Chapter 4: My Brother's Confession
I drove to Tommy's house without calling first.
He lived four hours away in a small town outside of Columbus — had for the past twenty years.
I'd visited twice.
He'd come to me less than that.
We spoke on the phone at Christmas and on birthdays, and the conversations were always pleasant and always short, and I had spent decades telling myself that was simply how some siblings were.
I understood now that it wasn't.
He opened the door before I reached the porch.
He must have seen my car from the window.
He looked at me the way a man looks when he has been waiting for something terrible and it has finally arrived.
"Laura."
"You knew he was alive," I said.
He stepped back from the door.
I walked in.
The house was tidy and quiet.
A television murmured in the other room.
He turned it off and we sat at his kitchen table, and for a long moment neither of us spoke.
Then Tommy put his face in his hands.
"I found out eight months ago," he said.
"When David contacted me."
"That's not what I asked."
He looked up.
His eyes were red.
"I didn't know he survived the fire.
I swear to you, Laura.
I thought he d*ed.
I thought — I thought what happened that night was my fault and that he d*ed because of me."
"Tell me what happened."
He was quiet for a long time.
His hands were flat on the table, and he stared at them like he was reading something written there.
"Dad owed money," he said.
"You knew that part?"
"David told me."
"He owed a lot.
And he was scared.
He came to me — I was seventeen — and he said he needed me to drive him somewhere.
He said it was to talk to some men about a payment arrangement.
I didn't know what that meant.
I thought it was a business thing." He exhaled.
"He had me wait in the car.
I didn't know it was David's house.
Not until I saw the address and recognized the street."
"Did you go in?"
"No.
I stayed in the car like he told me.
But I heard — there was shouting.
And then I smelled the smoke." His voice broke.
"I ran to the door and Dad came out and grabbed me and said we had to go.
He said it was fine, it was just a small fire, someone would call it in.
He said David's family got out."
"But you didn't know for certain."
"No." The word came out like something he'd been holding underwater.
"I didn't know for certain.
And I was seventeen and I was terrified and Dad told me if I ever said a word about being there, we'd both go to prison." He looked at me.
"I believed him.
I was a child and I believed him."
I didn't say anything.
"I spent forty years thinking I was responsible for David's death," Tommy said.
"I couldn't come home because every time I looked at you, I saw what I'd taken from you.
I couldn't — I couldn't be in the same room with you and pretend."
"You could have told me."
"I know."
"Tommy.
You could have told me."
"I know." His voice was barely audible.
"I'm sorry, Laura.
I have been sorry every single day for forty-two years."
I stood up and walked to the window.
The yard outside was ordinary and still.
A bird feeder.
A garden that needed weeding.
The completely normal life of a man who had been quietly destroying himself for four decades.
"David said he told you something," I said.
"When you went to see him.
Something neither of you knew."
Tommy didn't answer immediately.
"He did."
"Tell me."
He was quiet for so long that I turned around to look at him.
"The men Dad brought to that house," Tommy said slowly.
"They weren't there to collect a debt."
I waited.
"They were there because someone hired them.
Someone who wanted David's family gone from that neighborhood.
Gone from that town." He met my eyes.
"Someone who didn't want David with you."
The bird feeder outside swayed slightly in the wind.
May you like
"Dad didn't owe those men money," Tommy said.
"He paid them."
