Chapter 3

With all the new requests to follow me on social media, I think this must be what it’s like for the families of famous people when they die. All of a sudden, everyone’s interested and dying—figuratively—for a piece of the macabre glow. Gross.

I assumed I would be consoled by the outpouring, but the connection to the digital world isn’t real. The avatars and likes and shares, it’s all insincere. I cringe at the link to a YouTube video of Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings” someone from high school posted and tagged me in. She calls my brother the wind beneath her wings. Whoever Beth Ann Creedy is, she clearly needs attention.

In the past few years, I’d built up my social media following, weaving whatever kind of friendship could be formed over a mutual love of reality television and prickly sarcasm. Now, though, with a dead brother…I’m suddenly more popular. What a life hack. Somebody dies, earn a whole bunch of followers.

Compelled to say something to my new public, I type up a quick post thanking everyone for their support and well wishes. I refrain from adding except Beth Ann Creedy.

It sets off another round of alerts for comments and likes and even more requests. It’s overwhelming, and I ignore them, including one from my ex-best friend, Jaya.

We’d broken up during senior year of high school because of her dumbass boyfriend. He was a jerk, and I told her so, maybe in not such nice words, but it still came from my heart. Jaya didn’t see it that way. I graduated high school without a best friend. She’s now married to the jerk.

She reached out to me when she got pregnant to invite me to her baby shower. A way to mend the fence, I guess, but I was living in the city and made up some excuse not to go. I could’ve…but I didn’t want to. We’d gone in different directions, and our lives felt incompatible with each other. Plus, I’m not great at making conversation, and I hate games, especially when they involve baby things. Although, the pictures she posts of that little girl are cute. Thank god she didn’t inherit her father’s hairline.

If it hadn’t been for our bad history ten years ago, maybe I’d call her now and tell her how shitty this all is. She’d probably say something soothing and maternal because that’s the type of person she was, and I’d be mollified. But instead, I have nothing to say.

I hate that my brother is right…was right. I do push people away.

Ray would make comments all the time about me being the Tin Man or something. He’d joke that I had a black heart, which was why I always wore so much black. But he wasn’t that great either. He was cocky and not in the funny kind of way. He liked to be the center of attention and never apologized for anything. Even if it was his fault.

But what did I care? What did anybody care? We loved him just the same for being Mr. Perfect. He was my big brother, I was the little sister, and I played my role, worshipping him with adoration while challenging him whenever I could.

Still, I moved away to find out who I was outside of Ray’s sister. I started reading and writing because he was the athletic, outgoing one. Making up stories was my thing. He might have been good at parties, but I was good at school, at writing columns for the school newspaper, extra credit work in English, tutoring other kids, and taking AP courses. I went to Columbia, graduated magna cum laude, and where did it all get me? The basement of my parents’ house.

Back to being Raymond’s little sister.

My phone buzzes, startling me out of my bitter thoughts. Gary’s name is on the screen, the assistant manager at Sassie’s.

Work. I’d completely forgotten.

“Hi,” I answer, anticipating why he’s calling me at three o’clock in the afternoon. “I forgot I had to work today. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” he nearly shouts, and I rub at my tired eyes. Gary’s actually a year or two younger than me, but he loves to play up his boss role. “You were supposed to be here an hour ago.”

“I know. I’m sorry, I?—”

“Cass, you better get here now. After the conversation we had the other day about you needing shifts, all of a sudden, you’re not gonna show up or even let us know you’re not?”

It’s easy to slip into bitch mode. Hit that downshift immediately. “Well, no, Gary, I’m not gonna show up, and it slipped my mind to call you while I’m dealing with the sudden death of my brother. I guess you didn’t hear the news.”

He stutters. He knew my brother. Everybody in this town did. Raymond was the goddamn unofficial mayor.

“Oh Jesus, Cass. I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

“Join the club,” I snap.

“I’ll have your shifts covered for the week. But let me know…about things, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” I hang up, and it strikes me again how everyone else is living their lives, people are working, going out to eat, hitting on women in kilts with ridiculous catcalls, but my brother isn’t. He won’t ever do anything again.

He won’t breathe. He won’t blink his eyes. He won’t feel the rain on his skin or open his mouth to speak. He won’t hear music or smell Mom’s terrible vinegar cleaning solution. He won’t sling his arm around my shoulders or point at me with a stupid wink while belting out “Thunder Road.” He won’t ever answer my texts by calling me or shake his head at me when I refuse his invitation to watch the new superhero movie out at midnight. As if I’d suddenly change my mind about them.

I don’t care about the Avengers or buildings blowing up.

But he did. And I would see those movies one hundred times over with him. I’d do anything if…

My throat closes like I’ve eaten shellfish.

Ray always got annoyed we couldn’t eat out or order in from anywhere with shellfish. Every year when his birthday rolled around, he always asked to go to Red Lobster, but Mom and Dad would deny him because I couldn’t go. He’d pout, and they’d buy him an extra slice of cake or an ice cream sundae.

My shellfish allergy never killed me.

Ray didn’t even have an allergy.

And I hate him for dying all over again. I hate him because I love him.

The whirl of emotion steals my breath, and I bend over, dropping my head between my knees. It’s a while before I’m not so dizzy, and I head upstairs, finding flowers and baskets clogging up every corner of the house. Aunt Joanie’s paging through some celebrity gossip magazine on the sofa in the living room, and I sit next to her. She offers me a doleful smile and pets my hair, answering a question I don’t ask.

“Your mom is sleeping. Your dad is out,” she says pointedly. “And Nana’s at church lighting candles.” She sighs, and I rest my head on her shoulder. The two of us were always kindred spirits. “Did you eat today?” she asks.

I nod, lying, afraid if I speak the words, she’ll figure me out. I don’t have an appetite lately.

“How did it go this morning with the funeral director?”

Sitting upright, I shrug. “Okay… I picked a program with, like, a watercolor of a sky and rainbow, and we made a schedule for the service.” I pause, gnawing at my bottom lip as I recall the way my dad acted, stonewalling Mr. Mancini, passing everything off to me. I want to talk to Joanie about it, but it’s too much like tattletale-ing, so I don’t. “I actually know them, or one of them, I mean. Vince was in Ray’s grade. They used to be really good friends.”

“Oh yeah?” She glances at me before flipping a page in the magazine, and I nod, staring up at the corner of the ceiling, picturing a different time.

“He was the catcher.”

“Who? Raymond?”

“No, Vince. I remember he and Ray had this handshake they did before games.” I smile at the memory. “Sometimes he’d come over and hang out, and he’d always ask me what new book I was reading. Some of Ray’s other friends were…you know how high school boys are, but not Vince.” I exhale deeply, back to the present. “Guess he works for his dad now.” I brush my bangs—the bangs my mother hates—to the side and look over to Aunt Joanie, who has her lips pursed. One single wrinkle between her eyebrows.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says after a beat, her questioning mouth and wrinkle gone.

“I still have to go there to pick the casket and stuff.” I pull the sleeves of my sweatshirt over my hands and cross my arms as exhaustion slackens my body. I relax against the pillows. “It was too much for me to do it all at once.”

She closes the magazine and rubs my knee gently. “You shouldn’t have to do all this by yourself.”

“Well, Mom isn’t…” I trail off. She isn’t in the land of the living either. “And Dad hasn’t been around.” I imagine losing a child might be the worst thing a person can go through, so I can’t blame my parents for their reactions to my brother’s death.

Can I?

Aunt Joanie’s eyes well up, and I close my own eyes, not willing to succumb to the pain of it all. I lean my head back on the couch, although before I can get too comfortable, the house phone rings. I always teased my mother for having a house phone, but I guess it serves a purpose when people die.

“Sit there. I’ll answer it,” Joanie says and stands to cross the room. I pull my feet up under me and roll sideways into the fetal position as my aunt tells the person on the other line, “It’s fine with me, but you’ll have to stay in a hotel… Uh-huh, call me. I’ll give you my cell phone number.”

She’s pacing barefoot back and forth along the gray-and-cream patterned rug, and her long hair is up in a ponytail. She still looks good, even though I assume she’s gotten no rest being here, sleeping next to my mom upstairs. I’d heard her tell my mom she’ll stay here as long as she needs it, but I can’t imagine it’s true. She’s some bigwig in the medical network, something about marketing and outreach. I was never real interested in her job, more her makeup and wardrobe. Joanie’s the one who turned me on to my signature Russian Red lipstick and liquid eyeliner.

As upset as I am that it’s Aunt Joanie who sits down and pulls my feet into her lap, I try to be understanding of why my own mother can’t be bothered to check on me. I understand that her son is gone, but he’s not her only baby. I’m her baby too. And I need my mom, no matter what our relationship lacks in the friendship department.

“That was your aunt Barbara,” Joanie says, referring to my dad’s sister. “She and David will be coming down tomorrow.”

David is my father’s estranged brother, and my gut clenches at the possibility of family drama.

More drama. Exactly what we need.

Aunt Joanie rubs my feet. “I’ll take care of them. You take care of you.”

I clear my throat of the few pebbles there and turn on the television, hoping to shut my mind off for a few hours, and find the Game Show Network. Press Your Luck is on. It’s not Price is Right, but it’ll do.

I close my eyes and sleep. Not quite soundly, but not fitfully either. Because of a warm embrace there, a surrounding mix of amber and green. And, somehow, in my dreamland, I know it’ll be okay.