The Five Sons of Brent Star

Chapter Nine

I told Eli I would wait to watch the home videos with him, but I never said I would not go through the pictures that Ian had found for me.

Ian had been the most helpful so far, and I was not expecting that from him. I was excepting Luke to be the most helpful.

The photographs are mixed in binders or the old paper folders the pictures came in. There is only a cardboard box about knee height with images. I would have imagined the box to be much better for having five sons.

I grab the two primary binders out and start to leaf through them.

Ian is the star primarily of them.

My favorite picture is of Vivian and Brent with Ian in the middle. They are walking with his arms stretched out between the both of them. Brent looks at Vivian smiling, and Vivian looks down at a rather cute Ian as a toddler. It was the perfect American family.

How their life's changed so much from that one picture. I leave the single picture on the side table next to the couch. The second binder is full of pictures of Ian and Eli. Someone took the time to scrapbook and put dates and names by each one.

There is a picture of Ian sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl over his head. His blue eyes peep up at the camera. I keep searching and searching. I wanted one picture of all the boys, but this box only held pictures of Ian and Eli, mixed with Brent and Vivian.

I sit there until the house is quiet and everyone is in bed. I look at every photo but cannot find any other boys. There had to be another box somewhere. Vivian would have gotten some of Luke, wouldn't she have?

"You are looking for another box?" Ian's voice booms out in the library. I jump, startled by another Star son.

"Do your brothers, and you have fun sneaking up on women in the night?"

"It was a little fun" Ian watches me as my hand is removed from my chest. When I was working, I had a problem of zoning in on the only thing I was working on; my awarance of anything going on around me, not so much.

We stand there with the pictures spread out all around me on the floor. I had started on the couch but ran out of space.

"I saw the light on from outside and thought I would come to check on you."

That was rather nice of him, considering how we met.

He was more of a mystery than his father's life, and I wanted to know where he had been and why. Why was I so intrigued by Ian?

He leans over and picks the picture of Vivian, Brent, and him as a toddler. He looks at it fondly for a second and then puts it back on the table.

"My father may have fooled you on his dying bed, but he was not a good man."

"It looked like you had it all from the pictures. A happy mom and dad, a house out of a fairy tale."

He cuts me off. "Pictures can be deceiving."

He shakes his head. "It is too late for the demons to come out. I just wanted to check to make sure you were ok?"

"I am. I tend to stay up late, even when I shouldn't."

He smiles. "I think that was the first thing you told me about you, not on purpose."

I replay what he said in my head. Did he think I was hiding something?"

"What would you like to know?" I ask while I start to pick up the pictures of baby Eli and kid Ian. I wish I could pop into any picture and see the scene that was playing out. To know what had transpired on what seemed to be perfect days.

"Where did you go to school?"

I roll my shoulders; my back is more strained than I realized.

"NYU," I said. "And you?"

He shakes his head at me. "You'll be able to ask me enough questions; it is my turn."

The piles of pictures go into the box pretty quickly, and I stand to look at him. Roscoe, who had found a spot on the leather couch, stretches off, stands next to me, and then sits in front of me as he usually did.

Ian looks at him and pats him on the head.

"How about we multi-task and take Roscoe for his nightly walk?"

Ian agrees, and then, as we walk toward the outside, he asks, "do you normally take him for walks this late?"

I nod. New York City did not frighten me at night; I loved it and embraced it. Ian did not need to know that I only got a couple of hours of sleep on most nights.

It was a little past one in the morning.

"What do your parents do?" He asked me.

This question was customarily asked, and it never got easier when I had to answer it. "They passed."

"I'm sorry to hear that." He said, watching Roscoe lead the way. "What did they do?"

"Did you know Roscoe will fetch anything if I throw it?"

Ian stops and stares at me, but I keep walking forward.

"It is crazy. Stick, shoe, even when I dropped a wrapper and asked him to fetch. He did, brought it right back to me."

Ian had started to walk again and was right next to me. "You do not like answering questions about yourself?" He asked.

"I like answering what I want to tell." I smiled at him.

It was true. The Star sons did not need to get to know me. There was no need for them to get to know me. I needed them to answer questions about their dad and their life with him. And then we would be out of each other ways.