After a long day spent together, Noah felt right at home. He’d forgotten their hidden language; how navigating Wyatt’s mind was like a wildly inventive puzzle he loved to solve. He was a little rusty, but not by much. They showered back at the condo, got dressed, and gathered in the living room for a small birthday celebration. They sang to Wyatt, and then he blew out his candles on a cake bought at their favorite local bakery. His mother cut a wedge of vanilla cake with bright blue frosting and handed him a small, square piece.
“Your lips look like a blueberry,” Noah said.
“So do yours,” Wyatt added.
“Do you have everything you need for tonight?” his mother asked, as she poked at the frosting with a plastic fork.
“Tickets, check. Wyatt, check. I think we’re all good.” Sensing her nerves, Noah added: “Tell them we’ll behave, Wyatt.”
“We will behave, Ma. We will behave,” Wyatt repeated. He dumped his paper plate in the trash and turned to Noah. “Let’s go. I don’t want to be late. If we are late, we cannot go in. I have researched the schedule this afternoon. They are very strict.”
“You got it, boss man.” They waved good-bye, took the elevator down to the first floor, and climbed into Noah’s rental car.
“You ready?”
“Born ready. Born ready,” Wyatt said, moving back and forth against the passenger seat. Noah had already memorized the directions, so he wouldn’t have to rely on an app. The constant verbal interruptions agitated Wyatt.
Noah pressed play. He’d made a CD for him before he’d left. It was a compilation of his favorite songs—one for every year of his life. Wyatt sang, rocked, and clapped off-beat, and Noah joined in when he recognized the lyrics.
The ninety minutes went fast, despite the insane city traffic. Noah felt the vibration from his parents’ obsessive texts in his pocket and clenched his teeth. He turned the music down as they approached the center of the island. “Welcome to New York, brother.”
Wyatt gasped at the city streets. The glittering lights, clustered bodies, and urban mayhem took hold as Noah drove through Times Square. The city had a pulse, and they were situated right in the heart. Wyatt stabbed the button of the passenger window and thrust his large head into the noisy night. Life exploded in every direction. He reached out as if to collect the energy.
“Pretty cool, huh?”
“It’s majestic! Look!” Wyatt had extremely good hearing and perfect recall. He could recognize ambulances, sirens, car alarms, and any sort of traffic coming from a block away. But those were individual noises, always stories below, always containable. Was this too much?
Wyatt turned and gripped the door with both hands—and for one frightening moment, Noah wondered if he was going to try and jump out of the car. “Why have Ma and Pop never brought me here?”
Guilt knifed Noah’s conscience. He could have given him such a fulfilled life. He could have made him feel alive every single day. “I don’t know.”
Drivers laid on horns as they inched by. Saturday evening traffic lurched in every direction while digital billboards talked, flashed, and rotated. Tourists gathered on sidewalks and in streets. Stimulation edged its way to the very center of Wyatt’s brain, rewiring it. They were so close to the plaza, Noah could just park in a garage and they’d be there in minutes. But he wanted to give Wyatt more than this. It was his one night away from home. He turned right and headed away from Midtown.
“Where are we going? Why are we leaving?”
“We’re just going to park away from all the traffic, so you can see more of Manhattan. Is that okay?”
“Are we going to be late?”
“We have plenty of time, Wyatt.”
He nodded rapidly. “Yes, then yes, then yes. I want to see more.”
Noah thought of all his various trips to the city when he was young. His parents had taken him a few times before they’d had Wyatt. He had vivid memories of Central Park, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and eating pizza in Brooklyn. Once Wyatt came, fussy and uncontained, they’d closed themselves in their house like an underground bunker. No more trips. No more spontaneity. They’d reduced themselves to rigor, order, and sacrifice for the past two decades.
He found a parking spot close to the subway and killed the engine. “Would you like to walk or take the subway?”
“Subway. Subway all the way.”
Noah nodded. Wyatt loved subways and tunnels. He’d often sketched black, scary holes filled with trains in therapy sessions. He remembered that. They found the nearest station and descended down the stairs. Noah paid for their tickets. They pushed through the turnstile and stood on the escalator as warm, dank air rustled around them.
Wyatt leaned forward and back on the platform.
“Hey, Wyatt, what’s the difference between a teacher and a steam locomotive?”
“One’s a person and one’s not.”
Noah laughed. “That’s true, but a schoolteacher tells you to spit out your gum, while the locomotive says choo, choo, choo! Get it?”
“That is a terrible joke, a terrible joke,” Wyatt said. His mop of blond hair shot into tangled waves above his scalp.
Noah laughed again while the lights of the train flashed down the tracks. They illuminated his younger brother, and just for a moment, turned him golden.
“Train!”
Noah smiled and clapped him lightly on the shoulder. “I told you it would be here.” He glanced at his watch. “Right on time too.”
The train thundered closer and blew stale air into the jammed underground lair, as people texted, fisted dog-eared paperbacks, and held loud, personal conversations over the rumble of the approaching car.
As the train neared, Wyatt tipped back on his heels again—in gummy tennis shoes he refused to throw away—and then as quickly as he’d ever moved, darted forward three short steps, extended his arms, and took flight off the platform.
Noah watched him lunge, too stunned to reach for him in time. A woman beside him screamed. The timing—never Wyatt’s strong suit—was perfect as his soft body, built on a lifetime of Cheetos and Cokes, intersected with a sickening thunk into the front side of the train. His brother disappeared with the screech of brakes. “Wyatt!” He called his name in a futile attempt to retrieve him, to rewind, to go back just a few seconds. Time cracked apart, froze, shattered. Noah tried to move, but he couldn’t. He could physically still feel his brother standing right next to him, smiling and laughing. He couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t have jumped.
Chaos erupted around him. People murmured and gathered in tight clusters while the train squealed to a violent shudder on the tracks. Noah’s skin warmed and turned hot. He collapsed to his knees. He had to be dreaming. He’d just told Wyatt a joke. He’d laughed. He’d been excited for New York and SNL. No, no, no. Had Wyatt made some kind of horrendous miscalculation? Had he gone momentarily insane? He couldn’t have done this on purpose.
He glanced again at the train, his eyesight blurred by tears. He couldn’t imagine what they would have to do to remove Wyatt’s body from the train, like gum stuck to a shoe. Noah vomited from the image, the blue frosting and cake batter splashing back onto his own wet cheeks.
People huddled around the front of the train, snapping photos and calling for help. Finally, someone crouched down and touched his shoulder with acrylic nails. Her perfume wafted into his nostrils, and he gagged.
“Sir? Are you okay? Do you know that person?”
He sat back on his heels. “It’s my brother,” he croaked. “My brother just killed himself.”
He said the words, but he didn’t believe them. He’d spent his entire life devoted to helping his younger brother function in society—teaching him to read, to communicate, to handle loud noises and confrontation, to be nice to waiters, to play ball, to drive, to vote—and now he was dead.
In minutes, the police arrived, and he stood on rubbery legs. He replayed those last moments in an attempt to understand what must have been running through his brother’s mind. In the car. At the condo. Eating cake. Earlier in the day. There’d not been a single sign of distress.
Officers flanked him on both sides and escorted him away like a criminal. He glanced to the front of the train and saw his brother, broken apart like an egg. Oh, Wyatt. He fell again, dry heaving.
How would he ever explain this to his family? He would be blamed. This would forever be his fault. The teacher. The mentor. Noah, who always knows best. He closed his eyes as pain assaulted every part of his body.
“Sir. Are you alright? Sir?”
He ignored the officers and glanced again at the front of the train. He vomited again from the sight, the loss, and the shock of losing the only person he’d ever really loved.
There was no life without Wyatt.
Not for him.