Never Alone

I have changed the names of the people in this story because it is such a personal subject.  The story, however, is all too true.

John had never felt so bad in his entire life and that was saying something.  He had lived a rough life.  He had been abused as a child, had survived that and gotten away with his mom.  He had fallen in love with a pretty girl and now at twenty-two years of age was watching that relationship slowly slipping from him.  His girl had packed up and left him.  His heart ached and things had not gotten better when he began to drink.  Now he was sitting on the gritty floor of the tiny old apartment he and his girl had shared.  He had a drink on the floor beside him and a knife in his hands.

It was time.  He was going to end his life.  He pushed the point of the hunting knife into his flesh.  It hurt but somehow there was a disconnect and the pain felt good.  It was real.  It would end the pain once and for all.  The demons of his childhood came to him now.  The remembered painful words of his father as he struck him whipped through his head once more.  He could hear them clearly.  “You idiot!”  “You’re worthless!”  “You lazy little brat…”

The pain felt good, real, distracting from the remembered words.  He pushed harder.  It would end soon.  Thank God.

Suddenly a shadow fell over him and he looked up.  A young man who looked very much like himself reached down with serious, loving eyes and took hold of the hand holding the knife.  He tugged hard and the knife came out of his skin leaving a little trickle of blood.

“You can’t do that, John,” the boy said gravely.  “Our mom still needs you.”

John would have written this hallucination down to alcohol, but he had seen this boy before.  He had seen him when he was ten years old and had hit his head hard and knocked himself out at school.  He had seen him again when he had been in an accident on the family farm.  Each time the boy had been just a little younger looking that John himself was.  He had no doubt that it was always the same boy.  He had eyes that were black and a gentle smile that John would recognize anywhere.

John stared up feeling the boy’s cool finger on his skin.  He was real.

John looked up.  “Our mother?” he asked.  John had two brothers but they were much younger than him and were still just little children.

The young man smiled softly.  “Our mother needs you still,” he said again and John dropped the knife.  There was no doubt that this was his brother.  The resemblance was uncanny.

Suddenly John was alone in the room once more.  The other boy had gone.  John picked up the knife and began to cry.  He sobbed for the loss of the girl he loved and the childhood he had never had.  He cried for this mysterious brother who came and went when he needed someone most.  He cried until he was ill and spent.

The next day John visited his mother and had a serious conversation with her.  “Do I have a brother?” he demanded.

At first she smiled and laughed.  “Of course you do.  You have two of them.  You know that.”

Something about the seriousness of John’s eyes caused her to freeze.  “Who told you?” she breathed softly.  He could see the pain coming into her face.

John told her about the incident the day before and his mother wept.  She told him that when he was only 18 months old she had lost a baby boy.  She had been so devastated by it that she made everyone promise not to talk about again–ever.  No one had for all of his life.  No one that is, except for his brother who seemed to be living quietly in the shadows beside him.  He aged as John aged.  He only allowed himself to show when John really needed him.  John knew that he was never truly alone.  His brother was traveling through life with him, waiting until they could be together somewhere down the road.