running and hiding

My brother was a good man. He took care of me and my mother when my father left, first when I was too young, then when I was too unwilling. She tried to work, of course, but when my father left he took everything with him, but mostly her joy. She never understood why it happened, and I think she was always waiting for that day when he'd come home to do right by his family.

He never did.

I spent my teenage years shirking, ducking out of work, hiding from responsibility, denying everything. There wasn't anything I wanted to stand and face. When I was old enough, when my brother needed me there to help him, I fled. I wanted none of it. I'd learned something from my father's departure: the place you left is never where you want to be.

So my brother took care of our mother on his own, never once complaining. Once he found my number in Milwaukee and asked me if I'd please come home, that she missed me. I told him he must have had the wrong number and hung up. He never called again. Sometimes in my travels I thought maybe I saw my father, in a suit and tie and looking like he was doing well for himself. I never talked to him.

I tried to come home and the house was still there, but it was empty. It still had a lot of the furniture, but it was dusty and there were cobwebs and the windows were broken like it hadn't been used in years. I asked around town, and they didn't recognize me but they said that my mother had died a few years back, and my brother tried to find me but he couldn't, the old number didn't work anymore, so he did what he could to pay for a funeral, and had her buried at the old church cemetery, and joined the army and never came home.

They asked, do you want to see where they're buried? And I was crying but I said no, I just knew them from a while ago and hoped we could do lunch while I was in town. And I fled. It's all I know how to do.