I awoke to find my mother and father standing above me with worried expressions. My mother held a magazine, fanning me. They stepped away as I opened my eyes.
"Oh, honey, are you okay?" My father was helping me sit up as I was shaking my head.
"Honey, go get her some water to drink,” my mom said while my father left the front entrance.
"I thought-I thought I s-saw.” I was still shaking my head trying to clear the image from my mind.
"Just calm down and relax, you fainted and might have hit your head hard," she said fanning me again. It felt good on my now sweaty face.
"Mom, I think I might be hallucinating, I thought I saw…I thought I saw Max on the couch." It was hard to say his name, it still hurt that he was gone.
My father had gotten back with a nice cold glass of water and they were both standing as I sat on the ground. It felt nice as the refreshing water went down my dry throat while I took deep calming breaths and started to get up. They both reached for me to help me stand so I didn't fall again and held onto both my arms as I was standing there.
"I think you might want to sit down." She looked scared and glanced at my father.
"Mom, I'm fine, I might not have eaten enough or it might just be the excitement of today’s events, or both.”
"Honey please, come sit down, there's a lot of things that need to be said and I think you need to hear them as well." I was pulled to the couch while tensing up when they first moved, I was expecting to see my dead brother sitting there smiling at me again.
"Sit, we’ll explain." My mom reassured as my father started moving to the stairway.
"Just breathe and remember to give him a chance to explain." She backed up to return sitting on the couch and looked down at her hands like she was scared.
"Let who explain?" She didn’t respond.
“Mom, what is going on; explain, what is there to explain?" She just hung her head as I heard my father coming down the stairs and I looked at him. “Dad what is going on, what is mom talking about?" He lowered his eyes to the floor as the figure behind him caring my little brother moved aside and my mouth just fell open.
I sat there as my father walked and sat down with my mother and held her tighter. The man walked over to where Benny’s toys were in the corner and gently sat him down then came over and sat in the chair opposite of my parents. Or should I really say our parents.
The brother I believed to be dead for ten long years was now sitting next to me looking as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He did not look at me but seemed to be studying the carpet. We all just sat in silence as I watched him, my parents watched me, and he watched the floor.
After what felt like eternity of just watching him he finally stood while pulling out a packet from his back pocket and handed it to me. He finally acknowledging my presence by keeping his eyes on me as he had on the floor.
"This will explain why I'm here," he said hesitantly. I couldn't even move to take it from him; I just stared at him. I was speechless.
He rolled his eyes like he had done when I was little and held another packet of papers to my parents who took them silently. I watched him as he walked back over to his seat and sat down while taking a drink of the water that sat on the coffee table in front of him. He looked the same as the day he left. Max was almost twenty-nine now but seemingly had not aged a day since his eighteenth birthday. He was wearing very nice, expensive shoes, a pair of dark dress pants and a black button down shirt. A Men's Breitling Navitimer watch sat on his wrist. I'd seen pictures of them. Couldn't remember where just then.
"Well, like I was telling you before Annie came in, I have been sent here on behalf of my friend who is prince of this country." I started laughing and everyone just looked at me like I had grown a second head. He spoke very sophisticated and adult-like. But he had gone insane.
"You idiot, we live in the United States of America, we don't have royalty, we get elected officials." I kept laughing because that was the only sane thing I could think to do but nobody thought this was funny except for me.