Four * (Patreon)

Four *

When we first arrived in Malagash, Simon was just my little brother, someone I had to keep busy so he wasn't always underfoot. A family pet I had to protect from the crows. A responsibility. The waif.

It felt like I could never get away from him.

"Look after your brother."

"Take Simon with you."

At night, sometimes I'd stay up late, long after everyone had gone to sleep, and I'd climb down the ladder of our bunk beds. I would sit in the dark and listen to the recordings of our father's voice and cry. It was the one place I was safe to cry. To cry and smile at the same time. It calmed me down. It made me feel safe and created this little world where nothing would ever change.

And then one night, I woke up and there was Simon, down on the floor with the headphones on, his face barely visible in the laptop light. I sat there and watched him. I was so angry. He'd taken my one private place.

But I watched. I watched his face flicker with the smallest expressions. Confusion. Fear. Tears. And then he smiled. He smiled and I felt suddenly sick with shame. How self absorbed do you have to be to not see? To not recognize that your brother is a person too?

Another night, my own thoughts and worries drifted away to the sound of Simon crying in the bunk below mine. Or trying his best not to cry. In the morning, while we were getting dressed, I reached out and I pulled him into a hug. I kissed his head, and I squeezed him, and yes I was ashamed that it had taken me so long to finally see him. To see he was afraid of our father dying, too. Afraid of being alone. To see that he was afraid of me, of being in my way, of being a person in front of me.

But I was happy, too. I wasn't alone anymore.

The recordings wouldn't make a ghost out of our father. At best we were making a scrapbook. Memories. And that wasn't a bad thing. We were paying more attention than we ever had. We were getting to know him better. And no, that wouldn't make him live forever. Nothing would make him live forever.

We spent so much time clinging to him, holding every moment like it was ours to keep. Because it was ours, we thought. He was dying, and we only had these last few moments to see him. To know him. And so we took them. We took them and we took them.

But I didn't show him how scared I was. I never told him we were trying to catch his ghost. He never saw that I was the kind of idiot who thought you could program a ghost into a computer. The kind of idiot who couldn't see her own brother was a person too.

The kind of idiot who hid her feelings from her dying father because she thought it was the strong thing to do, like Simon trying not to cry in his own bed at night.

We only had these last few moments with him, but he only had these last few moments at all. He only had these last few moments, and he was beautiful and open and he was our father. And I was scared and hiding. I was making jokes. I was being strong.

I love Simon. He is my brother, and I've always loved him. But I stumbled on his hiding places. And now I can see him. Or I can see more of him. I don't know if my father ever got to. I don't know if he ever got to see me.

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