August was Jules’s older brother. He was one of his older brothers. Mason was the other. Mason and August were born just over a year apart and were fifteen and sixteen years older than Jules respectively. They left the pack soon after they graduated from high school. I’m not sure if they meant to leave the pack exactly, but they both headed south for the summer to find work, and neither of them ever came back. We were young when they left. Maybe four or five. I remember the feeling of them: a sweaty male presence in Jules’s house when we were little. When I thought about them, I had vague recollections of them spending a lot of time eating bologna sandwiches and drinking soda and belching loudly, but that’s about it.

Jules didn’t know the specifics about what happened or why they didn’t come back. When I asked his mom, Tess, she just shrugged and said, “That’s just how things go sometimes.”

Jules had been dreaming of visiting his brothers for most of his life. I was at the point where I honestly didn’t think it would ever happen. Who could afford it? Fuel costs alone were astronomical and like the rest of the pack, Jules’s parents didn’t have much to spare. To say I was taken aback hearing that he was leaving would be an understatement.

“What do you mean you’re going? When? How long?”

“We’re leaving right now. We’re all packed up already. Ma and Pa have been planning it for ages, but they didn’t tell me ’cause they wanted it to be a surprise.” Jules’s mom was standing behind him on our porch, and when he said that, I saw a flicker of something cross her face. It was hard to read, and it was gone so fast that later I thought I’d imagined it.

“How long will you be gone?”

“All summer.”

“What?” I was trying my best to hide how I was feeling, but I don’t think I did very well.

All summer?

All fucking summer?

Three months on my own without Jules. It was worse than a nightmare.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” he said, pulling me into a giant hug. I was too stunned to talk, but I hugged him back tighter and longer than I normally did. After gentle encouragement from his mom, he headed off to the van. He stopped and looked back at me before getting in.

“I’ll miss you, too, Sully,” he said, though I hadn’t said a thing.

I guess he did miss me. He sent postcards now and again, so he must have. They arrived battered and crumpled, looking like they’d had a time finding their way to me. None of them contained much news. Nothing important, anyhow. They were all things like: