“So, wait, you’re in New Jersey?” my sister asks.
“Yeah.”
“Does Mom know you’re there?”
“Not yet.”
I pull the phone away from my ear. I can hear someone strumming faintly through the wall. I count only two musicians in the house and one of them left before the sun came up. It must be Joan.
“You could’ve come here, you know,” Veronica says.
She says it in her nonchalant way, but I worry I’ve broken some sacred law in the sibling handbook. She’s right, I could’ve flown down to Florida. Veronica moved to Key West from Miami about a year ago and I’ve yet to visit her new place. But then I would’ve had to hang with her boyfriend too, and that would’ve required more energy than I can muster right now.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Don’t be sorry.”
Such a simple request and yet most thoughts of my sister begin with an apology. She was just a baby when our father died and ever since I’ve felt an obligation to her, never met, that goes far beyond the normal duties of an older brother.
“I’ll come visit you next,” I say.
“Only if you want to.”
“Of course I do. How are you? How’s island life?”
“I see what you did there,” Veronica says. “Don’t think I’m letting you get off the phone without telling me what happened.”
Veronica never seems to experience anxiety about her own life, but she isn’t immune to worrying about mine. “I told you I would’ve stayed after the funeral,” she says.
“I’m sorry I made you worry. I’m good now. I’m with friends here and I’m taking it one day at a time.”
“One day at a time? Did you really just say that to me? Now I definitely don’t believe you.”
She’s right. It sounded scripted, a go-to phrase for mourners. It’s just so damn taxing thinking up fresh ways of assuring people that I’m all right. Besides, it happens to be true. I am very much taking it moment by moment, ignoring what will and won’t happen tomorrow.
“I know how you are, Gavin.”
I don’t like where this is going.
“You don’t know how to shake anything off,” she says.
It’s unsettling getting this from my sister. First, because losing the most important person in your life is not something you just shake off. Second, because I’m the one in our sibling relationship who’s supposed to pass down the wisdom, the one with ten more years of life experience to draw from. Third, because Veronica is someone who doesn’t like to waste time on silly things like feelings, so if she’s trying to unpack mine, that tells me she’s even more worried than I thought. And last, because she’s absolutely right.
“You see,” Veronica says. “There you go again, pondering.”
This must be how I sound when I call to check up on her, which I don’t do often enough. “I’m good, I promise. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Oh!” she says in a loud burst. “I saw the premiere last night! Gavin, you were brilliant. I mean it. It was a subtle performance but also frenetic, if that makes any sense. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. And not just because you’re my brother.”
“Thanks,” I say, relieved to be talking about the fictional me versus the real me. “You really liked it?”
I didn’t remember that last night was the premiere until I checked my phone this morning. Apparently it drew the biggest audience The Long Arm has ever had. The media credited the boost in numbers to what they called the “Gavin Winters fire stunt.” It’s true our ratings have never been stellar, which is frustrating because The Long Arm is a smart and gripping crime drama positioned prominently on a respected cable network, and Officer Beau Kendricks is by far the best character I’ve ever gotten to play. I just wish the show were succeeding on its own merits and not due to some scandal that will be forgotten in a week.
“There’s one thing I don’t get,” Veronica says. “Are they trying to turn you into a bad guy? It feels like it’s going in that direction. Would they do that?”
“That’s actually—”
“No, don’t tell me.”
“—my evil twin brother.”
“Shut up.”
Syd was the same way. He forbade me to share anything about where the story was heading. He wanted to wait like everyone else. We watched the entire first season together, Syd rewinding all my scenes with goofy pride in his eyes. Now he’ll never know how the story ends.
“Even Mom gave it two thumbs up,” Veronica says. “And you know she never pretends to like something if she doesn’t.”
“You spoke to her?”
“She called me, like, literally five seconds after it ended and proceeded to give her twenty-minute review. She even had her friends over to watch it.”
I picture my mother, just an hour south of here, the lone holdout in that ancient house, sharing space with her own phantom love for the past thirty years. Veronica and I, meanwhile, got out as soon as we could.
“Are you going to visit her soon?” she asks.
“I’ll get down there eventually.”
There’s a knock at my door.
It’s Joan, her hands behind her back, one Converse crushing the other. I’ve seen the same tossed-together wardrobe on hipsters in Silver Lake, though Joan’s version seems far less intentional. Her hairstyle, if you can even call it a style, also appears to be an afterthought; her hair is uncombed and casually tucked behind her ears. But her overall chaos is grounded by the directness of her eyes. There’s something confident and unflinching in them.
“Veronica, can I give you a ring later in the week?”
“Whenever. Just do me a favor and stay out of trouble.”
Coming from her, the wilder child. “I will.”
I toss the phone onto my bed and give Joan my full attention.
“Who was that?” Joan asks.
“My sister.”
“Oh.”
She brings her hands forward to reveal her journal, the one her doctor advised her to keep. It must be scary to have a child with a rare condition like Joan’s. At the clinic, when Syd and I were planning for a child of our own, we provided our full medical histories. I knew Syd’s father had died of heart problems but that was the first time I realized how far back the Brennett men had been suffering similar fates. My worry, upon learning this, was for my future child. I never considered worrying about the man sitting right next to me.
Joan is gazing down. “You know what? The hair on your legs looks like the kind of string that goes on a fishing pole.”
“Thank you,” I say.
I wait for more, but she’s fallen into some sort of trance. I wave my hands at her. “Joan? You okay?”
She focuses. “I was just thinking about the time Grandpa took me fishing, which was Sunday, June fifth, 2011.”
“That’s amazing.”
“What is?”
“How you do that. How you know what day of the week it was two years ago. I can’t imagine.”
She looks down at her journal as if hiding her face. I wonder if I’ve embarrassed her. “Do you like fishing?” I ask.
“No, because it’s mean. Grandpa says fish don’t feel pain like we do because they have small brains, but what if one of them has a brain that’s different from all the other fish? How do you know you’re not catching the one fish that feels a lot of pain?”
“I see your point.” It dawns on me that I still haven’t found out why she knocked on my door. “Can I help you with something, Joan?”
“Yes, you can, Gavin.”
She hugs the journal to her chest and turns down the hall. I’m not entirely sure, but I think I’m meant to follow.