Free Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work by Jason Brown Page B

to have money for travel. He livedin a silver Airstream. He sent me a picture of it. He never had any plans, except where he wanted to travel next. I had worked in construction since high school, moving every couple years. I never knew where to call to give him my new number, but he always phoned every year right before I headed home for Christmas.
    All morning and afternoon we waited at the house while boats and divers searched the lake for Henry. Each time the phone rang, and it seemed to ring every few minutes, we all jumped and my cousin answered, saying no, we didn’t have any news. The rest of the family waited over at my aunt’s house on Second Street. Even those people in town not invited to the boat party were like family to my parents, and each one of them called to express their concern. My mother offered to make us sandwiches and soup. My father asked her repeatedly to sit down, but she said we had to eat. Finally, he begged her, his voice trembling in the small square living room of the old colonial, and she shivered in place with her hands clutched in front of her stomach. She looked older to me than I had ever thought she would.
    Sometime in the late afternoon Michele, Henry’s high school girlfriend, called.
    â€œIs this important?” my cousin asked before handing me the phone.
    â€œWho was that? Was that your cousin John?” she asked. I grunted and looked his way. “Listen, Paul, youbetter come. Don’t say anything to your parents; just come over.” Her accent had thickened while mine had all but faded in the far-flung places I had lived.
    I told my parents I was going out for some air. Michele had directed me up to Central Street where, in my absence, a few new houses had been built over the ridge toward the farmland. Doug Parris, who I hadn’t seen since high school, met me at the door. An excellent outfielder in my brother’s year, he had also been kind of a goon, at least on the outside. Despite his size, he now seemed shy. He mumbled for me to come in while looking at his feet. I noticed a Nason’s Heating and Cooling van in the driveway and guessed that was what he did for a living. A child cried from the back room as Michele appeared.
    â€œYour brother’s in the rec room in the basement,” Michele said, standing with both hands pressed into her hips. I leapt toward the door halfway down the hallway. “Wait a minute,” she said and sat down on the couch. “He showed up here soaking wet late last night and we put him to sleep on the couch.”
    â€œWhat did he say?”
    â€œHe asked for you,” Michele said. “But he wanted me to talk to you first. I guess that’s not what he said exactly, but that’s what he wants.”
    â€œI’m just happy he’s here.”
    â€œYour mother came to see me five years ago. She had never said more than hello to me in the aisle at Boyton’s for all those years since Henry and I broke up,then she knocks on my door and asks if we can talk about what happened. Remember those two guys who went after your brother—Rod and Denny, lived out the Chelsea Road? They didn’t just beat your brother up. There was more to it. I guess she was the only one Henry told. I don’t know why she decided I needed to know. Then last night he shows up dripping wet saying he had to talk to me. He kept apologizing to me as if it had all just happened, curled up on the floor down in the rec room. Rod and Denny. I’m sure they hardly knew what they’d done even after they’d done it. One of them still lives here, works down at the garage. He’s married and has kids.”
    Downstairs, Henry hunched on the couch in a bathrobe that hung past his wrists and ankles. I sat down in the recliner opposite him. His shoulders bony, his cheeks sunken, and his skin the color of cement, he didn’t look like my brother.
    â€œMishy talk to you?” he said.
    â€œHenry, it