Not for escape.
For a trip together.
She had imagined the brothers using the money when they were adults, going somewhere neither had to be the responsible one or the runaway. The amount would never be enough for much. That was not the point. She wanted them to choose a destination together.
Nathan put the page down.
Aaron stared into the tin at quarters, dimes, nickels, and folded bills tucked beneath the photographs.
“She kept doing this all these years?”
Nathan nodded slowly. “I saw her put change in sometimes. I thought it was just where she kept coins.”
Aaron picked up one childhood photograph. They were sitting on a station bench at perhaps ten and fourteen, both wearing backpacks too large for them. Their mother must have taken it during a day trip to the city.
On the back she had written a date and one sentence: THEY ALWAYS THINK THE TRAIN GOES FARTHER THAN IT DOES.
Nathan laughed again, and this time the sound broke into a sob.
Aaron had not seen his brother cry at the funeral.
He had not been there.
The fact struck him with fresh force.
Nathan bent forward, elbows on his knees.
“I was so angry at you in the hospital,” he said. “She kept asking whether you had called. I wanted to tell her to stop. I wanted one day where she asked if I was tired instead.”
Aaron looked at the letter.
“You should’ve told me.”
Nathan lifted his head. “I did.”
Aaron opened his mouth.
“Not clearly,” Nathan continued. “I called about bills. I called about appointments. I called and made everything sound like a problem you were supposed to fix from far away because I didn’t know how to say I needed my brother.”
Aaron sat with that.
“And I heard the problem and avoided the call because I thought you were trying to drag me back into a life I left.”
“You did leave.”
“I know.”
Nathan’s eyes hardened.
“You got to become someone else. I stayed in the same town, the same job, the same kitchen. Everybody told me what a good son I was like it was a prize.”
Aaron felt the old defense rising again: the Army had not been easy, training had not been escape, loneliness had followed him there too.
He could say all of that later.
“You shouldn’t have had to carry Mom alone.”
Nathan looked at him.
