January 2002. Los Angeles, California
"Donny?" I asked.
He was sitting in a chair, at a table next to a man who was muttering something under his breath, the two playing Connect Four. Donny looked up from the game. "Tia?" His beard was overgrown and he'd put on some weight. Donny was always stocky, the complete opposite of Gil and I. We're long and lanky. But Donny and Gil shared our father's red hair, while I had inherited our mother's darker skin and curly brown hair. Donny looked so much like Dad, with the beard and the matching features. The only thing that was different were Donny's brown eyes, the same as Mom's. The same as mine.
"What are you doing here?" he asked me.
"I came to see you," I said, sitting in the empty chair between him and the man playing Connect Four. I made out his mumbling. "Four, eight, fifteen, sixteen, twenty-three, forty-two. Four, eight…"
I ignored the man. "How are you?" I asked. "The woman up front said you were doing well."
Donny stares at me for a few moments, then stands. "Come with me," he said, walking out of the room. I get up and follow, and we passed a table where a woman was sitting with her head in her arms. "Hey, Libby," he said to her, but she didn't respond.
I follow Donny out a door and outside to a large, open, grassy area. He sat down at a picnic table and I sat across from him. "Dad said you wouldn't be coming here," he said, staring at his hands.
I smiled as I placed my own on top of his. "Did you really think Dad could keep me away from my big brother?"
He pulled his hands out of my grip. "You shouldn't be here, Tia."
"Why not? Don't you want to see me?"
"Not like this," he said, stroking his arms, covered by the sleeves of a bathrobe. "I didn't want you to see me like this."
I smiled. "Donny, I've seen you way worse than this. At least here you can get better."
"I'm not crazy," Donny said, looking at me for the first time. "Did he tell you I was crazy?"
"Who? Dad? He never said you were crazy. He said you needed help."
"How's Gil?"
"I don't know. I'm headed back to Sacramento at the end of the week to check on him."
"What about school? You love school!"
"You and Gil are more important than school," I said to him.
"You always did that, you know."
"Always did what?"
"Always put us before yourself. Ever since Mom died, you acted like your life was meaningless. Like Gil and I were the only people that mattered. Then you went off to school and I thought you'd be okay. That for the first time since Mom, you'd be able to do your own thing. Get away from Dad. But here you are, back to where you started."
"Donny, it's not like that. I can't go to school anymore. He cut me off. I can't afford classes anymore."
"Then you need to find a way to pay for it. A way that lets you move on with your life instead of playing mom to me and Gil. You've got to let it go."
I looked into my elder brother's eyes for the last time that day. "I guess I better get looking then."