A Kind of Dream: Stories

The Dead Brother

106 The Dead ­Brother Nina’s ­ brother has now been dead for over a quar­ ter of a cen­ tury but he still takes up space in her mind. She de­ lib­ er­ ately ­ thinks of him as her dead ­ brother in an at­ tempt to re­ mind her­ self that the ghost in her mind is not the real guy. She fig­ ures the real guy was prob­ ably more com­ pli­ cated than she under­ stood—maybe—but he is dead and she has her own life to tend to. The dead ­ brother’s or­ gans were­ parsed by med­ i­ cal stu­ dents. The dead ­ brother died when his daugh­ ter, Babette, was four­ teen. The dead ­ brother never knew her daugh­ ter, Tavy, nor ­ Tavy’s daugh­ ter, Cal­ lie. The dead ­ brother never knew­ Palmer, and ­ that’s a good thing, con­ sid­ er­ ing that he did his best to de­ stroy her first mar­ riage. Which would have ended any­ way, but still. The dead ­ brother was not ­ around when their par­ ents died. The dead­ brother was not ­ around for 9/11, Iraq, or Af­ ghan­ i­ stan. The dead­ brother has not read the books she has writ­ ten since his death and if he had he would have made some sar­ cas­ tic com­ ment. Which she would have ig­ nored. The dead ­ brother some­ times whis­ pers to her at night after ­ Palmer is ­ asleep. Some­ times she can feel his ­ breath in her ear and it makes her ner­ vous so she turns over on her side to be ­ closer to ­ Palmer. Usu­ ally the dead ­ brother says some­ thing like, There are no great fe­ male phi­ los­ o­ phers, no great fe­ male com­ pos­ ers, and great fe­ male writ­ ers are an ab­ er­ ra­ tion. Some­ times the dead ­ brother asks, What is the point of writ­ ing ­ poetry in forms? She re­ plies, They give me pleas­ ure. He says, Women. ­ You’re all mas­ o­ chists. You want to be ­ chained and 107 The Dead Brother con­ trolled, and she won­ ders what ­ planet he lives on. Some­ times the dead ­ brother ac­ cuses her of being ­ driven. Of being bit­ ter and ­ driven. Of being angry, bit­ ter, and ­ driven. She knows there was a time when that was true, but it was long ago. Hap­ pi­ ness swept over her like morn­ ing light and she ­ pinned it down and ­ hugged it close and has never let go. The dead ­ brother in­ sists that, al­ though he was a dip­ so­ ma­ niac, he was never an al­ co­ holic. This very fine dis­ tinc­ tion is over her head, es­ pe­ cially as she can’t make it jibe with the vodka he ­ gulped be­ fore break­ fast. Some­ times he would pour the vodka into an empty beer can, a not very good dis­ guise. He tells her that in her crib she made up a song and sang it when­ ever any­ one ­ showed her a Haydn score and that is so sweet she’s be­ wil­ dered. How can he be so sweet and so mean? The dead ­ brother is so alive to her that once in a while she for­ gets and ­ thinks he is alive and then has to re­ mind her­ self that he is her dead ­ brother. Oc­ ca­ sion­ ally the dead ­ brother will turn up in her study with his clas­ si­ cal gui­ tar and play a lit­ tle Bach or Boc­ che­ rini. He will tell her that his fa­ vor­ ite ques­ tion is how. She will tell him that her fa­ vor­ ite ques­ tion is why. He will look at her pity­ ingly and say, I know. She re­ minds her­ self that he ­ doesn’t know every­ thing. For ex­ am­ ple, he does not know how inter­ est­ ing the ques­ tion why can be. The dead ­ brother will set his clas­ si­ cal gui­ tar aside and walk over to stand be­ hind her as she ­ writes by hand or types. If she’s writ­ ing prose he’ll say, If you want to write a novel, you ­ really need to con­ front God. You don’t be­ lieve in God.­ That’s ­ beside the point. You have to cross the ocean in a sail­ boat. Go to war. Work on...