Boys' Nights
Chapter 1
"Donnie, why don't you just stay the night?" Alan nagged good-naturedly when the baseball game finally concluded well after eleven.
Don held his hand up. "Nah, Dad, I've got to—" Alan disappeared upstairs and reappeared a moment later with a small canvas bag and a crisp white shirt on a wooden hanger.
"Oh, I forget about—"
"The overnight kit!" finished his father triumphantly.
Don glanced at Charlie, curled up in the oversized reading chair.
"He'll be fine there," Alan reassured Don. "You can sleep in his room or take the couch. Your old room has been annexed by white boards." He motioned to Charlie.
Don's will began to break. "All right, but only because I want to get into the office early and it's so late now."
"Of course," Alan said, humoring him.
They watched the conclusion of the eleven-o'clock news and finished their beers, then Alan went upstairs. Thinking that Charlie might wake up during the night and return to his room, Don curled up with an afghan on the couch. In the dark he lay awake and listened to the comforting sounds of his father getting ready for bed. Living alone, he missed hearing other people.
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Don woke with a violent start. Such sudden awakenings had become routine since he began working for the Bureau. Because he didn't know what had woken him, he didn't lift his head, using his eyes and ears to quickly scan for information. Couch. Dad's. Night. Someone making noises. Light. From the kitchen. Judging the situation to be safe, he turned over and craned his neck. Charlie was seated at the dining room table, head bent low over a notebook and his pen scrawling across it rapidly. He paused and banged his hand against his forehead, then pulled at his hair in frustration.
"Charlie," said Don in a sleepy voice as he struggled into a sitting position. Charlie continued to work, oblivious. Don rubbed at his face and searched for the clock. 2:17. "Charlie," he said again, louder this time.
Charlie looked up, pen still racing across the paper. "Oh," he said, surprised. "Don."
"What are you doing, man?" Don got to his feet and trudged over to Charlie, still rubbing at his face.
"Just…stuff. Thinking."
Don stood behind his brother, hand on his shoulder. "Oh yeah?"
Charlie put his hands across his notebook, turned to look at Don, thought better of it, and shut the notebook.
This piqued Don's interest. Charlie usually needed no prompting to share his work, even in the middle of the night. "Charlie, buddy, it's two in the morning. What're you doing?"
Charlie dodged the question. "I didn't mean to wake you," he apologized.
"No, you're fine," reassured Don. "I wake up like that all the time."
Charlie's fuzzy eyebrows went up.
"F.B.I. thing," Done explained. "It's my heightened spidey-sense." Charlie grinned at him. "Listen," Don said, "Stop working. Let's turn the t.v. on, fall asleep to a monster flick like we used to."
Charlie hesitated.
"Come on," wheedled Don.
Charlie slid his notebook to the side and stood up. "All right," he acquiesced. They settled onto opposite sides of the couch and Don found a time-machine movie that included dinosaurs and howitzers. Turning the volume low, Don settled himself against the arm of the couch and heard Charlie do the same on the other end,
"Don?" Charlie's voice was quiet, but it still brought Don out of his drifting slumber. Don flipped himself onto his back so he could see Charlie in the dim light of the television. "Yeah?"
There was a lengthy silence. Don knew Charlie was debating whether or not to continue his thought. Don prompted him again. "What, buddy?"
"Do you think about Mom a lot?"
The question took Don off guard and he stammered for a moment. "Well—yeah—sure, of course I do." His so-called 'spidey-sense' kicking into 'big-brother' mode, Don became immediately concerned about his younger brother. "Why? What's going on in your head, Charlie?"
"Nothing," Charlie quickly answered. "I'm just thinking out loud."
"Is that why you're up?" Don thought back on recent weeks. "Have you been dreaming about her again?"
"No," said Charlie sadly, "Not since the pancakes dream."
Don sat up, genuinely intrigued. He didn't speak, knowing from experience that Charlie needed the quiet to gather both his words and the momentum to continue.
"I just think about her at night, that's all," said Charlie in a distracted voice.
Don settled against the couch. If there was more to this, Charlie wasn't going to share it tonight. "You know what I miss?" Don asked, shutting his eyes. Charlie grunted. "Hearing her laugh…You 'member that cookout, the Memorial Day before we went to college? God, that was a good day. The picnic. We ran sack races and she was just hysterical from watching us." Don smiled at the memory of her bright face, eyes squinting in the sunlight. On the other end of the couch, Charlie sniffed back tears. Don tapped him with one foot. "Hey, buddy," he said, trying to sound comforting as he pulled himself into a more upright position. "It's okay to miss her."
"You think I don't know that?" Charlie was suddenly angry. "I miss her every day. I wake up and feel the hole where she used to be. I know it's okay to miss her."
Don was taken aback. Charlie was striking back like an injured animal, like he'd been nursing a wound and Don had just poked it. "You talked to anybody about it?" He tried to sound nonchalant.
"Nobody wants to hear this. Nobody needs to hear about it," Charlie reasoned. "I'm supposed to 'move on,' right?"
"Yeah, but—" Don tried. He stopped himself and thought about what he wanted to say. "You can move on without leaving her behind."
"Oh, is that what you've done?" taunted Charlie, bitterly amused.
"No, I'm exercising my G-man's right to emotional compartmentalization," cracked Don truthfully. He had more insight into his psyche than people gave him credit for.
"I can't do that." Charlie's voice was dejected. "I can't get away from it."
"Why should you want to?" asked Don. "You're probably better off than me. We need to face it."
"No," explained Charlie, "all I do is face it. I can't stop thinking about her."
"It'll get better," Don counseled, although he honestly wondered if that was true. After several years, shouldn't Charlie be adjusting better?
"Yeah." Charlie sounded unconvinced.
"Don't spend so much time in your head, Charlie." Don yawned, sleepy again. "Come out and join the rest of us."
Charlie grinned back at him and curled up on the other side of the couch. Images of his mother rolling in his head, Don fell asleep to the sound of his brother's slow, steady breaths.
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