Both Sig and Norm watched their little brother walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Sig mentally prepared himself for FOUR upcoming very difficult conversations, each one difficult in its own separate way.

Norm waited and listened for Edgar's bedroom door to open and shut quietly. He then turned and looked at his older brother.

This was the start of the first difficult conversation.

"You can't do this" Norm started immediately, "you can't."

Sig put his palms flat on the wood of the table, steadying himself. He looked over at Norm with an expression of resignation. "I don't want too" Sig said in a whisper.

"Then don't" Norm answered back softly.

Sig pushed the chair back from the kitchen table and stood up. He walked over to the sink, grabbed a cup from the cabinet and let the water run cold. He filled his cup with ice cold water and started sipping slowly. He kept his back to Norm and half-heartedly listened as Norm begin to speak. Sig just kept staring out the kitchen window and drinking the icy water, trying to get the lump in his throat to go away. He noticed that the cup trembled slightly in his hand.

He listened to Norm go on about how Edgar was a good kid, which was true, and that he just made a big mistake, nothing bad really happened, he'd learn from it on his own and other things in endless defense of the baby of the family. Sig recognized how much Norman was like mom and he loved him all the more for it.

Sig listened for awhile and then stopped listening. He stared out the window at the backyard. The three of them had spent a lot of time out there over the years, playing baseball and soccer, chasing each other around and roughhousing, just being wild and crazy, just being brothers. Sometimes they would play out there all day, only stopping when their mother insisted they come in for lunch or dinner. Even when they got older, the three of them would still hang out in the backyard with each other and talk about lots of different things, like being fishermen when they graduated from high school and the pretty girls they wanted to marry someday.

Sig missed those times. He loved having brothers. Yes, it was hard being the oldest most of the time and having to put up with some of their annoying habits, like Norman hogging up the telephone and Edgar's stupid Saturday morning cartoons (which he still watched) but deep down, Sig loved both of them more than life itself. He couldn't live with himself if something happened to either of them. He'd gladly sacrifice his own life in their place. Sig would do anything in the world if it meant that they were safe and ok. Anything, no matter how much it hurt and without a second thought to the consequences that came with it. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G!

When he finished drinking his water, he put the cup on the counter and turned around to look at Norm. Norm was still going on about how everything would be fine, Edgar just needed time, wait and see is the best approach, etc. He stopped in mid-stream of his closing argument when he saw the look on Sig's face. He knew his arguments in defense of his youngest brother were now pointless.

Still, Sig needed Norman not only to understand but to give his blessing. That would take some crafty explaining. He sat down across the table from Norman and spoke slowly.

"Norm" he begin with purpose and a sigh, "Our little brother is asking, ASKING me to do this. Can you imagine how difficult it had to be for him to do that?"

Norm started playing with his fingernails.

"I don't like this" Norm said, sounding a little more like seven then seventeen.

"Which part, that your little brother is going to take a spanking or that I'm the one giving it?" Sig asked honestly.

Norm was torn on that question. After a thought, he shrugged and said, "Both, I guess."

"Ask yourself, last night when he didn't come home till almost midnight, how worried were you?" Sig asked.

"A little" Norm replied hesitantly.

"And this morning, when we woke up and found that he had been gone all night and had not returned, how worried were you?" Sig asked.

"A little more" Norman replied, feeling the trap closing in around him.

"And when he didn't come home in time for dinner or his curfew, how worried were you then?" Sig asked.

"A lot" Norm rolled his eyes at his big and annoyingly intelligent brother.

Sig went in for the kill, no point in dragging it out any longer than it had to be. "And when you saw him laying on the ground, completely still and lifeless, thinking he was dead, you made a sound that made ME think someone had stabbed you directly in your heart with a sharp blade and ran it through. Tell me, Norman, honestly, at that moment, would you have done anything, anything in the world, to prevent this all from happening or from happening again?"

Norm was reliving the moment for the first time since it happened and the last image he saw in his mind was his younger brother's body laying on the ground, so still it looked like he wasn't breathing. Norman could still feel the knife in his heart. And he knew in an instant that Sig was going to do this and he knew why. The defense rests, Your Honor.

Sig could tell Norm was mentally reliving the past 24 hours and saw the acceptance of the situation in his eyes.

"You get it?" Sig asked finally.

"Yes, completely" Norm said as he got up and grabbed the keys from the hook by the kitchen door.

"Where are you going?" Sig said, surprised by his brother's sudden movement.

"I'm going out to get some ice cream and see a movie." Norm replied with a straight face.

Sig asked desperately, "Can I come with you?"

Norm finally smiled. "Is your List blank?" he asked.

"Was it ever?" Sig asked with a smile back. Then the smile faded and he got very serious. "Norman, I need you to be ok with this?"

Norm looked hard at his oldest brother. It was like Sig had aged right before his eyes. His shoulders slumped and were heavy with the burden he now carried, a burden that was too damn heavy for an 18 year-old to have so soon in adulthood. Norm understood what Sig was asking of him. He was asking Norm to give him the green light and take just a little of that burden off his shoulders. Well, the green light came with some conditions.

"Just promise me, please, you won't be (Norm didn't know how to put it)….mean about it" hoping Sig understood what he was really asking.

"That will NOT be a problem, as a matter of fact, I may have to get a little mean to see it through to the end." Sig said ominously.

Norm didn't quite understand that but he took it as a good sign. Norm went on with his conditions. "You'll be patient?"

"Yes, very, I promise that" Sig said, almost to himself.

Norm continued, "No yelling, he doesn't like yelling, he….

"….shuts down. I know, no yelling" Sig promised.

Norm tried stalling a little with his usual sarcastic humor. "I'll be back in two hours, I'm really going over to Amanda's house and watch a movie with her. When I get back, I'm not going to have to scrub blood up off the floor, right?" he asked with a crooked smile.

Sig was getting a little impatient, then remembered his promise. He rolled his eyes towards Norm and said, "Yes, no blood on the floor. Ok, Norm, if there is nothing else, are you going to be ok with this or not?"

It was one thing to accept this was going to happen, it was another thing to say it out loud. He knew in his heart that Sig loved both him and Edgar very much and he knew Sig would never really hurt Edgar severely or permanently. He trust Sig as much as Edgar did. Norm hesitated for only a second, shrugged his shoulders and finally replied, not with a yes or no but…

"Needs to be done." He gave one last look towards Sig and felt very, very sorry for both brothers that he was leaving at home. He also thought as he left the house without another word, I never would believe I'd actually be grateful to be the middle child in this family.

First difficult conversation completed, Sig sighed, feeling no relief.