Lately, one of the few memories I have with my brother keeps returning to me in dreams: the night he lifted me from my bed and carried to me to a bathtub filled with ice cubes and cold water. I was delirious with fever, in and out like a distant radio signal, and in danger of dying if my fever could not be brought down. My brother had come to live with us while between jobs, and so my mother put him to work when the doctor gave the order to cool me down.
I remember him unbuttoning my pajamas and pulling them over my head, and despite the fever, I was embarrassed. I hardly knew him, and the truth is, I had a little-girl crush. Ever since he arrived at our front door, I found myself going out of my way to harass and tease him – anything to get his attention. To me, he seemed like a miracle, arriving at just the right time, when I was longing for a big brother. And since he was eighteen years older than I was, he was also a mystery. Why hadn’t I known him all these years?
It couldn’t have been too long – maybe three years – after this night that he was banished from our lives for good.
My feelings change depending on whether these images flash into my mind during the daytime, or creep up on me in sleep: In the daytime, this bathtub scene takes on a sweet quality, a moment when I felt like I had a real brother, someone who took care of me in a vulnerable moment. At night, I wake myself up trying to wriggle out of my brother’s arms, pushing his hands away from my pajama buttons. Mostly – and I realize this is fallacy – I try to figure out what I am supposed to feel, which is to say what other people would feel, about a moment like this.
Given that I had so few moments with him, maybe I could never really perceive this moment in a way that makes sense. Maybe my mind could never really assimilate to the man who showed up on our front doorstep with a suitcase and lunch pail, ready to reconcile with his father – my father. Maybe if he had been with me all my life, it would not be so hard to understand what he means to me now. Maybe it would be easier to weigh his defenses against all the other evidence. Maybe I could stop putting my memories on trial and just miss him. Like other sisters would.
