‘Fire!’ Mom screamed.
I swung out of bed, cold feet hitting the floor, and ran to the window. Across the way, our red barn burned. Flames licked the morning sky. I stood still, admiring the brilliance for a moment, then bolted downstairs. Soon sirens took over and we were told by the firemen to stand across the field. I didn’t think our house would blaze, but I wondered if I should have taken something from my room, my diary, something. I sensed in my gut that the one thing I treasured most, the one person, was gone.
I knew Tim started that fire like I knew my own name.
*
My big brother Tim grew strawberries and corn, zucchini and pumpkins in our backyard garden. He gave his produce to friends and sold it at the farmers’ market. He dreamed of having his own farm someday, maybe working as a landscaper. Tim liked playing his guitar on open mic nights at Ramsey’s, smoking cigarettes, hanging out late with friends. School? Not a priority.
‘How’d I get a son like you?’ our Methodist minister Dad shouted, standing in Tim’s bedroom door one Saturday morning. Eventually staggering downstairs, his red hair messy, his skin extra pale, the smell of old beer following him into the kitchen, Tim sat down and winked at me across the breakfast table.
I loved my brother. He let me help him water the garden, taught me chords on the guitar, and listened to my stories even though he was already seventeen and I was only ten.
Dad used the, ‘As long as you’re under eighteen, you do what I want you to do!’ line. That sure didn’t whip Tim into submission as intended. He stopped going to church as soon as he turned eighteen.
‘I can’t stand them, Jenny, especially him,’ my brother told me one night, referring to our parents. We sat out in the backyard in lawn chairs. He dragged on his cigarette, blowing the smoke away from me.
Sometimes I wished he’d just do what they wanted: go to school, go to church, apply to college. But on the flipside, I wished they’d just accept who he was. I often wondered, How’d they end up together? It didn’t make any sense. I did what they wanted, but I never got the sense they cared much about what I did. Their focus, like a beam of scorching sunlight, shone on my brother, always.
*
That all changed after the fire.
The silence at the dinner table sat like a stone. Mom and Dad didn’t seem to care that he was gone. They said very little about Tim. Night after night, I pushed my food around my plate. I wondered why they didn’t call the police. I would have thought they’d want Tim to get into serious trouble, teach him a lesson. They made their excuses and told their lies about that night, to themselves, to me, to others.
The last thing Mom ever said to me about Tim was, ‘You can take his room.’
And just like that, they moved on.
*
‘You need to pick up some of Tim’s chores,’ Dad said one day. This meant raking, weeding, cleaning up leaves. I sat down on the backstep and wanted to cry but no tears came. Then I went to the shed and pulled out a rake and started working, making small piles all around the yard, scooping them into bags. I soon found I didn’t mind it. I liked getting out of the house, now understanding why Tim loved it so much.
Unlike Tim’s, my relationship with my parents, though strained, was more about silence than fighting. I watched my mother reading magazines on the couch at night, nursing glass after glass of wine. Sometimes streaks of tears lined her cheeks. At church, I listened to my father’s sermons about forgiveness, something he talked about a lot. I often felt his sermons were his own conversations with God, asking for forgiveness for himself, maybe for Tim too. I gripped the pew beneath my body, imagining my brother’s face above the alter. Where are you, Tim? Where are you? Sometimes I thought it would have been better if he’d died.
*
In the cold, early spring, I turned eleven, put on my rubber boots and pink puffy coat and went out to Tim’s garden. Dried corn stalks drooped, brown and depleted. Dead vines tangled at my feet. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just started pulling on everything.
I read articles online about planting and started to plan for vegetables but also wildflowers – something Tim never grew – bell flower, bee balm, purple coneflower. I planted my first seeds in May, digging small holes in the dirt. One day, I found Tim’s lighter half buried in the ground. It was black with a red heart on it. I kept it with me, in my pocket.
In June, I stood admiring the green flourish. I pulled out Tim’s lighter, imagined clicking it and setting fire to the garden, the house, everything – scorched earth, nothing left behind, a do-over. But I didn’t have the guts. I didn’t even have the same hatred as Tim did for our parents. And I loved the garden so much, as much as Tim did, maybe more. I pressed down on the lighter with my thumb, stared into the flame. Tim’s love, in my hand. I could light it up whenever I wanted. I tucked it away again, went to get my watering can. There was work to be done.
Maggie Nerz Iribarne practices writing in a yellow house in Syracuse, New York. In 2021, she won first and finalist prizes from Dead Fern Press, Zizzle, and Honeyguide Literary Magazine. Maggie keeps a portfolio of her published work at www.maggienerziribarne.com.
Photo by Stephan H. on Unsplash.
