1995: Two Years Old

"Why do I have to put away all the toys?" grumbled Timmy. He lifted another handful of LEGO into the cardboard box. "Why can't Noah do it too?"

"Noah's two," said Ruth. But she sat down on the floor beside them and showed Noah how she was picking up the dirty socks from under the bed and putting them in the laundromat bag. Noah promptly took the socks back out of the bag and returned them to the floor, grinning like it was the best game ever. She sighed. "He wouldn't know what a clean house looked like if I showed it to him, anyway. Nobody cleans up around here."

"I take baths," said Timmy. "And brush my teeth. Well, sometimes."

Ruth saved the pair of socks from going into the LEGO box and returned them to the bag. "We just want it to look nice for your Uncle Samuel."

"Why?"

"Because that's what people do when they have family come over. They clean up."

"Why?" Timmy asked again.

"Because," she said, a little louder. "Just put this box in the closet, okay?"

They managed to get most of the worst of the toys and clothes off the floor in time for Ruth to run the vacuum. Timmy sat in a corner and put both hands over his ears while Noah ran in circles, shouting.

"Monster!" he told Ruth hopefully. She smiled and pushed the vacuum toward him, following him as he screeched in joy and ran for the safety of the kitchen.

Uncle Samuel arrived when he said he would. He didn't look much different from the last time she'd seen him: slim and somewhat pallid, with a mop of curly hair. Samuel smiled when he saw Timothy's matching curls.

"Looks just like me when I was that age."

"I don't like that," said Timothy irritably, pulling away from Samuel's affectionate hand on his head.

"He's not a cuddler," Ruth said.

Samuel shrugged. He peered down at Noah, who was yelling at the quiescent vacuum cleaner and stabbing it with a paper-towel-roll sword. "That one looks like a handful."

"You don't know the half of it," Ruth agreed. When Samuel pulled a wrapped package from behind his back, Noah paused, looking curious.

"It's your birthday," said Samuel. "You want to open your present?"

When Timmy showed him how he could tear the paper, Noah gleefully shredded it and held up the white book inside.

"Pac-Man!" he shouted.

"Something like that," said Samuel. "Your mom loved this book growing up. You don't already have a copy?"

Timothy snatched it out of Noah's hands and took it to the couch. Noah didn't seem to mind, happily trotting beside him and climbing up into their familiar book-sharing position. Timmy opened to the first page.

"It was missing a piece," he read. "And it was not happy. So it set off in search of its missing piece."

He went through the entire book, reading aloud in his grave five-year-old voice, while Samuel watched in amazement. Ruth brought him a beer.

"Isn't he a little young to be reading?" he murmured.

"I guess? Timmy's been doing that since he was three."

Noah listened, as he always did when his brother read to him, and when the book was done, he said, "Again, Meemee, again!"

Timmy flipped back to the first page and began again. They read it three more times before Ruth suggested, "How about some cake?"

The frosting was chocolate. They managed to navigate the paper plates without spilling the thick slices onto the shag carpet, which already needed a good shampooing.

"So, Aaron," said Samuel, and hesitated.

"He knows you're coming," Ruth assured him. "He wants to see you. He'll be here eventually."

But even after she'd served dinner and the boys were in the bathtub and they were on their third beer, there was still no sign of Aaron. Samuel stood up from the couch with an apologetic sigh.

"I've got to get going. We can try again soon?"

"Yeah, of course." Ruth hugged him. "I'll tell him you came by. Thanks for the book."

The house was quiet and the boys were long asleep by the time Aaron came straggling in, smelling strongly of weed and pointedly ignoring Ruth's glare. He tossed a box on the table.

"What's that?" she said.

"It's a birthday cake. Can't I get my kid a birthday cake?"

"Uh, no. I made Noah a cake already, just like I've always made one for Timmy." She opened the box and made a face at the over-frosted surface. "We ate it with dinner. You missed my brother."

Aaron grunted. "Why would I want to see that faggot?"

"Because he's my brother and you promised to be nice."

"I told you, I had a gig."

On your own son's birthday? she wanted to say. But the mood he was in, that would probably end badly for her. So she just put the cake box on top of the fridge and went to bed. A week later, long after Aaron had forgotten about the cake, she threw the box away.