Before Him

Unlocking the bifold doors, I push them wide open and plonk my arse on the tracks to suck up a little sunlight. The tiny house—sorry, pixie palace, or whatever this place is called—is surrounded by a hedge on two sides and trees on the other. It’s a peaceful spot. The only inconvenience is that there’s only street parking. It’s a good thing I travel light.

It’s a pretty awesome day. The sun is shining, the sky azure and without a cloud. Birds tweet from the boughs of an elderly oak, and bluebells nod around the edges of the lawn. I inhale the scent of fresh-cut grass and clean air as I balance the photos on my right thigh.

They are . . . kind of trippy.

There are a couple of Wilder as baby, one as a newborn, maybe no more than a few hours old, all scrunched and angry and unrecognisable as the boy I saw yesterday. There are a couple more taken by mediocre photographers in a mall setting. I look at the baby pics least of all, not because they’re symbolic of what I’ve missed but because they’re hardest to relate to. The others, I can’t stop looking at. In one, it looks like Wilder is graduating kindy or something, a chubby-cheek kid with a smile so wide it’s takes up most of his face. I almost crack up again at the tiny mortar board balanced on his head and the gold-trimmed robe worn over his shorts and T-shirt. Someone, probably the teacher, has thrust a scrolled certificate in his hand like he’s some bachelor degree earning child prodigy. As though the get-up wasn’t enough to make me lose my shit, this thought does. Not with the Phillips genes, you don’t, son. We’re not a bunch of thick heads, my brothers and me. We’re above average smarts, except maybe Flynn, who I maintain is a couple of fries short of a Happy Meal. You’d have to be to offer what he did to win Chastity, but that’s another story. The four of us are decently educated, good-looking, solvent, and mostly successful in our chosen fields. Not that my field was necessarily chosen and more like something I fell into. I get paid good money to take my clothes off. What the fuck was I thinking? I forgot to mention I usually get paid for putting different clothes back on again.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is we all reached all our milestones at the appropriate times. No tiny boffin brains in my crew.

But it’s the next photo that’s of most interest to me. It looks recent, maybe taken within the last year—another school shot. I guess no one prints their own photos these days, they just languish on our phones. In this one, Wilder’s smile isn’t so wide, but it’s just as captivating. Like he’s trying his best. Like he cares. It’s nothing like the photos my parents shelled out for year after year. Our hair standing on end or slicked back with water to give the appearance of a full-on mullet. Smiles with strategically missing teeth thanks to a packet of Grape Zappo lollies we’d bought from the tuck shop, then plastered over our teeth. Maybe that stuff only happens when you’ve got older, goading, and sometimes tormenting brothers. There might be strength in numbers, but there’s also a whole lot of shit throwing and accusations of being a suck-up if you don’t toe the line.

And that was just last month . . .

I find myself wondering if it’s Wilder’s personality that makes him stand so straight and proud. If it’s something he’s learned from his mum. Or if like Kennedy says, it’s because he’s sensitive. Sensitive to the strains put on a single mother. A sudden tension manifests between my shoulder blades. I roll my shoulders in an attempt to loosen them and push the unpleasant ruminations away.

I stare down at the photograph balanced on my thigh and notice how the collar of Wilder’s polo shirt has flipped up. While someone has obviously dragged a comb through his hair, the crooked side part has made his hair stand on the back of his head.

Stuck up like a chook’s bum.

My dad’s voice echoes in my head, the sight of the comb in his hand and the amused curl to his mouth so fresh in my mind. Fuck, I wish he was around right now. The old man would help me make sense of a few things. Then I realise I’m making sense of one or two things of my own. Like how the kid has a double crown just like me. Just like my dad. But maybe more confusing and more pertinent than how our hair stands on end like the feathers of a chicken’s derriere is how Kennedy didn’t ask what happened to him to my dad, I mean.