him as I reach for the rock pile. My throw goes too high, sailing a foot over Bugsâs head, and bouncing soundlessly across the lawn in front of him. The rabbit looks up at me, and something in his dumb, unthreatened expression enrages me, so I make a show of charging noisily down the steps. That gets him moving, and he zips away to the side of the lawn, stopping at the hedges to flash me a pitying look. Iâm all out of rocks, so I run at him, waving my arms and screaming like a banshee until he flees into the underbrush. When I turn back to the porch, Claire is giving me a strange look from the doorway.
âI just like to keep them on their toes,â I say sheepishly, coming up the stairs.
âLittle brother,â she says, throwing her arm over my shoulders as we head into the house. âYou really need to get out more.â
        Â
âSo what happened?â
âItâs a long story.â
âYou said you have time.â
âI canât talk on an empty stomach.â
I follow her into the kitchen. âDid you cheat on him?â
âNice. Adultery loves company, is that it?â
âDid he?â
âI wish.â
âSo what happened?â
âWhy are all the magnets on the floor?â she says, heading over to the fridge. âOh! Shit. I donât want to know.â
âClaire, for Christâs sake! Just tell me what happened already.â
She opens the fridge and bends down, noisily sliding jars around, lifting up Tupperware lids to smell things. âJesus,â she says, her voice echoing inside the mostly empty fridge. âDo you ever actually eat?â
âI order in.â
She slams the fridge closed. âI canât wait. Letâs go out.â
âFirst tell me what happened.â
She looks at me, and then sort of collapses gently against the fridge. âNothing happened. Nothing ever happens. And nothing ever will happen. And that,â she says, sinking down to the floor and cradling her head in her hands, âis what happened.â
I sit down on the floor beside her. âHave you considered counseling?â
She gives me a look. âI donât need some sterile Freudian with a bow tie and a dirty mind to tell me I should never have married Stephen. Youâve been telling me that for years. I seem to recall you actually making your case somewhat emphatically at my wedding.â
âI was drunk.â
âYou were jealous.â
âMaybe. A little.â
âBut you were right, of course. And I knew it. Even walking down the aisle, I remember wondering what would happen to the video, to the wedding pictures, when it was all over. How sick is that? The surprise here is not that Iâm leaving. Itâs how long I actually stayed. I always meant to leave him, I just never got around to it.â
âWhy not?â
She frowns and raises her hands in concession. âYou get rich, you get comfortable, you develop all these equations and pie charts to prove to yourself that youâre actually happier than you think you are.â She shrugs. âI fell asleep at my post.â
âSo why now?â
âWell, after Hailey died, I started seeing everything differently. I mean, you were a messâyou still are, by the wayâand I would think of you sitting out here alone, all grief stricken and disconnected from everyone, and this is going to sound horrible, but instead of feeling sorry for you, I was actually envious of you. You were miserable and alone and I was fucking jealous. Because thereâs something beautiful in grief, isnât there? Itâs like mourning is your chrysalis and when the time comes youâll be reborn as this beautiful butterfly. And then I had to ask myself, when you start feeling envious of your fucked-up, bereaved brother, what does that say about you?â
âThat youâre deeply
Christine Zolendz, Frankie Sutton, Okaycreations