Chapter 18: Brothers

Tiernan didn't say a word until Rainer had tied the launch off.

Then he looked from his brother's face to mine, and he nodded at the shore.

"The shed," he said. "Both of you. Tonight."

"Tiernan," Rainer began.

"I stood on this dock for forty minutes watching you not come back."

"Come and say it where I can see you."

The yellow bulb was on over the cannery door.

Tiernan lit the stove, and the peapod's ribs threw long shadows up the wall.

I took the upturned crate by the hull.

"Here are the rules," I said. "You say what you've never said, and you say it to each other, not to me."

"If a fist comes up, I'm leaving."

"I haven't hit anyone since I was nine," said Tiernan.

"He hit me once," Rainer said. "I had it coming."

Neither of them smiled.

Rainer stood by the door with his overcoat on and his hands at his sides, a man at the edge of a very thin floor.

"You love her," said Tiernan.

"Yes."

"She knows."

"She does."

"You've known about us since October."

"You watched me walk around this house like a boy hiding a frog in his pocket, and you let me."

"You said nothing, and then you stood up in front of two hundred people and made it look like you were saving her."

"I was trying to save her."

"You were trying to be the good one."

"I am not good," said Rainer, quietly. "I'm early."

Tiernan laughed, short and ugly.

"Mother died, and I was twenty, and you were twenty-five."

"You took the books, and I took a boat shed, and I told myself I'd earned the right to stop watching him."

"You never once came down this row and asked me to come back."

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