Chapter 22: What a Brother Owes

On Sunday morning we went back to the old house, all four of us, with a crowbar and a roll of contractor bags.

Mom drove. She had put on jeans, which I had not seen since Dad died.

A SOLD sticker was pasted diagonally across the FOR SALE sign. The buyer was a young couple with a baby, and Mom had told them everything.

"They want to put in a wine cellar," she said, on the porch. "I said that was fine, as long as the door has no bolt."

Orin carried the crowbar. Toby carried the bags and walked a step behind.

The cellar door stood open in the kitchen, split at the frame, the white paint peeled.

I looked at it for a long time.

"Take it off," I said.

Orin set the crowbar into the top hinge and leaned. It gave with a shriek of old iron.

He worked down the second hinge, the third. The door sagged and came free into his arms.

"Not you," I said. "Toby."

My brother looked up, startled.

"You carry it."

Orin passed the door across, and Toby took the full weight of it against his chest.

It was thick, old oak. It must have weighed sixty pounds.

"Out the back," I said. "To the dumpster. By yourself."

He did not say anything. He turned and walked it through the kitchen, down the steps and across the yard.

I watched him tip it over the side and stand there with his hands hanging.

When he came back in, his shirt was dark with sweat and his eyes were red.

"Sit," I said.

He sat on the bottom porch stair. I stood over him with my arms folded.

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