Chapter 11
The
two week long Florida vacation was nearly over before Taylor knew it. The days passed quickly for both Jaime and
her, and soon it was the night before they were scheduled to head back
home.
Taylor
and Jaime had done nearly everything they had planned to do there – party, meet
guys, get tans, and just have a great time.
But there was one thing left for Taylor to do, something Jaime did not
know about.
Late
that night, when Jaime had gone to bed, eager to get a good night’s sleep
before the long day they had ahead of them, Taylor approached Kevin, who sat
watching some late night TV show with Howie, AJ, and Nick, in the living room.
“Kevin?”
she asked.
“What’s
up, Tay?” Kevin said. “Weren’t you two
going to bed?”
“Jaime
did, but I’m not ready yet. There’s
something I have to talk to you about first,” Taylor said anxiously.
“What
is it?” Kevin asked.
Taylor
glanced at the other three guys that sat on the couch next to him, then said,
“Um… it’s kinda private.”
Kevin
got the point. “Come back to my room
with me, Taylor,” he said. “Guys, I’ll
be back in a bit.”
The
others nodded, studying the two cousins as they started to leave the living
room, but remaining silent.
Kevin
led Taylor into his small bedroom and shut the door behind them, motioning for
her to sit on his bed. Taylor did so,
and then he asked, “So, what did you want to talk about?”
Taylor
cleared her throat and then looked up at him, her clear blue eyes gazing into
his green ones. “Kevin, I know about
Brian,” she said.
Kevin
stared at her in shock for a moment, one dark eyebrow lifting. “Who told you?” he wondered aloud.
“Harry,”
she replied. “I know he wasn’t supposed
to. Mom and Dad made him promise not
to. I guess they made you and everyone
else promise too, huh?”
Kevin
nodded, looking down guiltily. “How
long have you known?” he asked.
“Five
years,” she replied. “I found out the
day after my thirteenth birthday, the day after the thirteenth anniversary of
when it happened.”
Kevin
pursed his lips, staring at her with sympathy and grief in his eyes. “I remember that day,” he said distantly. “I was only nine, but I remember it
clearly. We got a phone call late that
night. I was supposed to be sleeping,
but the phone woke me up. It was your
dad, calling to tell my mom that Aunt Jackie was in labor.” He nodded at her, a small smile forming on
his lips. “It was late at night though,
and my dad was working. He was a
firefighter, and he had to work the night shift that night. Mom wanted to go to the hospital to be with
your family, but she wouldn’t leave my brothers and I home alone in the middle
of the night.
“
I remember her telling me to go back to bed, that when I woke up again, I would
have a new baby cousin. I remember
going to bed and waking up the next morning.
I got out of bed and went into the kitchen, like I always did. Mom and Dad were sitting at the kitchen
table; Mom was crying, and Dad was trying to comfort her. I asked them what was wrong. Mom was too upset to speak, but Dad told me
what had happened. He told me that
Brian had disappeared from the hospital the night before, and that they still
hadn’t found him. I guess your mom or
dad must have called to tell them that earlier that morning, before I was
awake.”
Taylor
stared at her older cousin, as he looked down, his green eyes misty with the
memory of it all.
“It
was so scary,” Kevin continued, a tremor in his voice. “We were already still shaken up over what
had happened just a few months before to Brian. Since that, everyone had been so protective
of him. We couldn’t believe this could
have happened to – “
“Wait
a minute,” Taylor interjected. “What
happened to him a few months before?”
Kevin
looked up and cocked his head. “You
don’t know?” he asked. Taylor shook her
head in confusion. Kevin raised his
eyebrows. “I figured once you found
out, Harry or your parents would have told you all about your brother.”
“Well,
they did. Harry did, I mean. My parents don’t know that I know,” Taylor
replied.
“Oh,”
Kevin said. “Well, I guess Harry didn’t
tell you about this then.”
“About
what?” Taylor asked in exasperation.
“What are you talking about? What
happened?”
Kevin
sighed and began to relay the story of Brian’s near death experience the summer
before his disappearance. Taylor
listened in shock. “Harry never told me
that,” she said when he had finished, still looking stunned.
Kevin
shrugged. “I guess he figured there was
no point in telling you. It doesn’t
matter now. I just thought he would
have. It was such a big thing when it
happened. I can remember that too. I never got to see him when he was in the
hospital for those two months, cause I was too little, but I remember seeing
Aunt Jackie and Mom crying. I remember
Mom sitting me in her lap and explaining to me that my little cousin was very
sick and was going to die and go to Heaven very soon. But of course, it didn’t happen. Not then anyway.”
Tears
had filled Taylor’s eyes. “I can’t
believe so much happened to my family before I was born, and it’s all been
hidden from me all these years,” she said quietly, feeling yet again betrayed
by her family. “I thought Harry had
told me the secrets, but not all of them I guess. Are there any other little tidbits I should
know about?”
Kevin
shook his head sorrowfully. “You know
the whole story now, Tay,” he said softly.
They
were silent for a moment. Then Taylor
asked in a small voice, “Kevin, what was he like?”
“Brian?” Kevin paused, thinking, remembering. “He was a cute kid. He liked to entertain people. He was always really hyper, full of
energy. He was real annoying at times
too.” Kevin chuckled slightly. “I remember Harry and I used to play Star
Wars together. Harry would be Luke
Skywalker, and I’d be Darth Vader.
Brian was always bugging us to let him play too, but we never let
him. I remember we used to play army
too, with those little green plastic army figures. Harry and I would set them all up in the mud
outside to fight against each other, and just when we had them arranged
perfectly, Brian would come jumping into them and knock them all over.” Kevin laughed again, and Taylor gave him a
sad smile.
“I
wish I had known him,” she said wistfully.
“Yeah,”
Kevin agreed. “I wish I had known him
better. Five years isn’t a long time to
get to really know someone, especially when that someone is just a little
kid. I wonder what he would have been
like if he’d ever gotten to grow up.”
Taylor
nodded. “Me too.”
***
