I like to believe I helped Billy thrive, because I wouldn’t have survived childhood without him. When I was five and my biological mother died, I became preoccupied with death. My fears escalated at bedtime. Falling asleep seemed like dying, and I was afraid to close my eyes. What happened during the nothingness? What if I didn’t wake up? Night after night, I lay awake on red alert. When I did sleep, my dreams were terrifying. I fell off mountains, burned in fires, starved in caves. Lawrence and Eleanor tried everything. They read to me, sang to me, left me alone, slept beside me.

Nothing worked until Lawrence came up with a ritual. Each night, he carried Billy to my room, laid him in my bed, and told us stories about our lives. “Epic stories,” he called them. Sometimes he went backwards in time, telling us about CW and Rachel, how Lawrence fell in love with Eleanor, how Lawrence and Eleanor fell in love with Cassie, their “forever girl.” Other nights he made up tales from the future about Cassie, Billy, and Nate, his Three Musketeers on the beach. Through these stories, Lawrence showed me all the ways I belonged, that I was safe and wanted. His voice was the thread that tethered me to our family, who loved me beyond the beyond. But it was the ritual that connected me to Billy, to the warmth of his body, his silky hair and sturdy presence. Eleanor didn’t like Billy (or Nate) to sleep in my bed. She insisted that he return to his own room as soon as our epic stories were over. But sometimes Billy dropped off while Lawrence was still talking. On those nights, his dad let him stay, which filled me with unspeakable joy. Had Eleanor allowed it, I would’ve slept curled up next to Billy until we were grown. I still would.

* * *

Midafternoon on Tuesday, I’m perched on a chair beside a sleeping Billy when Eleanor steps into his room. She’s annoyed. “Let him be,” she whispers. But I don’t move. “What about your hair? Your appointment is today.”

I beg her to cancel it. “He’s been asleep since he got home. I’ve barely talked to him.”

Billy’s room hasn’t been touched in years. Clothes are stacked neatly in drawers, jackets hang in the closet, and running shoes are lined up on racks. Bits and pieces of his childhood are scattered all over—plastic dinosaurs, skateboards, his library of science fiction—and his shelves overflow with trophies, medals, and ribbons. But other than a Princeton pennant and the framed picture of him teaching a kid to read, there’s no sign whatsoever of my brother’s current life.