A Life Between Two Streets

Prologue - Art

I am four years old, waiting anxiously as a crowd of old, distant, and familiar people huddled around her bed. I was holding papa's hand when my mother's voice called us to come closer.

I didn't know why there was a commotion but I can feel every one's eyes follow me and my father's every step. There are vases of flowers and baskets of fruit at the nearby table and I can smell the hospital.

The odor is pungent and powerful, it twists my senses and evoke past trips to the pediatrician for vaccinations and the intensity of my emotions as I squirm and cry my way out of them.

I react to the smell of my own anxiety, fear, weakness, and confusion. I tug at my father's hand as we began what seemed like an eternity's walk towards the bed. There is a whimper and a cry at the same time.

Then silence, nothing but the sound of my own breathing.

And it.

A tiny ball of cloth and flesh. As much as I hate my reaction to walking inside the hospital, I am strangely comfortable with recognizing it in much the same way I recognize what my mother was holding, the expression on her tired face, and the elated sighs and whispers of the people around them as she slowly handed it to me.

Somehow, I felt an assurance that the smell and my fear is temporary and that there is something greater and it demands to be felt.

"Is this ours?" I asked as I pulled my toes in and tried very hard not drop it.

"Yes, Art, it's ours," Mother said gently.

"What's it called?" I awkwardly said. Its eyes are closed and its tiny mouth was pursed. It was neither smiling nor crying. It was light and made no noise. I held it in an embrace and looked closer at its heart-shaped nose and bright red lips.

"His name is Avery; do you like it?"

"Yes, very much" I grinned. He smelled like the new room at the house. He smelled new with a subtle hint of the hospital's formidable odor.

"Okay Art, now give baby Avery back to mommy, he needs to eat,"

"NO. I'll take care of him!" I said angrily and wouldn't let go of Avery. The entire room burst into laughter as I held my baby brother in my tiny arms. I shot my mother a look of betrayal and I felt possessive of this tiny human.

I only have to close my eyes and I am in that room again: mom shushing Avery to sleep and dad trying to pacify me for my tantrum because they took my brother.

I open my eyes and the memory fades but the feeling is there. I am my brother's keeper.