Joseph Faria - My Brother

My brother has large hands, a dark complexion, and a deep voice. He's heavier than me, with large brown eyes and a quick smile. When we were growing up, I remember asking my mother if he was a saint. "He never does anything wrong," I remember saying to my mother. We were sitting under the grape arbor, in our back yard, and my little brother was playing in the dirt with his army men.

"He's a wonderful baby," my mother said.

"I think he's a saint Mama."

"No he's not a saint," she laughed. "He's just a good boy."

"He never cries. He's always smiling. He never does anything wrong. He must be a saint, Mama. He has to be."

My mother laughed. She hugged me. "My sons are all saints to me."

"No Mama, that's not true. I know I'm not a saint."

When we got a little older, and my father gave me the strap, my brother would yell at my father, to stop hitting Timmy. "He's my brother," he’d yell. He was always sticking up for me when my father was angry.

Then one day my brother got sick. He couldn't walk too good. He said his feet hurt. But he never cried. You'd see the tears, but not his voice. He missed plenty of school then.

One morning mother woke me up before dawn. It was still dark. It was cold in the room. The lights in the kitchen were on.

"Mama it's too early to go to school."

"You're not going to school today. We're taking Billy to the hospital."

Even now I still remember her face, rocking in and out of the shadows coming from the light in the kitchen. She looked so old as if she had just woke up that way. She was only twenty-eight then.

Everyone blamed my mother for my brother's sickness. For letting him walk barefoot in a house without adequate heating. We had a stove, but that wasn't enough they said.

My brother missed two years of school. He was in the hospital for most of that time. Papa was always angry then. He never let me go out and play with my friends.

"Your brother is in the hospital," he'd shout. "Don't you miss your brother?"

There were times when I thought he was angry because it didn't happen to me. But that was then, sixteen years ago. Now, I'm married, I have my own apartment, and I have a son.

My brother comes to visit me. He’s got something to tell me, he says. We’re alone in my living room. He’s sitting across from me smiling, that quick smile of his, with those large brown eyes of his.

"I'm getting married," he says.

I sit quietly and stare at him. There are so many things I want to say. I guess he sees it in my eyes.

He stands and says, "That's all I wanted to tell you."

I nod and watch him walk out.

"I’ve missed you," I whisper.

MY BROTHER

by

Joseph M. Faria