Brothers

Ben attempted a smile as Joe waved him into the room with a hand borrowed from a corpse. Joe’s daily quart of mouthwash had dissolved his liver. He had learned about the mouthwash trick at an AA meeting years ago. Mouthwash delivered a kick and hid the smell of alcohol. Joe switched to mouthwash after promising Mary that he had stopped drinking. She knew he hadn't, but years of arguing had left her silent.

Ben knew, but like Mary had run out of words to fight Joe’s lies. What did he think? That they didn't know about the dozens of mouthwash bottles hidden under the porch? That they didn't see the shadow passing under the streetlamp, carrying sacks of empties to hide in the car trunk? That they didn't notice his thickening, yellowing skin? That they couldn’t smell the rot on his breath?

They could only watch as he wrote, directed, and starred in his play of death. They suggested edits – stop drinking, stop lying about drinking. But Ben and Mary were merely the chorus. Allowed to sing their parts, but not to interfere with the one man show.

Joe had tried to write a play of life, but his past was too powerful. The broken knee the summer before starting his football scholarship, his girlfriend leaving when she realized he was no longer a football star, his marriage to a new love, their divorce and the loss of visitation rights for his son, the loss of his job when his company shut down, and endless other memories kept the alcohol flowing. But the true killers were the disappointment in his father's eyes, the ice in his mother's heart, and most of all his abandonment by Ben.

Four years older than Joe, Ben shielded Joe from some of their father’s rage. He even gave some of the love Joe needed from their mother. They created their own family. Their mother and father were the children, asking them for love they never gave to the brothers, or each other.

Ben eventually went to university, leaving Joe alone in the husk they called home. They visited and partied often and somehow maintained their family.

Ben found a job overseas after university. Joe came to see him off.

“You'll write and call?,” he asked.

“Sure. Definitely.”

Ben remembered.

I never wrote or called.

I never wrote or called.

I never wrote or called.

Ben’s silence crushed Joe. Their makeshift family faded and they became strangers.

Now, standing at the door of his brother’s hospice room, Ben knew Joe stared into death’s abyss. Two would soon be only one.

Joe waved Ben closer.

“You remember that song Mama used to play all the time?”

Ben remembered, “Sweet Dreams, by Patsy Cline?”

“Yeah, that's the one. Will you make sure they play it at my funeral?”

“Sure. Definitely.”

“You sure?”

“Definitely.”