Page 28 of My Sweetest Agony
I flip it over and find a Post-it stuck to the back with more of Cam’s writing.
Halloween. Third grade. He was Mario, of course, because he’s older and got to choose. I was stuck being Luigi.
My smile widens picturing the argument that must have ensued over who got to be the “better” of the fictional brothers. And they no doubt had disagreements over things like that throughout their entire childhoods. But they must have gotten over it quickly, given the pure joy that radiates from their little faces.
I set that photo aside and move to the next one, narrowing my eyes on the striking image of one of them in a baseball uniform standing against a chain-link fence, looking out at a field.
Is this Cam or Drew?
The fact that I can’t tell them apart at all in most of these photos makes me feel a little less like an asshole for passing out when I saw Cam that first night.
They really are carbon copies of each other, yet their personalities are so different.
This twin looks worried. His brow furrowed as a game is played in front of him. His fingers twined in the links of the fence, face pressed in tightly.
I flip it over.
Drew, the year his little league team made it to the state finals. I never played. Zero hand/eye coordination.
For some reason, that makes me chuckle.
I guess it makes sense, though.
Sort of.
Drew was always so good with his hands.
It was part of what made him such a fantastic doctor.
Yet, Cam’s an artist…
I would have thought he wouldn’t have had any problems with that, either.
But I guess I don’t really know much about him or his art.
Nancy always said she was so proud of him for pursuing his passion and going to art school in London instead of a more standard tertiary education route, but other than a few pieces he drew or painted in high school that she kept, neither she nor Drew ever showed me anything he’s created.
Just more secrets to add to the pile that surrounds Camden Usher.
Whatever he’s been doing at the gallery he runs in London, it apparently kept him busy enough to keep him away for the past four years, or at least that’s the way he wanted everyone to believe it was. But after how he reacted to my question that first night about telling Nancy he was home and yesterday when I pressed him about what happened with Drew, I’m confident there’s more to it.
He stayed away because he didn’t want to put his mother in the middle of their argument.
So now that Drew is gone, why keep Nancy in the dark?
That question rattles around my brain as I stare at the photo, and now that I know it’s Drew, I can see all the little tells.
Always so immensely focused, like this little boy.
Always so concerned with coming out on top—whether it be valedictorian or—apparently—on a little league field.
He wears that same furrowed brow. That same ardent concentration Drew needed to succeed in the fast-paced ER on a daily basis, handling trauma.
And I have no doubt this boy already had his massive heart, too.
I know part of that concern on his face is for his teammates. For how they worked to get to that championship game. For the devastation they would all feel if they lost. And I’m positive he would have been the first one to offer hugs and kind words to them or the other team after.
Because that was who Drew always was.
