’t want to do this.”

I made eye contact with John’s wife, Susan, from across the room.

Our eyes connected and mine said, “He needs you.”

Susan came right over and wrapped herself around her husband walking with him to the couch by Dad.

My wife saw this and smiled.

Her eyebrows went up in her silent way of asking, “You need me?”

I shook my head.

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