In The Sight of These Hills (Dolan Twins)

A Hanging Memory and a Hanging Moon

Chapter 3: A Hanging Memory and a Hanging Moon

Grayson's anger had ebbed off as they got home, a cozy one-story three-bedroom house the color of fresh dirt, the siding painted light gray. A large oak tree stood in the front yard and was twisted up, branches like hands grasping for salvation in the cloudless sky. And as they crossed the dry grass of their yard, it seemed like they were back to their old selves.

Ethan could feel his brother cool off literally and figuratively. The cold air had helped, even though the plan they had formed on the way home burned into Ethan's mind. Grayson had been so sure of himself, while Ethan wasn't so. But if Jake was going to beat the living hell out of them when they got to school on Monday (and he only assumed, because why wouldn't he?), then they might as well do it.

When they crossed the threshold, Gray set out to making pancakes, running the dried blood off from his bruised knuckles, while Ethan took both of their book bags to their room. He threw them on their bed which covered most of their small room, sighing and rubbing his eyes. They used to have two twin beds on either side back home, expensive black walnut ones, before they moved to Morrison. It wasn't like they slept on both anyway, though.

Back in Chadlington, Gray would crawl into Ethan's bed in the middle of the night when a nightmare had stunned him into wakefulness, his eyes staring at the pure white ceiling. Ethan could be found back curled into his brother's chest, Grayson's arms wrapped around his waist comfortably, his face buried into his back of his neck, each slow breath moving his hair there.

Sometimes Ethan would be the one to slip into Gray's bed, all disheveled and half-asleep when the six feet distance between their beds seem too great, or when the loneliness of the cold sheets were felt more fully in the dead of night, in the silence. And Grayson would roll over to lay his head on Ethan's shoulder because it was the most natural thing in the world. Despite the look Sean had given them at their request of wanting one big bed in their shared bedroom, he had told them it was okay.

There was an oak drawer in the far corner by the door, the color of a sandy beach. One side was filled with Grayson's things, the others with Ethan's stuff. On the top was some of Gray's sweatpants, messily thrown onto its surface. That piece of furniture was something that they had since they were ten.

The color of their room was a soft blue, a blue picked out by the original owners for its soothing quality. But all the walls, all for four them, were covered with Ethan and Grayson's polaroid pictures, drawings, sticky notes of random ideas or sayings, from the bottom to the top. Some were in neat rows, others thrown together in some type of absentminded creativity. Even the doors of their closet were covered in them.

Most of the walls were enclosed in the pictures: gorgeous sunrises against New Jersey woods, sunsets on their deck back home, images of them when they played sports in their football jerseys all wild and hopeful, animals they found and thought beautiful, bugs that were significant despite their size, swimming pools full of crystal light, and shining holidays of seasons past. There was one photo, though, that was on Ethan's side of the bed, right next to his head taped up carefully as not to damage the picture. It was of their mom.

Their mother: belly impossibly rounded with two little babies not yet introduced to the world. She was in the middle of a laugh, her mouth turned upward, and her small, white teeth exposed to the world. Her light brown hair fell over her shoulders like a blanket. Her petite, sweet hands were on either side of the bump, her nightgown a soft white with faded flowers swirling into the material. She was looking right into the camera, hazel eyes stunning, thick black eyelashes. They had her eyes.

There were other pictures of her scattered on the wall between the sunsets and running water and the two smiling boys with matching faces. There was one of her rolling biscuits, her hands dusted in flour, at a kitchen so far away from their reality; part of Sean's thumb could be seen at the top corner. Another was of her standing in the sand of a distant beach, a one piece the color of melted strawberry under a hot summer sun, beautiful. Her long hair was slicked back with salt water, her mouth formed into silent words. Happy, silent words, never to be spoken.