The Toys My Brother Threw In The Fire

“I’ve told it in this yard I don’t know how many times. I told it funny. I’m going to tell the rest of it now, and I’d appreciate nobody laughing, because it never was funny. I only told it that way so I wouldn’t have to feel it.”

And he told them. The haymow. His mother with the lantern. The month of not speaking. The fists in the dark. He told them he was sixty-eight years old and had never forgiven his father, and that he did not expect he would get it done before he died.

“I loved that dog,” he said. “I was seven. I needed it, and there wasn’t one thing wrong with me for needing it. What was wrong was a grown man taking a little boy’s comfort away and calling it a favor.”

Kyle shifted his weight. “Dad, come on. What is this?”

“Yesterday you burned that child’s animals in front of him.” My father nodded down at Noah. “And I sat right there in that chair and let you. I’ve been ashamed of things before. I have never been ashamed like I was last night.”

“They were stuffed animals. He’s six years old and he can’t go to the bathroom without a backpack full of…”

“Your boys told me about the barrel behind your shop.”

Kyle stopped.

The whole yard went still. I watched my brother’s eyes go to Tyler, fast and hard, and I watched Tyler look at the ground.

“Don’t you look at him like that,” my father said, and there was something in his voice I had not heard since I was small. “He didn’t carry tales. I asked him, and he tried to cover for you. He told me he’d thank you someday. An eleven-year-old boy said that to me with a straight face.”

“You told me that story,” Kyle said. His neck was getting red. “You. My whole life. You said it made a man out of you.”

“I did.”

“So don’t stand there and…”

“I did say it. I was wrong. That’s why I’m standing here in front of every person I care about saying so. It didn’t make a man out of me, Kyle. It made a coward out of me. It made a man who couldn’t get up out of a lawn chair for his own grandson. And I handed it to you and told you it was strength, and you believed me, because you were my boy and why wouldn’t you.”

His voice gave out. He stood there working his mouth.

Kyle looked around the circle for somebody to laugh with. He looked at Jeff. He looked at Mark. He looked at Don, who has known him since he was in diapers.

Don took his cap off and held it and looked right back at him and said nothing.

Then Amy spoke.

My sister-in-law is a quiet woman. In fourteen years I do not think I had ever heard her disagree with my brother in front of people.

“I’ve got a tote in the basement,” she said. “Behind the Christmas things.”

Kyle turned around.

“The corner of the truck blanket. I got that much out. Tyler’s wolf, most of it. Some of the pieces of the ship.” She was folding and unfolding the dish towel. “I’ve been going out to that barrel after you’re asleep for three years, Kyle. I should have said so the first time. I was afraid to. I am telling you now, in front of your mother, that I am finished being afraid to.”