I held still.
The forest all around me soughed with the gentle breeze and I closed my eyes and listened to the symphony of oaks and maples and larch and locust and poplar. Each leaf gave an individual sound, the wind breaking through the different shapes and sizes and positions. I understood the complexities of playing a clarinet or bassoon suddenly even though I’d never picked up a musical instrument in my life.
Tools I understand. I’m a Builder. That’s why I was in the forest.
*
“You have to do this for me,” my brother said. He lay in a hospital bed dying of colon cancer. He was too young for this and younger than me. Life isn’t fair. “You have to.” His voice was not even a fourth what it had been when he was strong. Now it was reedy, full of too much air and almost hollow.
He held on to my hand with a strength he’d always had but never showed.
“I will, Ollie. I promise.” I hated this. I was crying and I didn’t want my little brother to see me crying. Our sister would have torn me up for showing emotion like that. Susan was a bitch but I loved her and Ollie more than almost anything. My own family were the only ones above them. I sniffed and stopped trying to hold back the tears.
“I can’t go until you do, Jamie.” Ollie always had a penchant for gravitas and that’s what made him good at what he did. He could write copy like no one else and he had that shelf of awards to prove it.
“I’ll go out there first thing in the morning,” I said. I sniffed again.
Ollie nodded and let go of my hand. The drugs finally took him and let him rest.
*
Out in the hall I stopped to hug Ollie’s wife. We both cried and held tight to each other. In another world, I might have won her affection if I hadn’t met Marta around the same time. Charlene chose Ollie, picked him from all her suitors and made sure he knew just how much she loved him. Being a former Miss Texas USA, she attracted all sorts of men – and women – just by being in a room.
“What does he want you to do?” She hadn’t put on any makeup and her face was blotchy from crying.
“A small thing,” I said. I looked at the floor. “Tomorrow morning.”
“Oh god.” Charlene wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Jesus.”
I took a step back. “He’s sleeping now.”
“You haven’t told me.”
“What?” I shuffled to my left half a step.
The glare she shot me withered away any resolve I might have had. Still, she didn’t need to know everything. I sighed.
“There’s a tree out on our parents’ property. He wants me to use it in the house.”
Her face melted from stern reproach to confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t really have to, Char,” I said. “This is what he wants me to do for him.” (more…)