Fighting for Amely | Ongoing

Amely | Upward into the Stars

"School starts Monday," Charlie has been quiet since his neighbors left. I embarrassed him, apparently enough that he had his face screwed up in a tense scowl and his arms folded over his chest.

I almost feel bad, seeing him trying his hardest to be stern as he stares at me, but I can't. Even he had looked uncomfortable with the group of people standing at the foot of the stairs and watching him like a hawk. He told me once, when he first moved here, that he tolerated the overwhelming neighborliness of the people of Palm Brook because it was the polite thing to do; not because he sincerely enjoyed meeting people. He had once told me that everyone he met eyed him up and down, shook their heads, and would mumble to whoever they were next to that he was tall, looked sweet, and needed to talk more. When he had first moved into the house the Coopers had been waiting in his front yard when the moving truck pulled up, Mrs. Cooper holding a casserole in her two hands, the three kids looking variously uncomfortable. Charlie likes the Coopers, especially the older son, who had spent the last two years helping him with his yard and gardens. Despite how much my brother liked the family, he says they overstep their bounds a little bit, coming over and trying to be overly helpful. I liked them, the three kids, the woman with her kind brown eyes, but I'm not in the mood to meet new people.

"I'm aware." I'm making scrambled eggs for dinner, tired of take out and not in the mood for steak. Charlie's kitchen is a cramped, grey affair with a black tile floor and kitchen counters that are marble but in the dullest shades. From the fridge to the sink, which face each other, is a total of twelve steps and the kitchen only goes a little bit deeper in than that. But, for someone who doesn't do a lot of cooking, the small kitchen suits Charlie well. If Mom had ever gotten the chance to see the house I'm sure the kitchen would have made her unhappy; she might have even insisted my brother sell the house. If. "Cheese?" I shake myself out of my head. Thoughts of ghosts do nothing but burden the already weak my Mom's priest once told me, as we stood side by side in the abandoned church where myself and my brother had been baptized and looked at the altar. I didn't sit, neither of us did that day. We stood, the man in black and myself in grey, hands in our pockets, looking at the picture window and speaking in soft tones about the art, the weather, the silence in the church. The stillness, the silence, stay with me; even now as I chop peppers and ham to mix in with the eggs, waiting to find out if my brother wanted cheese thrown in as well. I can see his face, Father Corey's, the lines in it, the grey hair, the blue eyes that wore age like a shield. I wonder, staring out the little window over the stove, how he's been; wonder if he's ever thought of Mom, of me. Of us.

Charlie, who sat himself down at the kitchen table as soon as he returned from work, looks up at me. "Please." I startle a little at the sound and grab the shredded cheese sitting on the counter.

We don't talk much, Charlie and I. In the two weeks since we've been back in Palm Brook we've had dinner together four or five times and have sit down to watch a movie once. Charlie's not used to living with people and I'm not used to living with Charlie, not this version of my brother at least, but we're trying to make it work. He knows about my bad habits, including the smoking, and while he doesn't condone the habit he lets me be. I appreciate the space he gives me, it means more than the warm and cozy my mother would have, had been, stuffing down my throat.

 Tonight, as our eyes survey each other, I can see the questions burning like a fire in his gaze.

He doesn't ask what he wants an answer to though, instead looking out the window and cocking his head to the side. "Did Nathaniel come to do the yard?"

As I grab two plates, I find myself smiling a little and shrugging. "It looks like he did."

In truth, the neighbor boy had come to mow the yard hours ago. He had down the back first, in the middle of the boiling afternoon, and had shed his shirt by the time he came to stand in the grass before my window. It had been a nice view for myself, as I sat on the window seat with a cigarette and watched him make slow paces back and forth with the dated push mower, his tan back glistening with sweat under the heat of the sun. Nathaniel's built of some fine bones. His back is muscular, as are his arms, and he stands tall enough that I could make out his face clearly from my window with only minor straining. A nice face as well. Strong nose, chocolate colored eyes, pale lips, and a cleft chin and strong cheek bones, it's the kind of face my best friend Amy would have said was made for hard work and hard admiration. But I'm not about to tell my brother so. Maybe Amy, maybe later, but not Charlie. Not now, not ever.