He backed down another step, and Jerry’s head flopped again. This time, his lips pressed against Henry’s neck. Like a kiss. Once upon a time, a much younger Jerry had kissed Henry goodnight every evening before bed. Henry remembered the feel of Jerry’s mouth on his cheek, remembered him saying Night night, Bubby. See you in the morning. Those were the words he’d fallen asleep to for many years. After their parents had gone to bed. After the lights were off. Night night, Bubby. See you in the morning.
Now Jerry’s lips felt lifeless, rubbery, like the lips on a Halloween mask after a long, cold night of trick-or-treating.
Henry wanted to shift his brother, to get the lips off his neck, but he didn’t dare try it. He’d just have to deal with it until he made it to flat ground. He eased Jerry down another step, groaned, paused, and then repeated the process.
By the time he reached the first floor, Henry’s chest was damp with sweat and he was shaking uncontrollably. He thought he’d be able to drag Jerry through the living room and kitchen and out onto the back porch, but after that, he expected his body to give up on him. And that was fine. The back porch was as far as he needed to get.
Off the stairs and no longer in any danger of falling any farther than the distance from his head to the floor, Henry managed to ease Jerry’s lips off his neck. He dragged his brother away from the staircase, through the narrow entryway at the front of the house, and past the living-room sofa. He paused for a second at an end table and grabbed an old photo album from the drawer. He stuffed this in the waistband of his pants and moved on.
In the kitchen, he glanced toward the block of knives, now one short. He’d tucked the blade into his pocket the night before when they were doing dishes, snuck it when Jerry turned away to put a stack of dry plates in the cupboard. For a second, Henry thought Jerry had seen what he was doing—maybe caught his reflection in the toaster oven’s little glass door—but if he had seen, Jerry hadn’t said anything, and saying nothing had never exactly been his style.
Henry pulled his brother’s body around the small kitchen table, through the back door, and onto the porch.
“What would you do?” Jerry said. They sat on the couch on the back porch, reading. Jerry sat on the right—always on the right—with his foot up on the coffee table between a stack of old magazines and a tower of empty soda cans. He held his Kindle between two fingers and stared intently at the screen.
“That’s not a complete sentence.”
Now Jerry looked up. “Come on. Seriously. What would you do?”
“What would I do if what?” Henry put down his own Kindle and frowned.
“If…” He bit his lip. “You know…if I died.”
Henry rolled his eyes. “Let’s not start that again.”
“Why not?” Jerry said. “It’s a valid question.”
“It’s a stupid question. You’re not gonna die. Okay? Not anytime soon anyway.”
“You heard what the doct—”
“Phhhhhh.” Henry rolled his eyes. “The doctor? What’s he know? He couldn’t find his dick with both hands and a microscope.”
Jerry smiled but didn’t laugh. “It’s not a stupid question. I just want to know what you’d do.”
“I’d cry my eyes out, okay,” Henry said. “Is that what you wanna hear?”
“It’s a start.”
Henry punched him on the shoulder. “You know what I’d really do?”
“What?”
“I’d come out here and read alone,” said Henry, “and enjoy the fucking peace and quiet.”
On the back porch, under the glow of the single, low-wattage bulb, Henry lowered Jerry’s body to the wicker sofa and dropped down beside him, wheezing. The veins in his neck and head throbbed. He felt hot, dizzy.
He pulled the photo album out of his waistband and laid it across his leg, but before he opened it, he took a second to catch his breath and let his heart slow.
Exercise much? Jerry said.
Henry’s eyes flew open, and he turned to his brother. Jerry stared back at him with his dead, milky eyes.
I didn’t just hear that, Henry thought. Of course not. That was just my imagination. Or my guilt. Or both.
He watched Jerry for what felt like several minutes, knowing he wouldn’t move, wouldn’t speak, but half expecting him to anyway. In the dark yard beyond the porch, crickets chirped. Somewhere in the distance, a vehicle that must have been an eighteen-wheeler or a large truck sped by.
Henry cupped his hand around the side of Jerry’s face and gave it a gentle shake.
“Jer?”
Jerry said nothing.
“Brother?”
Still nothing.
Henry shook his head. He’d caught his breath, but his heart hadn’t stopped pounding. Maybe it never would.
He opened to the first page of the photo album, to a picture that showed young Henry and Jerry in a small, backyard pool. Mandy stood just outside the pool, maybe running around the perimeter, maybe getting ready to jump in and splash her little brothers. All three of them had huge smiles plastered across their faces, but Jerry’s was widest of all.
I always loved playing in that pool, Jerry said.
Henry ignored this and flipped to the next page.
Henry took out one of Jerry’s knights with his last pawn, simultaneously shielding his bishop from Jerry’s queen.
“Suck on that,” Henry said.
Jerry groaned.
While he waited for Jerry to make his move, Henry stared into the back yard. A couple of birds landed on the rusted T-pole that was the last of the pair that had once held the old clothesline. Henry tried to imagine a world in which people had the time or inclination to haul whole loads of wash into the back yard for air-drying and couldn’t quite do it.
“If it comes down to it,” Jerry said, “I don’t want to suffer.”
“Huh?”
Jerry repeated himself.
“Uh…duh,” Henry said. “You think there are people out there who do want to suffer?” He didn’t look away from the birds, didn’t quite understand what Jerry had said until his brain had a second to run through it again.
“Probably,” Jerry said. “But I’m not one of them.”
Now Henry looked at his brother. “Are you seriously talking about this again? I thought I—”
“I have to talk about it. No matter how much you want to pretend it isn’t happening, I need to face reality. We need to.”
Henry said nothing.
“If it comes down to it,” Jerry repeated, “I don’t want to suffer. But I don’t think I have the guts to…well, you know.”
“Yeah,” Henry said. “I know. Try not to worry about it, okay? Now shut up and make your damn move.”
Henry flipped to a picture from some birthday party or other. In it, both he and Jerry had cake smeared across their faces. Mandy wasn’t in this one, although she had undoubtedly been nearby. It might even have been her party. Henry couldn’t remember for sure.