Page 86 of A Brother's Secret

Maybe he didn’t mean this place, maybe he meant another. The fact that there was a bicycle leaning against the garage door referenced that enough. I shut off the 4Runner, and locked it, chirping the alarm. I pulled the bike away from the garage door, went up the driveway with it to the street, and swung a legover.

There was only one way to find out if the old adage, it’s like riding a bike, were true. I hadn’t been on one in probably twenty years, but he was right, there was no other way I would remember to get there.

I took off and pedaled and had the hang of it in no time. I guess it was true. What was also true? I was really out of fucking shape. The short ride between our houses had me winded in no time. My heart was pounding with the unfamiliar cardio, and a light dew of sweat broke out over myskin.

I pulled up in front of the empty lot where my old house used to be and felt a desolation creep in. It was empty, razed to the foundation; the only thing left was the old, rusting mailbox at the curb. I opened it, not expecting to find anything but surprise! There was a white envelope waiting forme.

“It’s like the game that never ends,” I muttered and broke the seal, tipping the card inside to the street light so I could seeit.

The Wheel of Fortune – and the game show had nothing to do with it… The 10th card of the major arcana meant a lot of things. In this incarnation, I took it to mean a change in fortunes and he wasn’t wrong. My dad and I, moving to this house, had changed my fortunes. I had met Kyle… I had met Kyle and that had made all the difference in mylife.

I turned it over and on the back, it said, still the wrong beginning. Try our beginning. Our real one. Just you. Just me andour…

Tree. “Just you, just me, and our tree…”; it was a rhyme we’d made up and laughed like dorks over and was code for basically “Fuck everyone else and the world. I just want to spend time with my favorite person.”

I turned the bicycle around and rode hard and fast, my heart pounding, through our neighborhood, two streets down, four houses over… I stopped pedaling and let the bike coast.

The old house was gone, but our tree rose into the night, twinkling with light. I got off the bike and walked it by my side through the field. As I got closer, I realized what the lightswere.

Lanterns – dozens of old farm lanterns hung from the tree branches, illuminating the underside of the canopy. I dropped the bike and walked past a plaid blanket on the ground, a picnic basket next to it. White fluttered against the trunk, an envelope, and I needed to see, I had toknow...

I looked around, but I didn’t see Kyle. Still, I felt him. I knew he was watching, and I had to know what he thought of just him, and me, and our tree, so I plucked the envelope from the ribbon holding it, dangling from the trunk.

When I pulled the ribbon away, the seal broke and I slipped the card from the stellar, bright white paper.

The World.

I felt my eyes tear up, not only at the blatant implication of the card, that he thought the world of him and me… but also about the deeper meaning behindit.

The last card in the major arcana, the last stop: The World stood for the triumphant conclusion and the path to inner peace. I looked up at our tree, at the gentle twinkling little lights and heard the grass rustle behind me. I whirled, and just like magic, there hewas…

My world.

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