His Frozen Heart by Nancy Straight

Author:Nancy Straight [Straight, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

A question had bothered me; after the almost-interrogation on the street in my neighborhood by the stupid cop, I couldn’t let it fester. I insensitively blurted out, “So why didn’t you ever tell me you had a brother?”

Dave shrugged his shoulders, but held my gaze. “It never came up.”

“Oh, come on. As much as I complained about my two sisters, you never once thought I would be interested that you had a brother?” I sensed there was more to the story. I took a big swig of the strawberry goodness and took a seat on the sofa, crossing my legs in front of me and pulling them to my chest. “Is he your twin brother? Because he looked just like you.”

Dave smiled more to himself than to me, “No. Mark’s two years older than I am.” He stood in the little kitchen, making no move to sit with me.

“You said you haven’t seen him in a while. When was the last time you talked to him?”

Dave placed his hands on the chair in front of him, as if he needed the support. “I think I was five, maybe six.”

I felt my eyes grow wide, “You haven’t seen your brother in fifteen years?”

Dave’s gaze drifted off to the far wall, his voice distant, “Something like that.”

Questions flooded me, but I didn’t want to dig too deep and have him shut me out. Gingerly I prodded, “Where’s he been?”

“I don’t know.”

I felt like I should ease up on my questions, this was obviously a sensitive subject, but I couldn’t stop myself. “How can you not know where your brother is?”

Dave sighed. He slowly walked toward the couch, eyeing the empty space beside me. He took a seat just within arm’s reach of me and answered, “It’s complicated.”

I scooted closer to him, reached out and took his hand in mine, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but if you do, I’ll listen.”

Dave’s eyes stared at my fingers intertwined with his. I didn’t think he was going to say anything. After several minutes his gaze shifted to the far wall of the little apartment where the picture of the ‘65 Mustang hung. His voice was low, barely above a whisper. “Our dad left. Mom didn’t take it well. She stopped coming out of her bedroom for days at a time, sometimes longer. When she did come out, she wasn’t really there. I don’t remember Dad. When I try, I can picture Mom’s face, but I doubt I could recognize her if I saw her on the street.”

I already knew this much about his life. In high school I had been curious, and I had asked him how he got into foster care. He told me his mom didn’t want him and had signed over her parental rights to the state before Dave went to kindergarten. When I asked him if his dad was dead, Dave told me he didn’t remember his father. He had never mentioned a brother – not even once.

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