Brother

by Ania Ahlborn

Reb said that if they wanted to hear a baby scream bloody murder, all they had to do was ask.

On the lawn, strips of silver tape clung to the girl’s ankles just above her bare feet, but her hands were still secured in front of her by the wrists. She was shaking her head, her mouth working on words Michael couldn’t make out. It almost looked like she was trying to sing along with Misty’s music, the upbeat tempo a striking contrast to the horrified expression she wore on her face.

And yet somehow, at that very moment, she struck him as angelic—a beautiful girl who probably looked a lot like Momma had when she had been that young. The girl stared up at Michael with a look that left him dumbfounded, as though she was seeing God.

A sweatshirt in the dead of a West Virginian summer wasn’t a big deal when you lived in hell.

Michael twisted his arm out of his brother’s grasp, but he remained inside the car, his eyes fixed on his hands. Whether he was Wade’s favorite or not, Michael belonged to Rebel. Nobody would so much as bat an eyelash at Reb’s decision regarding Michael’s future, or the lack thereof.

The meat was gone, but the bones were all still there, buried close to the shed.

Once, when he had asked Lauralynn why she thought Momma got so mad, Lauralynn shrugged her shoulders and said that she didn’t know for sure but thought that Momma was sad. The answer hadn’t made sense to him then, and as he waited for the inevitable crack of Momma’s belt, it didn’t make sense now. Sadness, as he understood it, brought tears; but rather than tears, Momma dealt blows.

Some hurts were just too painful to talk about.

and Michael’s heart tripped over its own beat.

If Michael didn’t trust in his brother and best friend, it would serve him well to pray for a little more faith.

Michael forced an unsure smile and pushed himself to meet her head-on. When he finally managed it, he truly saw her for the first time, and what he saw made his heart ache. She wasn’t pretty like Lucy. Lucy was more of a generic, everyday pretty rather than genuinely beautiful. Michael had seen that kind of pretty more times than he could count. Snow White was ethereal, as though she’d been plucked from the pages of a storybook. She was all eyes, and despite her black attire, he imagined her living in a tiny cottage tucked into the hills where she’d feed fawns and bluebirds by hand.

He’d do it because when he looked into her eyes, he saw magic. Maybe facing his fear and allowing their limbs to tangle together would cause some of that magic to rub off on him. Maybe drawing his hands across her bare skin would make him a better person. Perhaps it would erase all his wrongs, would let him start over, be someone new.

Memories of Rebel giving girls false names came flooding back. One time he was Ted. Another time he introduced himself as John Wayne. When the girl had laughed and asked “Like the cowboy?” he had said, “No, like the killer,” and hit her in the temple with a tire iron before she could run.

“The Beach Boys are for shark bait,” she told him. “This is super rare. It’ll change your life.”

He diverted his gaze once more, looked down at the album cover in his hands. She made him feel awkward, vulnerable, scrambling his thoughts with the curve of her lips. His heart palpitated with the way she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, as though dancing to a beat only she could hear.

That dark forest reminded him of the woods behind the farmhouse.

He raised a hand in a silent good-bye. Alice mimicked his action. She mouthed See you, looking even more beautiful than she had during their few minutes alone. Even more stunning than she had the first time he had laid eyes on her. His heart twisted up on itself, and suddenly the last thing he wanted to do was leave. He didn’t want to go back home, didn’t want to go back to his old life, didn’t want to see Momma or Wade or even Misty Dawn ever again. He wanted to start over, forget who he was and become the person he knew Alice could make him. He wanted to stay in that very spot, right where he stood, for the rest of his life.

And what he did imagine lingered on the fringes of heaven.

“Oh yeah,” he said with a grin. “It’s gonna be great. You’ll never forget it.” Kind of like how he’d never really forgotten Lauralynn holding Michael in that fun house, how Ray had vanished, so easily replaced.

But just as he was ready to accept the fact that Rebel didn’t care about him, that the whole brothers-in-arms thing was a lie, Reb sighed and cast a sideways look his way. “You’re a good brother, you know,” Reb said. “I’m sorry.” It was the first time Rebel had apologized for anything. Ever. And suddenly, all Michael wanted to do was cry.

Her gaze drifted to the storeroom door, and she gave a quiet laugh. Michael didn’t get the joke, but he liked the sound she made—airy, light, carefree, like a perfect summer evening.

“Especially not on those, and especially not after my dad died. She likes to wallow in it, I guess. You know what they say—some people get addicted to feeling bad because whenever they feel good they feel guilty. I’m pretty sure that’s her deal.”

New York is so cramped with dreamers, it’s a wonder they aren’t crawling out of the sewers like rats.”

Somehow that small detail gave him the courage to tip his head forward and press his mouth against hers. The world stopped. For one perfect moment, every person who had ever existed in his life vanished from the earth, leaving only her.

Their kiss lasted two seconds, three at most, but it felt as though they had sealed Michael’s fate. He knew then that he could be happy, if only he could make Alice a part of his life. If he stayed with the Morrows that could never happen, not without twisting her into something unrecognizable. Into someone like him.

that the spaceman was from a planet of hard-hearted brutality.

If there was a limit to how many tears a human could shed, Michael felt as though he’d reached it.

He glanced up at her. When she rested her cheek against her forearm and gazed up at him with those eyes, he felt like he could just about explode. He wanted a life with her, wanted to see the world while holding her hand, even if that world only extended as far as Pittsburgh. Something about the way she was looking at him sent a bolt of courage through his heart. Before he knew what he was doing he leaned in and kissed her.

M for Michael, she whispered. Not M for Momma, for mourning or misery or even Misty Dawn. It was M for Michael. And though he wasn’t sure he could ever have it, he wanted to earn Alice’s tiny inked-in heart.

Perhaps a conventional task here and there would magically transform them from monsters to people.