I couldn’t imagine a world that he wasn’t in.
“We should call Alex,” I said finally, wiping a hand down my beard as I stepped away from my dad. “Do you want to or should I?”
“That’s up to you, Abraham,” Dad said. “Your mom and I would never put that burden on you, but we—hell—we thought you might want to do it.”
I nodded, understanding exactly what he was saying. He didn’t want me to have to tell Alex the news, but I knew that it should come from me. We were two halves of the same whole, and even though we were close to our parents, there wasn’t a relationship on earth that was closer than ours.
“Hey, bro!” Alex answered after his phone rang a couple times. “It’s late here, you know? Time difference and all that.” He laughed, and I had to brace myself against the countertop.
“Alex,” I ground out.
My brother went completely silent. I couldn’t even hear him breathing.
“Who?” he asked simply as I was trying to get my shit together.
“Henry.”
“Aw, fuck,” he hissed.
I heard something crash, but stayed silent as he cursed.
“Motherfuck!” he yelled, followed by more loud crashing coming through the connection.
I stayed with him, letting him get it out of his system. I hated listening to him lose his shit. It killed me that he was so far away. All alone. So I just waited. I would’ve sat on the phone all night.
“I’ll see if I can get home,” he said finally, his breathing heavy and loud. “How are Ellie and Mike doing?”
“Uncle Mike sedated her, so she’s asleep for now.”
“Christ,” he sighed. “And Trev?”
“He took off. Probably out in the woods somewhere.”
“Yeah, not surprising. He’ll come back when he’s ready.”
“I wish I knew where he was headed,” I said tiredly, staring at my mom’s granite countertop as I scratched at my beard.
“If he wanted anyone to know, he would have said something,” Alex said flatly. “I’m going to call and see what I can do about getting leave, all right?”
“Yeah. Let me know?”
“Yep. Give everyone a kiss for me. I’ll call you in a bit.”
“Okay.” The word was barely out of my mouth before he’d hung up.
I looked up and met my dad’s eyes as I dropped the phone to my side.
He was crying.
“He all right?” he asked, not bothering to even wipe off his face.
No. He wasn’t. I didn’t know when any of us would be all right again.
“He’s going to try and come home,” I replied instead.
“Good.”
The next few hours were spent gathered in my parents’ living room as we fielded phone calls from my brother and sister. Both Alex and Kate were trying to fly home the next morning and were calling my parents as they found their flights.
Neither needed help. I think they just needed the connection to home, even if it was over the phone.
Arielle woke up and had to be fed, then fell asleep again. My mom drifted off for fifteen minutes, then jerked awake when the phone rang. Ani paced the floor.
Finally, around one in the morning, my dad forced Mom to go to bed and get some sleep.
“I should probably get Arielle home too,” Ani rasped, glancing at the baby.
“I’ll drive,” I said as my dad came back into the room.
“You two can stay here tonight,” he replied, rubbing his hand over the bald spot on his head.
I used to think he’d gone bald there because he always rubbed it when he was overwhelmed or frustrated with one of us kids. Kate, Alex, and I called it his “worry spot.”
“She’s finally sleeping through the night,” Ani replied, shrugging her shoulders. “I should probably bring her home to her own bed.”
Dad nodded, and Ani got ready to go. As we left, we both hugged him good-bye and promised him we’d be back in the morning.
It was both a relief to get out of the house, and hard to leave.
Shock was slowly turning into grief.
We were silent as we made our way to Ani’s house. I didn’t have anything to say and she didn’t, either. I pulled into her driveway, and we were silent as I helped her carry Arielle into the house. Silent as I kissed Arielle good-bye. Silent as I pulled Ani into a hug and kissed her hair.
Silent as I left.
I drove all the way to my town house, but before I’d even reached for the remote to open my garage, I was throwing the truck into reverse and turning around.
Ani met me at her front door like she’d known I’d be back and led me into her bedroom. She climbed into bed facing away from me, and I stripped down before crawling in and curling myself around her.
We were silent even then.
* * *
When Arielle woke us up at seven the next morning, we got up and went back to my parents’ house. We didn’t discuss the fact that I’d spent the night or that I’d changed Arielle and given her a bottle that morning before Ani had even gotten out of bed.