The Only Brother Read Online Free PDF

was back two months in the past. Bloody shrinks.
    ‘So, how does that make you feel?’
    Dr Thompson looked at me with his bug eyes, peering out from behind thick glasses that he constantly cleaned with a blue cloth. He was friendly enough for an ancient guy, I guess. But I’m not one for doctors, especially ones who want to load me up with medications. And the ones he prescribed for me would make an elephant pass out. Still, it was good totalk to someone who didn’t judge me, or everything that I did.
    I considered his question for a moment. ‘Angry, I suppose.’
    I fidgeted in the chair. I always thought the crazy people were supposed to lay down on a couch when they talked to a shrink. But Thompson had directed me right to a big leather chair facing him. He warned me about my wallet chain scuffing the leather; I picked it up and brought it over my lap. It was about a half-metre of comfort to fidget with in an uncomfortable place.
    This guy had no sense of design: wood panelling, too much furniture in too small a room, three big leather chairs, a monstrous desk, a not-quite matching leather couch, and walls stuffed with bookshelves and diplomas.
    Dr Vernon Thompson, Class of ’74. Fellow of the Royal Medical College. Member in Good Standing of Blah Blah BlahAssociation. I’d done my own checking on the guy. He wasn’t a criminal or anything, had had some articles published. Dealt with adults mostly, but also
grief issues
, which is why my olds had dumped me here once a week for the past two weeks.
    The place even smelled old.
    ‘Why do you feel angry?’
    Because old people keep asking me stupid questions? How about my parents bitching at me over every little thing in the world? Oh, I know! What about getting outclassed by a damn ghost?
    ‘Everyone keeps on asking me how I’m doing…’
    ‘And how does that make you feel?’ he asked again.
    ‘Annoyed,’ I said. ‘I mean, almost everyone who asks already assumes they know the answer. About everything. At Will’s wake, my Uncle Alan started goingon about how ‘close’ Will and I were. So I told him ‘well, no, we weren’t’. And he just shut up, didn’t know what to say at all. One of my cousins who asked me how I was, basically called me a liar when I said I was fine. I told him to go to hell.’
    ‘Do you think this was the right thing to say?’
    Well actually, yeah, sure I did. Uncle Alan saw my brother at holidays and picnics, so what did he know?
I
saw my brother when he came home pissed from a party, and vomited in my shirt drawer. Of course, this was after his first operation, so it was ‘OK’ then. At least that’s what my father said. As for my cousin, well, I’d been fine with him until he’d called me a liar. Again, what the hell did he know?
    ‘I really don’t care if it was right or not. I just said it.’
    I jangled the chain, counting links with my fingers as I watched Thompson exhale and wipe his glasses with that blue cloth.Why is it always something that
I
did that was wrong? Didn’t any of them think that what anyone else said could ever be the problem?
    ‘I’m sure your uncle and cousin didn’t mean to upset you, Andrew. They were grieving just like everyone else.’
    Not grieving like me. Nor hating. Or maybe just not loving or whatever the hell you could call it. Can’t any of them see that I’m just… well, confused that I can’t ever make anything between Will and me work now? I can’t start over, or get him to see that he was wrong about lots of stuff. Can’t get him not to bitch at me about how I look, or what I paint, or even just get him to go ‘hey, you actually know what you are doing’. I can’t ever make anything happen regarding my brother and the way he was with me. And all I’m left with is the memory that his last words to me were just more damn criticism.
    ‘Andrew?’
    ‘Huh?’ I’d been lost in my own bitter thoughts.
    ‘Did you hear what I said?’
    ‘Oh, yeah,’ I said.