When my father would get drunk, he’d say ‘I used to have a brother, you know’, and get a faraway look in his eyes.
I’d learnt after the first time, not to ask him about it when he was sober, the only reply I received in a burst of volume and a slamming door. But when he was drunk? If I nodded, he’d continue, talking to his brother incoherently, lost in the thought he built that his brother still sat next to him.
I’d wonder sometimes, what this uncle of mine would look like. How old was he, did he have a mole on his cheek like my father did? Was he more or less wrinkled, how much hair did he have on his head? Would he have… liked me, approved of me?
As my father got older, his eyes slowly shutting more, the twinkle hiding beneath the sagging skin of his eyelids, he stopped drinking as much. His relationship with his brother was once again fragmenting, hidden in the dark crevices only alcohol was brave enough to venture into.
I wondered more, about this brother of his, why no one ever mentioned him, why I’d never heard of him anywhere, who this brother was that had been erased from existence? What happened to my father’s brother?
My father had always been a good parent to me, or at least a moderately alright one, who tried to not let his inherent biases come in the way of how I wished to live my life, letting me on a rather loose leash than I’d seen some of my other friends tethered to. We still fight, and did for much of my life, him telling me he regretted the freedom he’d granted me, me telling him it wasn’t his to give but mine to take. But we made through it, mostly, with fewer cracks than most maybe.
But his brother? What was he like, would he have made a huge difference to my life? Could I have been down a completely different path had I known him? The questions pestered me for a large part of my life.
One day, as I checked up on my asleep father before I went to bed, and was tucking some blankets back in, I realised how much he had aged. His skin was giving up, he was starting to look like an unkept garden, one that hadn’t been getting watered or nurtured for a while, slowly decaying, fading. The wrinkles were forming faster, little cracks that penetrated through the passage of time, serving as a stark reminder of old age.
That’s when I heard him murmur slurred words in his sleep,
” I used to have a sister, you know?”
My mind blanked. Had he just said sister? Realising he was probably dreaming, and not wanting to confront the possibility about another person I never knew of, I put the blankets back in place and left, watching him move in his sleep as he got comfortable within them.
A year later, he aged faster. My father had lines that went across his whole face and neck, the mole on his cheek starting to look more discoloured, just like his personality. Age was definitely taking its toll on him. I realised my fears were coming to a realisation, my once organised father leaving his spectacles on the bathroom sink to get wet when he used to earlier meticulously keep them in the shelf above and only put back after his hands were wiped dry. Memories were fading, routines slowly crumbling in disarray.
What would happen if he forgot about his brother before I knew anything about him? Would that part of the family be lost with my father, the only one who believed in his existence? I was beginning to get impatient, my curiosity to uncover my supposed uncle running wild, along with the burst of anger that came at having something hidden from me all my life.
A month later, after seeing him standing confused in his room after I’d called him out for dinner, not knowing where to go, I made my decision. As my father ate his congee I sat next to him, looking at his dullened eyes that looked lost. “Father, what was your brother like?”
He slowly blinked, looking at me for for a few prolonged seconds that made me fear he had forgotten him. Then he smiled a small smile, like the one you make when you remember an inside joke to yourself.
“I used to have a sister, you know,” he said, “She was my darling little sister, I spoiled her, even though she was naughtier than anyone I’d known, always running off and doing the opposite of what our parents wanted to. I even took a lot of beatings for her, covering when she had run off to play instead of doing her chores. I spoiled her, and blamed myself for it when she left.”
A sister? What had happened, was there a sister and brother? Why’d she leave? Had it all just been an old man’s rambling?
He continued, lost in that world now, words soft, as if he was reciting to himself. “My sister was always rebellious. We were told she’d grow out of it, she’d grow up and want to settle down, be more complacent, not to worry for she was only a child throwing tantrums. But she grew older, we all did. She continued, her little rebellions getting more and more tough to ignore.”
“One day I caught her, cutting all her hair off. Hacking at it, with so much emotion I couldn’t understand. I ran to her, snatching the scissors out and pulling her up. She looked up at me, tried to snatch the scissors away. Attempts failing, she burst into tears, turning back and running right into my horrified father.”
“It was the last time I saw her. She was locked in her room after a big screaming match I was kept away from. I couldn’t protect her anymore, not at the time. Maybe had I tried harder.”
“And then she was gone. Slowly she started to fade, I heard her less and less from the room until one night, I realised I couldn’t hear her at all.”
I listened in rapt attention, wondering what it had been that led to this, to the family never once mentioning his sister, and what his brother had to do with it.
“She was gone. She had escaped, to my relief. And a letter in her place, to me. I never saw my darling little sister again. And as much as I missed her, I had never been happier to have her absence.”
‘You see, my little sister had never been there in the first place, not truly. A lie was all there was, trying to be happy in the way that one is meant to be.”
“You see, I used to have a brother, you know? My darling little brother.”
Hey everyone, I know it has been an absolutely enormous hiatus, and I don’t actually know if I’m back. But inspiration struck, and I wrote it down.
Tell me what you think.
Bye Xx,
SLTD.
SimonLeBis 