This photograph reminds me of the 50’s. The black and white kind where the kids have rose-tinted cheeks. You know those calendars with kids holding hands under umbrellas? Anyway, I’d framed it and put it on the mantle in our house. Today is one of those bad days. When I can’t hold my head up. Flynn can’t even help me because I miss Noah so much it’s hard to get out of bed. This type of missing doesn’t seem to abate even though it’s been six years. Usually I can watch a movie like Lost in Translation, eat a big breakfast and go about my day. Today I feel kind of sick. I have an art show in a week and lots of work to do. The centerpiece of the show has still yet to be finished.
Flynn leaves for work on his bike, with his fly-away hair.
“It’s so cold!” he shouts on his way out the door. I watch him pedal down the street.
My studio isn’t big enough. I try not to complain about it because Flynn wants a baby more then a bigger house. I think I do too. But today, I want my brother back more.
Noah with his tattoos and vagabond hair. His favorite corduroy vest, and smell of Colts. His stupid Volkswagen Jetta that never ran.
We were eighteen, sitting in the quarry in the shadows of the machinery. With dump trucks yawning at us, backhoes with their big gleaming eyes. Stars and sparks exploded into the velvet sky. Noah had smoked a joint; Flynn had a bottle of Jack Daniels. It was the first night I’d ever kissed him. I’d wanted to before but I’d been kind of a shit head. I’d loved Flynn since I was fifteen but never admitted it. We had crawled into the cab of a backhoe. He was kind of angry with me because I had made out with a guy named Alex and then showed up on Flynn’s porch hammered at 2am and asked him for twenty bucks for cigarettes and gas because I’d lost my job. Like I said. Shit head.
“You’ve got a problem,” He’d said.
“I think I’ve got more then one”
“Yeah,” long silence. Our breaths were white clouds. My fingers were cold. “Can I kiss you?” He asked, looking at me, with such honest eyes.
“Yes.” I thought I’d blown it a hundred times. I was miserable.
“Is it going to mean anything to you?”
“It’s going to mean the world,” I could feel a warm tear of relief on my cheek.
His adoration was so heavy, it smothered me. I liked his scruff on my cheek. It’s my best memory. That kiss.
When we were in the Jetta (one of the few times it worked) on our way home Noah had said; “You keep her straight, you keep her straight Flynn, when I’m gone. No one disserves her like you do,”
“Noah, you’re not going anywhere,” I’d laughed.
“I love you sister,” was all he said, and then stared out the window.
He was gone a week later. I think he wanted to make sure that I’d be okay.
I take the car and drive out of the city past the skyscrapers and into bleakness of the prairie to the little brick chapel where Flynn and I were married. All the fields are bare and trimmed for the winter. I listen to Crosby, Stills Nash and Young on the way. I cry. I sit on the bench in the graveyard until well past noon. The inscription on Noah’s stone is a Jack Kerouac quote. “Maybe that's what life is ... a wink of the eye and winking stars.”
On the way home I stop at a convenient store with a pay phone to call Flynn so he won’t worry. I like the sound of his voice over the phone. Concerned. I imagine his eyes. The smell of the house when I walk in. The colour of the front window curtains.
I feel so sick I throw-up in bathroom. Suddenly I realize that this sickness could be more then art-show nerves. I’m lucky that convenient stores carrying everything from engine oil to pregnancy tests.
I fly home.
Pregnant.
A baby.
I can’t wait to tell Flynn. It doesn’t seem to matter so much, that Noah is gone. And that, he won’t be coming back.
This is really good Sarah. It kept me really captivated =) I love the picture too. It fits so well.
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