Alvin's Brother

“Slow down,” I say as we round a corner. “The baby won’t be here for at least a couple of hours.”

My brother Kano has a tendency to drive like a maniac whenever he’s excited, and this must be the most excited he’s been since... well, I was born. If I were old enough to drive, I would’ve kicked him out of that seat forty miles ago.

“I know, but I can’t—” He indicates right and begins to overtake a truck moving at a crawl. “We can’t be late. Alvin deserves a proper welcome.”

I look at the time. It’s 8:43 pm. We’ve been on the road for less than an hour, and we’re nowhere near the hospital, but at the rate Kano is driving, we might never actually make it.

“You’re going to kill us both,” I joke as we pass the truck, missing an oncoming car by a whisker. I turn up the radio to distract myself from the chaotic driving. “How do you think Dad feels about all this?”

A moment passes as the weight of my real question settles in.

“I think Dad is happy,” he finally responds. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him this happy, y’know? I’m glad he finally has something to look forward to that isn’t work-related.”

“Yeah,” I mutter softly as I stare out the window.

For my entire life, I wondered what happiness would look like on Dad. He always alternated between the same three facial expressions: anger, annoyance, or nonchalance. But every now and then, on a really special day, and only if you were lucky enough, you’d catch a glimpse of a smile and it was the most beautiful sight you could possibly see.

Kano used to tell me that Dad smiled a lot back when Mom was alive, but I never believed him. Not until Amanda came into the picture... that’s when I really got to meet Dad.

Kano starts to overtake again, and I immediately realize he hasn’t seen the curve coming up.

“Kano, wait—” I yell, but it’s already too late. The tires screech as we skid towards the edge of the road where the hill drops off, and I see Kano’s futile attempts at regaining control. The front wheels go over the cliff, and the car tilts precariously before losing all contact with the ground.

For a split second, we hang in midair, almost as though suspended in time. I turn to see Kano facing me, sorrow painted all over his beautiful features. I want to reach out for his hand, to assure him that it’s okay, but there’s no time. So I just smile and turn away to brace myself for the impact. The car tips forward and succumbs to gravity.

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I flutter my eyelids—once, twice, three times—before I’m finally able to open my eyes. My head feels like someone struck me with a hammer. I reach for my temple and, though I’m relieved to find there’s no blood, I’m certain I must have a concussion because my eyes are telling me that I’m lying by the side of the road.

I pull myself up onto my elbows and look around. There’s not a body or object in sight, and I’m definitely lying on the side of the road. This can’t be right. We flew over the cliff. I saw it. Perhaps someone dragged me out of the wreckage, but there’s no one here.

“Kano!” I panic, trying to get up, but the pain in my head intensifies and I fall back onto my knees. “Oooouuuuch!”

“Myra?” A voice calls out. I look up to find Kano, completely unharmed, standing next to the car, which is also surprisingly undamaged. Kano bolts towards me, and I squeal in pain as he pulls me into a tight hug.

“Myra, thank God you’re fine! What the hell happened?”

“I think we had an accident,” I breathe, patting him on the back to reassure him that I’m okay. “But I don’t understand how we ended up here.” I gesture to the empty road and the car in the distance.

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you remember?” I ask, flummoxed. “We just had a horrible accident. I thought we would die.”

“Huh,” he looks at me, concerned. “Myra, are you sure you’re okay?”

“No, Kano, I never said I was okay,” I bite out. “My head is killing me.” I rub my temples, which does nothing to soothe the brain-searing migraine that has somehow gotten worse over the last couple of minutes.

Who pulled us out of the wreck? Am I going mad?

“Myra, we didn’t have an accident,” he finally says after a short silence. “We ran out of gas, so I pulled over, and you just jumped out of the car and started screaming.”

“What?”

“Yeah, it was crazy. Don’t you remember any of it?”

No, I don’t.

The look on my face must give away my confusion because Kano suddenly bursts out laughing.

“It was insane. I thought you were gonna jump off the cliff. Please, never do that to me again.”

“Kano, what the hell is happening?” I ask, the migraine intensifying, as if that’s even possible.

“Let’s go look for gas,” he says casually, glancing at his watch. “We’ve got time.”

“I need painkillers and a hospital,” I say, wincing.

“We’ve got time for that too.”

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An hour later, I’m crying from laughter as Kano regales me with stories from his time at boarding school. I already know all of them, but I enjoy listening to Kano tell stories. He’s the greatest storyteller I’ve ever met and the only person who can make me laugh until I feel like I might throw up.

“Why didn’t you ever tell Dad things were so bad?” I ask, wiping away a tear.

“Didn’t want to bother him,” he says after a brief silence. “Plus, it wasn’t all bad. I just tell you the bad parts.”

I look at him skeptically, and he sniffs into his shirt. Liar. Kano has always been a terrible liar.

“Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?” He looks down, feigning ignorance.

“Act like everything is okay when it’s not.”

A long silence follows as he tries and fails to kick a pebble.

“Before Mom died, she made me promise to take care of you,” he says softly. “She obviously had no idea she was going to die, but I think deep down she knew she wouldn’t be around for long.”

I’m stunned by the confession, and suddenly struck by a sense of Deja vu, but before I can interrupt him, he continues:

“The day we buried her, you were just a baby, barely a year old… and when I saw you on Aunt Emma’s lap playing with her hair, I remembered the promise I’d made, and I vowed to make sure you never felt the hole that Mom left.”

Tears well up in my eyes, but I blink them away. A longer silence follows as I struggle for words. “Is that why you never asked Dad for shoes?”

The memory still haunts me—his bruised feet the day he came back home from his last term at school. He had worn out his shoes but never said a word to Dad, and we never noticed until we saw his feet. By then, it was already too late.

“I didn’t need shoes,” he casually lies.

“You’re doing it again, Kano…”

“Sorry… force of habit.” He combs his fingers through his short hair and starts fumbling with his hands anxiously as we continue to walk along.

I rub my arms to keep warm, noting that there isn’t a gas station in sight, but Kano insisted we would eventually find one up ahead and probably get someone to drive us back to our car.

“Myra, I—” Kano starts.

“Remember that time we wrote a rap song?” I say abruptly in an attempt to lighten the mood. It works, and Kano starts laughing.

I’ve always enjoyed the cheerful sound of his laughter. It’s half the reason I always laugh so hard at his jokes.

“Oh yeah! How did it go again?”

We start trying to find the tune and then break into the lyrics at the chorus before bursting into fits of laughter.

“Alvin is going to have a handful to deal with when he comes into the world," I say as the laughter dies down. "I wonder what he’ll be like."

Kano grows suspiciously somber, “Probably a nutter like the rest of us.”

“Amanda is anything BUT a nutter,” I laugh.

“Yeah…” he whispers.

The silence returns, and I start to feel uncomfortable.

We talk for a while, trading old anecdotes, mostly things we already know. This is normal for me but strange for him. I’ve never known Kano to run out of original stories for me. Even the stuff about the promise wasn’t anything new. Come to think of it, we’ve had that exact conversation before. I’m sure of it. I just don’t remember when.

An uneasy feeling settles in my chest, and the migraine returns.

“Kano, I’m not feeling so well,” I say as I stop walking.

“I know, princess,” he says, referring to me by my childhood nickname. “I promise you’ll be okay. Let’s just keep walking, and it’ll go away.”

I’ve always trusted Kano with my life. More than even my father. He basically raised me, or so he constantly says, and though I always reject the notion, deep down I know it’s true. At five years old, he tasked himself with taking care of me, and he never let me down. Not once.

But something feels wrong about this.

I pinch my skin and feel nothing. I glance at his wrist and halt.

“Why don’t you write Christmas lists?” I finally ask, the question surprising both of us. “I always wanted to ask, but I never did.”

“Myra…” Kano seems to understand what I’m asking for. A new story. Something I don’t already know.

“Tell me why, please?” My tears begin their unbidden ascent, and the headache now pales in comparison to the pain in my chest.

“What gave it away?” he asks gently.

I glance at his watch. 8:44 pm. The same time it read over three hours ago, when we had the accident.

“What happened, Kano?”

He finally turns to face me, his eyes filled with tears - mirroring my own.

“I don’t think I’ll get to meet Alvin,” he says sorrowfully.

“Kano, what happened?” I cry, my voice breaking.

“We got into an accident, Myra—”

“Where are we?” I interrupt.

“We’re still at the wreck,” he says, pointing down the side of the cliff.

Tendrils of dark smoke fill the air. Voices begin to drown out my thoughts. People. We’re surrounded by people. Strangers. They’re making phone calls and I think they're trying to help us.

Kano and I move towards the edge of the cliff, and I see my broken body lying on the ground a few meters above the now dilapidated car. Blood oozes from the back of my head.

Am I dead?

“No,” Kano says. “You’re not dead, but you are dying.”

An ambulance siren pierces through the muffled noises.

I then realize that I can’t see Kano anywhere near the scene. Not even inside the car.

“And where are you?” I ask, on the verge of wailing.

“The force from the flip threw me out of the car—”

“Kano…” I can't listen to this. I can't.

“It happened almost as soon as we hit the side of the slope.”

“Kano,” I cry desperately, angrily as memories of the crash hit me in waves. “Kano, what the hell! I told you to slow down. You wouldn’t listen.”

I’m yelling now, tears blurring my vision as I weakly punch his chest. “You wouldn’t listen. Why wouldn’t you listen?”

“I’m sorry,” is all he whispers as I cry and beg. Then he hugs me as I weep.

“I can’t go back without you, Kano,” I say between sobs. “I can’t go back to life if you’re not there.”

He pats my back gently and makes the shushing sound he used to make when I was a child. “Yes, you can. And you will.”

When my sobbing dies down, I finally get the courage to ask, “So where are you?”

He nods towards the car, and I notice two feet sticking out from beneath it.

The pain is a hundred times worse than all the pain I’ve ever felt combined. I can’t breathe, and I begin to choke on my own tears. I'm going to be sick.

Kano returns to hushing me like a baby, and I bawl uncontrollably in his arms.

Two paramedics rush towards my body and start to administer first aid.

“I wish we could stay here forever,” Kano finally says. “But you’ve got to go back now.”

I cry as he pulls away. “Please, no. Please, you can’t go.”

“I taught you everything you need to know,” he says sternly. “Now promise me you’ll take care of Alvin.”

He lifts my chin so that my eyes meet his gaze.

“No. I can’t. I don’t know anything. I’m not as good as you, Kano.”

“Promise me,” he repeats. I wipe my tears and make the promise I know I can’t keep.

“Good. Now I can go.” A fresh cycle of tears threatens to break away, but I keep them contained. “Say hi to Alvin for me, princess, and tell him how much his big brother loved him.”

“I will,” I mouth as my oldest closest companion finally fades away.

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“3, 2, 1. CLEAR!” The breath fills my lungs, and a weary tear rolls down my cheek.