“Make yourself at home,” Frank said, pointing to an unmade bed with a faded green bedspread. I sat down and sank into the droopy mattress. The room looked like it hadn’t been decorated since the turn of the century: a plain oval rug, a wooden rocking chair, a desk with a lamp, and a framed mirror above a small dresser. Frank’s suitcase lay open on the floor, clothes dangling from the sides. His saxophone case stood upright against the wall between the two small windows facing the backyard. On top of the dresser was a carton of orange juice. Next to that was a big loaf of Wonder Bread and open jars of peanut butter and jelly, a butter knife sticking out of each.
“I haven’t had breakfast yet,” Frank said, making himself a sandwich. “Are you hungry?”
Seeing my brother in a strange room in a strange house gave me an uneasy feeling. The place was worlds away from our cramped apartment and the din of constant fighting. But it wasn’t only the space; something had changed in Frank. Just a few weeks before, he and Connie had been trying to talk my mother into moving, and now he had done it on his own. He’d liberated himself. The closeness I’d always shared with him suddenly seemed tenuous.
“Do you want a sandwich?” he said.
I hesitated, searching his face for reassurance that things were still the same with us.
“What?” he demanded. “C’mon, you want a sandwich or not?”
“I’m not hungry.”
He took a quick bite and sat down next to me on the bed. “I’m glad you came over. I wanted to talk to you alone. There’s a lot of stuff goin’ on. I’m not comin’ back home.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“What about what you and Connie were talkin’ about?”
“About what?” he said, speaking with his mouth full.
“You know, all of us moving out and living together someplace, away from Daddy.”
He took two more bites of his sandwich, wolfing it down like a hungry animal. “That’s not gonna happen. Things are different now. I don’t want to live with Ma either.”
“Well, what about me?”
“What about you?”
“Can I stay here and live with you?”