“Yeah,” I said. “On the counter, next to the coffee maker.”

He didn’t move a muscle. I should have waited him out, but I really needed another cup myself. So I played Suzy Homemaker and got a pot of coffee going.

While it was brewing, I opened the fridge and grabbed myself a slice of turkey.

My brother held out a hand, so I gave him a drumstick.

He sat up straight and took a big bite. I sat down across from him. We looked over each other’s shoulders while we chewed.

“Nobody was here when I woke up,” he said. “Not you and John. Not Dad. Not even Poppy.”

“Polly,” I said.

He shrugged. “Bummer way to start the day. Alone again.”

“Naturally,” I sang, thinking a little Gilbert O’Sullivan blast from the past might lighten things up.

Johnny took another bite of his drumstick, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. I jumped up to go grab him a napkin, good sister that I was.

“Where are you going?” he said.

I turned to look at him. “Um, to get you a napkin?”

He nodded. “Just don’t split again without telling me, okay?”

I handed him the napkin, took a long sip of coffee. “Really?”

He nodded. “I don’t remember how to be my myself. Plus, I don’t have wheels.”

A quick picture of skateboard wheels glued to the bottom of his feet flashed before my eyes, even though I knew he meant he didn’t have a car.

“How’d you get here then?”

“Lyft.” He shook his head. “Thought I’d never make it. The driver was a dead ringer for Mr. Magoo. Younger, but he had those same round Coke-bottle glasses and didn’t go over twenty-five the whole way. Finally dropped me off down the street because he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to find his way back out to the highway if he didn’t turn around right there. And, get this, when I climbed out of the car, he had the balls to tell me to be sure to give him a good review.”

At least my brother still remembered how to talk beyond the occasional hippie word.

“Where’s your car?” I asked.

“I told her to take it,” he said. “Take the F-ing car, take the F-ing house, take F-ing everything.”

I was seriously bad at this kind of conversation. I tried to remember what Johnny had said to me back when Kevin and I first split up. Maybe I could recycle it and use it on him.

I thought for a moment. And then it hit me. When my own marriage had shattered to pieces, when my entire world had collapsed, my brother Johnny never said a word.

Chapter Twelve

As soon I finished feeding the cats, I stretched out on the floor with all four kittens on my lap and called my sister Carol.