He laughs again. “Yeah, I kind of figured that. You’re lucky I already have plenty of experience with Paul. You two are peas in pod. Maybe you’re a little less neurotic and a little more of a smartass, but you remind me of him. And that’s a good thing.”

“He and my brother can never meet,” I warn him. “It really would be the end of the world.” And then it hits me what I’ve forgotten. “Oh shit,” I moan.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“My brother!”

“What about him?”

“He’s going to kill me.” And he really will. There’s going to be no end when he finds out that Dom and me are doing… well, whatever it is that we’re doing.

“Why?”

“He’s… overprotective.” Understatement, that.

“I thought you all have known Dom a long time.”

“We have.”

Sandy cocks his head at me. “I don’t understand, then. You’re twenty years old. You’re an adult and capable of making your own decisions. Who you love and choose to spend your time with shouldn’t be dictated by your brother.” I can hear the frown in his voice, and it’s my fault, really. He doesn’t know about Bear and me.

“It’s not like that,” I tell him. “It’s hard for people to understand who haven’t been through what we’ve been through.”

“And what’s that? If you don’t mind me asking. And if you do, please tell me to shut the hell up and mind my own business. I won’t be offended.”

“It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got all night.”

I think I’ll balk at it. Sandy’s nice and he’s becoming my friend, but I’ve known him all of two days, and there are things I haven’t told people I’ve known for years. I open my mouth to tell him thanks, but no thanks, but instead I say, “One morning when I was five years old, I woke up on the couch. I looked down, and Bear and Otter were sleeping on the floor. Otter was curled around Bear protectively, and I remember thinking how happy I was about that, how Bear needed someone to look out for him. I thought I couldn’t do it on my own because I was just a little guy.

“Bear woke up and we had Lucky Charms. And it was his birthday. I remember that. It was his birthday, and I hoped he would like the present I’d made for him. And then Anna and Creed were there, and somehow, I knew something was wrong. I didn’t want to say anything out loud because I didn’t want to ruin Bear’s day, but I knew. I just knew. And then he told me I had to be brave. That I had to be big and brave. I thought she’d died. But it was worse than that. I ended up in the bathtub that day. Because of the earthquakes.”

She had left. As the story spills from me, as I confess to a man I barely know, I remember how Bear’s words had hit me. I was smart, smarter than I had any right to be, but I was still only five years old, and I didn’t understand how a mother, my mother, could make a decision to leave her sons behind, like we were nothing to her. Like we didn’t matter to her. I didn’t understand the selfishness that could exist in a person then. Sure, I knew she wasn’t the best mother, but she was still my mom, and I loved her. I loved her with my whole heart because that was what a son should do.