Chapter 1: The Thing I Was Afraid Of
Our prom required every sibling to bring a handmade gift onstage — mine has Down Syndrome, and he'd been working on it for five months: "Sorry it's the only thing I have to give you."
Our school has one prom tradition.
Every senior gets walked in by a sibling, and the sibling carries a special gift onstage.
Something they made, that's supposed to say who you actually are.
I need to explain what I was afraid of, because it wasn't him.
It was the tradition.
Ellie's brother is at Parsons and painted her.
Marcus works weekends at the marina and had been buying pieces for a shadow box since Christmas.
Half the siblings in that lineup had jobs and a budget and four years of art class.
Danny has none of that.
Not because of anything he did.
And there's no version of that stage where a room full of eighteen-year-olds isn't comparing.
So I didn't want him to be up there getting measured against a kid from Parsons.
I wanted him at a table with Mom, clapping, having a good night.
By February he was in the garage every day after school with the door pulled down.
Mom kept the key on her.
I barely saw him.
I had APs in May and I was at the library until nine most nights, and by the time I got home the garage light would be off and his door would be closed.
The one time I caught him, it was Tuesday at eleven and he was coming in through the side door with sawdust on his sleeves.
"Danny, what is it?"
"Not telling."
He placed his hand on the banister and grinned at me with his whole face.
"Not telling."
Three weeks out, I went to Mom and said maybe this was a lot for him.
Maybe Aunt Rachel could walk me in.
Maybe he'd rather be in the audience where he could see everything.
She let me finish the whole thing.
Then she said, "He's been out there since January, Marianne."
The night of, they lined the siblings up backstage.
I stood in the wings in my dress and watched them go out one at a time.
I couldn't see him.
There was a curtain in the way and he was somewhere behind it with Mom, and I could hear a sound I couldn't place.
The MC read my name.
And Danny stepped out into the light carrying a wooden box.
He'd made it himself.
Oak, sanded down soft, brass hinges he must have picked out at the hardware store on Ferry Road because that's the only place in town that sells them.
It was about the size of a shoebox.
He held it against his chest with both hands, the way you carry something you don't fully trust yourself with.
He walked to the microphone.
It was too tall for him and nobody moved to fix it, so he tipped his chin up to reach it.
Then the screen behind him lit up.
It was a photo of us on Nana's brown couch.
I'm four, he's one, and I have my arm around him and we're both laughing at something off-camera that neither of us remembers.
I don't know how he got that picture.
It lives in an album in Mom's closet.
He set the box down on the podium, and the room got so quiet I could hear the hinges give when he lifted the lid.
He looked out at four hundred people.
His glasses had fogged.
"I made this in the garage," he said.
"It took me a long time." He put his hand inside.
---
What was inside that box?
May you like
And what happened when Danny reached the microphone in front of four hundred people?
Comment **"NEXT"** if you want Part 2 — it's in the comments below.
