Aliens on Aventine Hill

Joseph [Part 8]

Gray watched Joseph's pick-up truck disappear down the road, jaw clenched, but as the taillights faded, the tension eased from his form. Leaning back against the house, he let out the breath he'd been holding and looked down at the crumpled scrap of paper in his palm.

He gingerly ironed it out on his thigh and traced the scrawled digits with one delicate fingertip. It was something he had longed for, this number. There had been too many nights, sitting beside the phone in the hallway, wishing he knew which keys to punch...

Gray pinned it up on the fridge with a fruit-shaped magnet, smiling—and then wincing—at it. He turned his back, fingers laced across the back of his neck. His head ached; the cords of neck and shoulders felt frayed with tension.

The scent of Lola's meatloaf hung in the kitchen, long cold but still tantalizing. Gray cut himself a slice and slid it in the microwave before glancing though the living room at the staircase.

The warm, amber yellow of the lamplight melted the cool blue shadows from his skin as he climbed upstairs. Roman's door was ajar, so that Gray could see Joseph had somehow convinced Roman to turn his bedroom light off.

He perched himself lightly on the edge of his brother's bed, and the little boy startled awake. Gray leaned forward to smooth the hair from Roman's forehead, "Shh... it's just me. I just wanted you to know I was home."

The little boy nestled deeper into the blankets, eyebrows furrowing. Gray kissed the tip of his ear, the only part of him that wasn't buried by either the quilt or the army of stuffed animals, "Go back to sleep."

Gray could hear the microwave chiming downstairs and so he rose from the bed, stomach rumbling, but at the last moment Roman's arms lashed out from beneath the blankets and looped round his neck in a strange, strangling embrace.

Gray fell back onto the bed and pulled his brother out from under the covers. The scrawny body fit easily in his lap; his brother's head fell naturally against his chest. Gray rubbed his knuckles over the ridges of Roman's spine, as he remembered his mother doing, "Shh... you're alright. Nothing's going to get you... You wanna come downstairs with me? I've gotta eat my dinner before it gets cold."

Roman nodded feebly, and Gray adjusted his grip so as to carry his brother downstairs and into the kitchen. He deposited him nicely in the kitchen chair and set a little bit of milk on the stove before finally sitting down and stabbing a fork into the meatloaf.

It was cold.

He slid it back in the microwave and turned to see teardrops dripping off Roman's nose and falling with quiet little splats onto the table. Kneeling in front of his brother, he wiped them away, "Why're you crying? Did something happen while I was gone?"

Roman shook his head.

Gray frowned, grimaced and smoothed Roman's bed-headed hair, "Then, what's wro—"

His brother's shaky voice interrupted him, "I thought it was you."

Gray felt his blood freeze as Roman described how, sitting at the kitchen table with his coloring book, he had seen the headlights pierce the darkness. His stomach twisted with guilt at the longing on his brother's face: There had been a time, before the warehouses and the oil embargo, when they'd had their father's unemployment checks to cash and the dream of some grand insurance payout, when Gray had come home early from work. He cherished those nights, those family dinners and extra chapters read aloud or episodes of Bewitched, Bonanza or on their luckiest days, The Avengers. Another casualty of their cold war.

"I thought it was you," Roman said again, but the car had been wrong, "...and then four people got out."

Gray glanced back at the knife block as Roman recounted ducking back inside the house and rushing towards it. It was pushed far back on the counter, hard for Roman to reach (on purpose). The little boy had managed to get his hold on one and pull it out, but it'd been the bread knife. Not a weapon.