The Boys
Alyson Shelton
Word Count 891
A baby octopus. A bounty beyond our wildest dreams. My brother, Aaron, the youngest boy, yanks it from its crevice under the yacht club dock. It’s tentacles undulate in the air. We touch its slimy body and dream of taking him home, making him an octopus pet. We wordlessly acknowledge that impossibility and return him to his natural home, the saltwater of the bay we live on.
A wave thrashes me. My bathing suit and ears are packed with sand, full to bursting. Paul, the oldest, a devoted surfer, gently shows me how to pour hydrogen peroxide in my ear and turn my head, pouring the hydrogen peroxide and sand out, little by little. We repeat this process until my ear is clear.
Luke unfurls the windsurfing sail, my sail, customized just for me. He wants me to have my own rig, so I can shred too.
Michael sits in his room, listening to a baseball game and watching another on a portable black and white TV. I sit on his bed with him. He explains baseball stats to me one more time. I lean back, soothed by the voice of Vin Scully and the scratch of Michael’s pencil.
I gather these ‘happy’ memories of my brothers and don’t let go. Even though I am not one of “The Boys,” as absolutely everyone calls the four of them, I am one of the siblings. I hold these moments as proof that I count.
The bay outside our home and the ocean not far beyond keep me whole. The sound of the wood planks of our dock under my feet and the reliable crash of ocean waves are the tools that slow the beating of my rabbit heart. I hide my heart to keep it safe, there is no space for fear in this family of ours.
They tell stories. Being the youngest by a decade and only girl, I listen. I itch to ask (and at long last be answered), “How do you know which stories are funny?”
“Aaron, remember that time I duct taped your wrists together, your hands turned blue.” Paul shakes his head at Aaron and his telltale blue hands.
Dad laughs, most of the boys laugh, except Michael. He shakes his head and neither frowns or smiles, occupying the space between joining in and showing defiance.
“Oh yeah, and remember that time you sliced your Achilles, I thought that'd be the end of your surfing.” Aaron says to Paul.
“And I split my eyebrow, so much blood man.” Luke laughs.
“And remember when we played orange tag, man those left a mark. You would stand on the roof, Paul. And that one time you fell and split your head open, I could see your brain!” Luke can barely breathe, he's laughing so hard. For now, Luke finds safety being Paul’s hype man.
Quietly my mom would say, later, much later, “That day, Paul had a hole in his head and your brother Michael said, ‘Let him bleed to death.’ I should have known then something was wrong.”
It’s easy to say that now. But let’s not forget how unbelievably confident they were. And to make things worse they were handsome, rich and charming. They reeked of privilege and the world found it intoxicating.
One late August night, the phone rings. We assume it’s about Paul and Luke, down in Mexico, surfing and getting high. But no, Michael is missing. Out hiking with friends in the Rockies (“Michael? Hiking? This must be a mistake.”). He complains of altitude sickness and heads back to the car alone. Early the next day, the Rangers find his glasses and later, his body at the bottom of a vertiginous cliff. The sane one. The cautious one is gone, his life ending in free fall.
The death of a child shakes a family to its foundation but what if that foundation is built on lies? Honestly what chance did our family have; falling apart was the most sane choice we could make.
But first, we stand in the park, holding hands, a circle of mourners, remembering Michael, telling more stories. Paul and Luke don’t know what to say, have an impossible time holding his name in their mouths without making him the butt of their jokes and so they do what comes naturally,
“Remember how he couldn’t see, he’d always strike out! And the glasses didn’t help!”
“He loved baseball stats. He loved the game, even if he couldn’t play.”
At the drunken party afterwards, more formally called a wake, is the first time I hear, as if on repeat,
“You’re only his half-sister.”
“He’s not your real brother.”
“Don’t be so sad.”
It blindsides me this flippant erasure of my grief. I am the other, not a full sibling, and it’s understood that my grief, like me, should be smaller, take up less space. I am only a supporting member of this cast and to claim more than my meager slice would be unappealing,“Selfish.”But I loved him, dearly. His thick glasses. His goofy laugh. Even, or especially, his simmering rage at Paul and Dad. All the things that made him the one that didn’t fit with ‘The Boys’ gifted him to me. We made a pair and now, with him gone, I am alone, aching for my other half.
Alyson wrote and directed the award winning feature, Eve of Understanding. She wrote and created the comic, Reburn, which will wrap up its first arc in 2022. Her original screenplay, The Night We Met, was selected for the 2nd round of the 2021 Sundance Creative Producing Lab. Additionally, her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Ms., among others and she is at work on a memoir. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @byalysonshelton.
