Brothers

by Mikah Amani

This year when Aunt Val leads the prayer, she says please forgive us more times than she needs to as she squeezes my hand tightly. She is strong. My fingers buckle over one another. It hurts so bad I hold my breath. The house is quiet except for the tick of the big clock in the living room and Val’s voice in the dining room, and this is the part where they begin to drone in sync with each other, both seeming like they will go on forever. Usually, I will open my eyes to a sliver and look around the circle to see who else is doing the same, and cousin Keem or Jack or one of them will catch me and we’ll smile and hold back a storm of laughter, except for that one year when we didn’t and were told to eat alone in the dining room while everyone else watched the game. Now we know better. 

This time it is different because when I look up there is more than one person staring back at me, uncles and aunts and grandmas and a couple of cousins, and they aren’t asking themselves how is Val still talking or how many words should a prayer really have. This time they all want to know if I know these words are about me, that when she asks that the devil be exhausted from her home she may as well be saying my name, or at least be naming part of me, the part that has made me show up to her house wearing a button-down and tie and the same cologne my father used to wear. Since Reese died, she says, you know, Lord, that this family has not been the same. Some of us have strayed onto a crooked and downward path. Lead us back to your good graces if there is still time, amen.

I took an early train to Aunt Val’s house this morning. I wanted to give myself enough time to turn around and put on a dress if I changed my mind. The first time the train came, I dug my Oxford shoes into the ground and my hands into the bench on either side of my thighs as if to press myself up to stand. I could not move. The second time I felt that mechanical wind rush over me, I whispered my name until it no longer tasted sour in my mouth. The third time, I yelled it, just once. Just during that loudest part of the train’s arrival, when there is the wind and the footsteps and the buskers in a frenzy of transition. 

At the table, Uncle CJ mistakes me for my father again, calls me “Reesies” like the candy bar. I think it must be a joke about the color of my dad’s skin or how much he loved peanut butter, and someone else corrects CJ before I do. That ain’t Reese, I hear them say. It’s your niece, Em. You’d think my chosen name is one of the words that Val has forbidden in her house, the best anyone can do is use half of the old one, which is better than nothing, I guess. CJ calls me Reesies still, holds a serving spoon with two hands as he makes himself a plate of candied yams and nothing else. Whether he is refusing to be corrected, playing by his own rules as he always has, or really can’t tell I’m not my dad, I don’t know. He tells me he wants to play a game of chess after this, but I don’t know how, so I say I’m too tired. He smacks his teeth, tells me it’s all the Marlboros I smoke, one day they’ll catch up to me if I don’t slow down. He’s going to outlive me, he’s sure of it, because he knows the secret to perfect health. He is proud of this. I can tell by the way he smiles and leans coolly back in his chair and strokes the hair on his face, which is just beginning to pepper with grey.

There are no pictures of my dad smiling, at least not after I was born. The one I keep in my room lies flat on the dresser—the little piece of cardboard that holds up the golden frame was already broken when Aunt Val gave it to me. Usually, once a picture is taken in her home, it stays there, but she made an exception after my father died. Teary-eyed at the funeral reception, she told me to take it. She rested her head on my left shoulder and stayed there for a while, and when I asked her if she was sure, she only cried louder. Both my brothers, gone, she said. 

How do you use a memory? This morning, after getting dressed, I stroked the glass of that picture frame with what remained of my chewed-down fingernail and asked myself that question. I touched my father’s face, tried to remember what his stubble felt like against my cheek, pressed until my fingertip turned white. Then I turned to the mirror and remembered the thin, scattered hairs above my own lip, and on my chin. I set the frame back down in its place.  

The picture was taken on a different Thanksgiving Day, on the back patio of Aunt Val’s house. Uncle CJ was all suited up, my dad wore just a blue shirt and grey slacks. They were playing chess. My uncle would wave a white pawn in my father’s face every time he was able to take one, and my father would bat CJ’s hand away, saying, Stop that. I’m thinking. I wanted badly to know what he was thinking about. At the time that the picture was taken, I was too old to sit on his lap as he played, too old to hear him whisper in my ear just how he was going to beat Uncle CJ. Aunt Val spotted me there on the patio, biting my nails and sweating, and said, Get in there, Em, let me take a picture of you and your daddy. 

I was taught at a very young age to confess. This morning when I stepped on the train headed toward my family, I resolved to come clean in my own way. But when I got here, the only one who didn’t see me as the person I used to pretend to be was Uncle CJ. I do not feel absolved of my wrongs. I do not feel saved.         

Uncle CJ and my dad had a lot of secrets. There is the secret to getting money, to keeping a woman, to getting happy. There are ones from their childhood, about the best ways to steal bikes and cars, about learning to ride like they are yours. Aunt Val, who hasn’t taken a seat yet and still seems to carry the warmth and sweetness of the apple pies she’s been baking since noon, walks up behind our chairs at the table and places a hand on Uncle CJ’s shoulder, leans in eagerly, and says she has to hear this one. What is the secret to perfect health? A sarcasm in her tone that I haven’t heard before. They look at each other for a moment with playful disdain. There is a teardrop tattooed just on the crease underneath CJ’s eye, but otherwise, with their short, reddish-brown hair and broad noses, they could be identical. Otherwise, someone might say they were the same. No offense, CJ laughs, but you know you can’t keep your mouth shut. Tugging at the collar of my shirt, he says, This is a conversation between us, the brothers, if that’s all right.

Published March 14th, 2021