Free The Cranes Dance by Meg Howrey Page A

let’s Skype,” Keith said.
    “Can’t. I’m at Gwen’s. I just have my old laptop.”
    There was a brief pause then and a lessening of background noise. I imagined my brother muting whatever sports channel was on. Maybe stretching out on the couch.
    I’ve seen Keith more on television and Skype in the past couple of years than in person. Last year our parents came for the U.S. Open and Gwen, Neil, Andrew, and I all went too. Keith lost in the quarters but Mom particularly was pleased with how he played and, more importantly, how he behaved. Keith’s on-court behavior has been a bit of an issue in the past. When he was in juniors it was less noticeable because most of those kids are super emotional and there’s a fair amount of racquet throwing and crying and so forth. But once you get to the senior level—and high up in it, like Keith—you need to pull your shit together. You’re on television, for one thing, and if you spaz out then it’s all over YouTube. There’s a fine line to walk, though. If you’re too contained and unemotional then it looks like you don’t care. But if you call the linesperson a blind cunt-face, then you’ll get fined and look like an asshole. Also, as I have explainedto Keith, “cunt-face” is just confusing imagery. Nobody actually has that face.
    “Yeah,” Keith said, after a pause. “So Mom said you and Andrew were like, working through some stuff or something?”
    “I think that was her way of saying we broke up.”
    “Yeah, I figured. I’ve been meaning to call you. And now. You know. Gwen.”
    “Yeah.”
    “I thought you and Andrew were going to get married.”
    “Really?” I felt sort of pleased that Keith had had thoughts, or speculations, about me.
    “He wasn’t who I pictured you’d end up with.”
    “Huh. Who did you picture?”
    I was having this conversation with Keith while still in bed. I’ve been making efforts to keep Gwen’s place spotless, so pretty much all my basic life things have ended up in the bed with me in order not to mess up other surfaces. I’m sleeping in between piles of books and notebooks and my computer and phone and various bags of stuff. If I had known Keith was going to answer his phone and we’d be having this interesting conversation I would have gotten some ice for my neck. As it was I rooted around under the covers until I found a bottle of water. Vicodin is very dehydrating.
    “Oh, I don’t know,” Keith said, disappointingly. “So you’re staying at Gwen’s?”
    “For now.”
    “What’s the deal with her?”
    I drank some water. When we were all little kids, I felt like I had kind of a special bond with my brother. That he looked upto me particularly. But maybe he identifies more with Gwen now.
    “What did Mom tell you?” I hedged.
    “Gwen’s been having some bads and she’s resting up at home right now and taking it easy,” Keith said in a singsong voice. He does a very good Mom imitation, who tends to use second-grade words, or pluralize things oddly, when she wants to mitigate their possible dramatic effect. “Keith had some sads at Wimbledon.” “Gramma Crane is having issues with her intestinals.” “Your dad had a mole removed from his shoulder and they are testing it for ickies.”
    “What’s really been going down?” Keith asked.
    “It looked to me like a nervous breakdown,” I said. My stomach had that tense crumpled-paper feeling and even though I was lying down I saw something sharp coming around the corner to stab me in the eye.
    “It’s, um. It’s been building up for a while now,” I said.
    “That’s what Mom said.”
    “She did?”
    “She said, ‘Apparently it’s been building up for a while now but we didn’t know anything about it.’ ”
    “I knew.”
    “She said that too.”
    “Well, it wasn’t my place to go around, you know, informing the family about Gwen.” I put my phone on speaker and placed it on my chest so I could work on my neck a little.
    “You