Doug walked to the cupboard to retrieve an empty tumbler and poured me two fingers of scotch. “River Street, huh?” he said in a faraway voice. I knew he was thinking the same thing I was: Brett had been right under our noses for years. His expression darkened. “Well, sis, what do you say we have a chat about old Uncle Brett?”

“Why not,” I said, and we raised our glasses to a dead man.

My brother has the best memory of anyone I know. Even now, in his midthirties, he can conjure the color of the tablecloth Mom used for his sixth birthday party and the names of every teacher, coach, and babysitter he ever had. When I don’t trust my estimation of distant happenings, which lately is often, I’ve always counted on Doug to recount even the most infinitesimal details with total accuracy.

As with Suze, our conversation made me realize there were problems with my recollection of events. Some of the stories Doug told about Brett were familiar. The man used to make a great onion dip, and always looked the other way when we devoured half of it before the grown-ups could sink a single ruffled chip. Brett was also the one who introduced us to The X-Files. Unsolved cases involving supernatural forces were right up my alley, and I dressed as FBI agent Dana Scully three Halloweens in a row. But again, whenever Bram né Abe factored into the narrative, the likelihood that I’d retained all the particulars took a nose-dive. In spite of that, talking to Doug about our uncle felt cathartic, even comforting—until he asked why I was yo-yoing between my new home and my old one. “Please don’t tell me you’re thinking of getting involved in this,” he said, his lips stretched over his teeth.

“I’m involved already. We all are. Brett’s family.”

“He was family, before he left Felicia and Crissy. Before he went and got himself killed.”

Family is family for life. That’s what Mom would say. What I said was, “Someone killed him, yes. That doesn’t mean it’s his fault.”

“Look, Brett was fun, but he was no angel. Maybe you were too young to notice, but I saw him for what he was. For one thing, he was totally addicted to gambling. When that casino opened in Montreal in the early nineties, he drove an hour each way to hand over his paycheck every single week. Dad used to say the only French Brett knew how to say was ‘hit me.’”

I thought about laughing and decided against it.

“Did you know,” Doug went on, “that he defaulted on his mortgage? He spent every cent he made on gin and poker chips while his family lived on cheap hot dogs. A couple of times Felicia had to ask Mom and Dad for a loan, which she never paid back, of course. How could she, when he left her with nothing?”

“You don’t have to convince me he was shitty at life, but it’s not like the bank sent out a hit man.”