These Dreams

Curt tried to leave while Mom and Marty weren't home. I came downstairs late in the morning to find him in the kitchen with his suitcase on the table. He was trying to cram clothes haphazardly into it. Curt's guitar case was leaning on one of the kitchen chairs.

“Do you need some help?” I asked.

“No,” he said, not looking up. “Why is it any of your business what I do, anyway,” he mumbled.

I pretended that the jab didn't sting. “You're going to Chicago, right?”

Curt rolled his eyes. “That's the plan. Bus leaves in twenty.”  He zipped up the suitcase and pulled it off the table. “I have a place to stay, don't worry. I'll find my way, sis.”

“I know.” I turned away from him and opened my wallet. Behind all my plastic cards there was a hundred dollars. I'd saved it just for this moment.

I faced him and pressed the five twenty-dollar bills into his hand. “You spent most of your money on bus tickets, so I know you don't have much to start out on.  Take this, Curt. Please.”

“Thank you,” he said, putting the money in his pocket. “Look't you, Cam. Always prepared.”

I swallowed. “I'm going to miss you. I wish you didn't have to go.”

I saw tears well up in my brother's eyes. “Don't start crying on me now. I'll miss you too.”

I gave him a hug. “Live our dreams. For me,” I said into his shoulder.

Curt grinned. “Oh, you know I will.”

We heard a rumble in the driveway.  “Shit, that's Marty,” Curt said.  He grabbed his suitcase and guitar and headed for the door. It was opened first by our step-father, who dropped his briefcase when he saw Curt storming towards him. “Move,” Curt demanded.

“Where are you going?” Marty asked, confused.

“Away,” Curt said.  “I'm sure Mom will be so pleased.”

“Of course not,” Marty said in that calm, apathetic tone of his. “Your mother and I care about you.”

“Uh-huh. That's why you've told everyone that I'm a failure and probably going to end up in jail someday. Yup.” He stared straight into Marty's dull eyes. “Have a fun life, crunching numbers day in and day out forever.  Me, I'm gonna burn bright.” Curt turned back and looked at me again. “Stay sharp, Cam. Love ya.”  He slammed the door behind him.

Marty looked at the closed door and back at me several times before saying, “Why didn't you stop him?”

“It's not my business to tell him what to do.”  I went back upstairs, to Curt's room. I moved a pair of boxers off the dresser to reveal an old photo in a frame. Curt and I, seven years old, after our swimming tests. Our father, with his great hands on our shoulders. Curt had inherited his father's grin, but could never seem to live up to his integrity.

I flipped over the frame. That had been a long time ago. And everyone went away.

Everyone, it seemed, except me.

Later on that evening, I heard a knock on my bedroom door.  It was my mom, finally home from work. I was on the floor in my beanbag chair, reading a book, already in my work-clothes for the night shift later on.  “Come in,” I said.

My mother sighed, sitting on my bed. “Is it true what Marty said?  Is Curt gone for good?”

“Yes,” I said, not looking up from my book. I was at a particularly good scene. “Don't worry, he'll be fine. I gave him some money so he won't be completely broke once he gets to Chicago -”

Mom ripped the novel out of my hands. “What do you mean you gave him some money? Chicago? Camille, have you known about this all along?”

I stood up, staring my mother in the eye. “It's not my business. But yeah, I figured he'd probably be leaving some time.”

“Why did you let him go! It is very much your business what your twin brother does!”

I shrugged. “Not really. Just because we're twins doesn't mean he isn't his own person. But you know this. Especially since I'm the 'good twin' and all.”

“Now that's just not fair.”

I wormed my way out of my mother's presence to the door. “Might not be fair, but it's true.”

“Why didn't you try to get him to stay, Cam?  I'm just trying to keep this family together.”

“Mom, I don't see us as a family. I think that ended when Dad died.” As soon as I said the words I immediately regretted them, but it felt so good to tell the truth.

Mom left the room very fast – it looked like there were tears in her eyes, but I couldn't tell for sure. In the end it wouldn't matter, what I'd said. I was the good twin; always paid rent to her and Marty, did chores. And soon I would be moving into my own place, once I'd saved up enough. Mom would forgive me, like she always did, and life would move on. And I'd stay in Newlin forever.