A guy in a UConn hoodie came bounding up the steps two at a time like it was an Olympic track-and-field event. Patrick moved to the left to let him pass. He listened as the man ascended two more flights and kept his ears perked until the footsteps faded entirely.
“She, she just . . .” Greg began.
“I know.” He wanted the safety of the car before they did this, but if it had to be in the stairwell, then so be it. “Mom told me.”
“Three weeks ago she told me she wanted Steely Dan’s ‘Reelin’ in the Years’ played at her memorial and I told her to shut up. I couldn’t believe the end was this close. But she knew.”
Patrick turned slightly so Greg wouldn’t see his own pain. “She knew everything.” He should have come earlier. He should have been there to say goodbye. But he reasoned she was no longer his and hadn’t been in years. Every moment he spent at her side stole a moment from Greg or the kids.
Greg shook his head. Patrick focused on the window in the stairwell; someone had etched their initials with their keys. Beyond, planes were taking off and coming in, lights in formation dotting the evening sky.
“The doctor said that after a—” A car screeched around the corner just outside the door. Greg looked at each raw concrete wall as if noticing this prison for the very first time. “I guess it doesn’t matter what the doctor said. I was there with her, but she was gone before the kids could arrive.” He retched three times before doubling over, bracing his hands on his knees. Patrick pushed his suitcase back, stepped forward, held his brother by the hood of his sweatshirt, and winced.
“Come here,” he said after it was clear there was nothing in Greg’s stomach to empty. He helped his brother up half a flight to the next landing, away from this scene and, maybe, hopefully, closer to the car. He dragged his suitcase behind him, disgusted by what he might be dragging it through, knowing already he would burn it and buy new luggage upon his return home.
Greg wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, grabbing the railing to steady himself. “How did you survive this? With Joe?”
Patrick stopped cold, as if caught in a horrible lie. He pinched the bridge of his nose （where he could still feel the scar from the accident that took his boyfriend） and inhaled sharply. I didn’t, he thought. Survive. That was always his first response. But he was here, wasn’t he? He was the one still standing in the face of loss anew. He pointed up the rest of the stairs. “Let’s look for the car up there.”
They walked the aisles of this new level, Patrick having relieved Greg of the key fob and clicking it every few feet to listen for a telltale honk or to spot a set of flashing taillights. They ambled up one aisle and down the next for four or five rows before either of them said another word.
“What are you doing here?” Patrick asked.
“Huh?”
Patrick stopped to look at his brother. Why wasn’t he with the kids? “Greg.”
Greg stopped, turned back to face him, but didn’t answer.
“I thought Dad was picking me up.”
“I’m a drug addict.”
The cross talk was almost comical; Patrick tried hard not to laugh. It was one thing for Greg to employ humor as a coping mechanism for grief, but it was another for Patrick to come off in any way cavalier. So instead he just said, “Is this where you meet your dealer?” He looked up at the nearest post, which said 4e. “Should we pick up some catnip before we go home?”
“It’s not a joke.” Greg sat himself down on the bumper of a white passenger van, gently, so as not to set off an alarm.
“I’m not laughing,” Patrick said. A man in what he thought must be tap shoes walked quickly down the aisle behind them. “I’m confused.”
“What’s not to understand?”
“Like, heroin?”
“WHAT? No. Pills.”
“Pills. What kind of pills?”
“Vicodin, oxy, fentanyl, tramadol. I think I once took diet pills I found in my assistant’s desk drawer.”
Patrick was half horrified, half intrigued. “Did they work?”
“Did what work.”
“The diet pills.”
“You mean, did I get high?”
“No, did you get thin.” Greg didn’t answer and the silence dragged on, but Patrick thought, Good. He was angry now on top of everything else, and no longer wanted to be as quick to comfort. In fact, he was now questioning his brother’s dry heaves. “How could you let this happen?”