I wasn't listening to Simon when he told me about our aunt. He was twelve at the time. With a whisk, I shushed his deepening voice behind the wall of cares for our sick mother, and the fall out with my fiance. All of it on my mind, but not those blurry eyes begging for my ears. He turned twenty. No one knew why he stares at our extended family picture with muscles stretched to the heart. Or why our family dinner was never his favorite place, until his post on Facebook dragged my attention to that Friday when his rudy face blackened at the lightning strike.

As custom demands, we were both expected to attend my aunt's wedding. A joyous occasion. A bottled grief. Seething heart. And an older sister who felt the lines of that strike on her brother's chest for the first time in eight years. 

He stares at her wearing a sad smile. She dances and waves to the crowd. Her eyes skims and skips his position. I noticed. I wasn't just listening. I was seeing.

For every time she smiles at her husband, his face falls like a blighted city.

Our mother wanted us everywhere. Cheering for her sister-in-law who is marrying after forty. Our father composed himself at the head of the table. He had just given out his sister's hand in marriage and couldn't be more proud. I felt the weight of what I know, and saw the  wounds of Simon's experience resurfacing again.

" Come," I tell him, and leads him aside. Our uniform, a show of the close bonds that he and I shares. He cheers up. His face radiating the marks and cries which were buried and stilled.

There was no point inquiring if he was okay. He wasn't. Yet, I had no right to comfort him. So I said what I imagined he would say to me if I were in his position.

“ I know now, and I am here for you.”

Trickles and light waves cascade in zigzag lines. He brushes them and looks down. Moist eyes and shaking hands. Behind us, the drum of merriment, padding footsteps, waist swaying to music and screams of  good wishes died. It was just us. The two of us.

Time blurred, and memories returned. Of me, wading through the thickness of duty, and desire for reconnection with the love I sought. Of him standing by the door of the kitchen with my name on his lips and shoulders slumped. Of me nudging him aside to serve our mother her dinner and sidestepping him when I returned to the kitchen. I remember him leaving, with his lips sealed. 

Truth, buried. Trust, tripped. Connection, severed.

I wanted to reach out to that boy. The one I ignored. The one who followed my hurrying footsteps without the courage to speak again. The one I had shut down.

Like waves hitting the shore again, he calls my name. Just like then. The difference being the gap of eight years. I hope it isn't too late to help him heal, and I am not going to let it slide. Just not today. For now, he may rest on my shoulders knowing he is not alone.