He looks like he hasn’t slept in days.
“I asked you to come here for a reason.” He scrubs a hand over the back of his neck. “I chose this spot because I needed to see you here.”
My eyes dart from his face to the street that I just crossed. “Why here?”
He crouches in front of me. His feet are inside shoes that are too expensive for the matted brown grass they’re touching. “We met here, Bella. We met right in this spot nineteen years ago.”
I shake my head. Maybe he’s delusional from lack of sleep or grief over his dad’s condition. “We met at Atlas 22.”
His hands move quickly in front of him. You played with my sister that day. You played with Bizzy.
It takes me a second to realize that Barrett knows sign language.
Confusion rushes through me. Shaking my head, I get up off the swing and walk around him, headed out of the playground.
He can’t be that boy. He can’t be Bizzy’s brother.
I don’t really remember him. All I know is what my grandmother told me about him and small flashes of memories that only come to me when I’m asleep.
He was the boy who came to the park with his eight-year-old sister. She was deaf. He couldn’t sign.
Marti told me that I gave him hell for not learning how to talk to her.
I schooled him on how to say hi, and bye, and most importantly I love you.
“Bella,” he says my name as his hand falls on my shoulder to stop me. “Please let me explain. I’ve waited nineteen years to explain.”
“You’re not him,” I say with my back to him.
“I’m him,” he insists. “You had a baseball cap on your head. Mets, I think.”
“Yankees.” I turn to face him.
My brother loves the Yankees. The cap was a hand-me-down from him. I’m wearing it in many of the pictures my mom took of me when I was a kid. After the accident, I never saw it again.
I’ve never mentioned the cap to Barrett.
“You gave me shit for not knowing how to sign.” His hands move in unison with his words as he signs.
I wish I could remember every detail of that day.
“I don’t remember that.”
“I had to take care of Bizzy that day. I couldn’t communicate with her.” He bows his head. “She couldn’t read lips. I couldn’t sign.”
I’ve always known how to sign. My dad is deaf. In our family, you learn sign language at the same pace as you learn how to talk.
“Your grandma gave her candy.” He smiles. “It was a red heart-shaped lollipop. She gave you one too.”
My grandma always kept a bunch of candies in her purse for her grandkids and any kids who came into the restaurant.
“That sounds like my grandma,” I whisper.
“Bizzy signed something to her…thank you, I think.” He gazes at my face. “You jumped right into the middle of that, and you two hit it off. She must have told you I didn’t know how to talk to her because you turned to me and asked what kind of big brother I was.”
I fight to hold back a smile. “I was taught it’s always best to say what you feel.”
“Oh, you did.” He laughs. “I learned sign language after that day. I wanted to talk to my sister. I needed to talk to her after what happened on that street.”