We buy coffee from the bodega across the street. It comes in those same Greek diner cups that all coffee in New York City seems to come in. The side reads HAPPY TO SERVE YOU. The design is called Anthora, according to James, although I have no clue what that means, and I really don’t care so long as it keeps the coffee where it’s meant to be.

So seriously, Connor asks, what are you up to?

Greg interrupts him, all Southern drawl and old-world charm. Cute boy like your brother, why wouldn’t he have plans?

Then he winks at me.

I think of explaining to Connor that I’ve missed him and that I’m not sure how long I can or want to keep living a lie at home. I want to pick his brain for ideas, get his advice.

Then my brother gives me the once-over, leans in to Greg and says, Don’t let him fool you. Michael’s only plans are playing with himself and his guitar.

And that kills that idea.

There’s an end-of-year school talent show and I consider entering, but then James reminds me that people with talent don’t enter school talent shows, so I crumple up the entrance form instead.

I’ve memorized Gabriel’s pager number, shoved the paper in my closet under a pile of sheet music, my old baseball cleats, a sweater.

But I haven’t used it again.

And he hasn’t used my number either.

He hasn’t been to Echo for the last two Fridays, and I’ve developed a ritual. I have to hold my breath as I walk by the bodega and read the headlines of the Post. Only then will I avoid seeing something dire: an apartment fire, a hold-up, some random subway shooting like his dad. Only then can I believe I’ll see him again.

I focus on writing music for James’s show.

Try to teach myself to play dissonant chords, wrong notes, out of tune.

I drag out a metronome and try to play something that sounds like a drumbeat. A car crash. A lullaby.

Somehow, everything I play sounds like the same thing: longing.

June 1983

Connor calls and cancels our dinner. He says, I can’t get out of bed.

You don’t have a key for the handcuffs?

Ha! No, really. I’m tired. I feel like crap. You think you can get Mom to make me some soup or something? he asks.

I think about it. Of course she’ll do it. I might have been the one that Dad wanted to come with him to ball games and for brunch at church, but Mom loves nothing more than doting on her eldest son who always made her laugh and would watch endless old black-and-white movies with her.

I have nothing else to do, so I ask Mom to whip up some mushroom barley and offer to take it over.

Mom sighs wistfully as she ladles it into Tupperware containers. She says, Boys always need their mothers. Especially when they aren’t well.