M
I tell him he shouldn’t be shy, if he’s hungry he needs to go to the diner on 79th and Capitol and Lisette can get him whatever he wants to eat there. He tells me he can only eat things prepared in such and such a way. I tell him Lisette can prepare it any way he wants. He tells me that he is ashamed that for years, he did not abide by the rules that God has asked him to follow. I tell him surely God would understand if he needed to bend the rules a bit when he was homeless. He says he’s lucky that now he has a home.
O
He tells me he’s got a sister, but not like mine. I want to know—her age, her name, the color of her hair. All this information from his life is like a pencil drawing him with more and more lines. I want to know, do they have similar ears? I want to know, does she also have a problem with her eye? I want to know, would I love her as deeply as I love him?
He asks me never to ask anything else about that family again.
S
“You’re my family now,” he says.
H
Lisette puts her arms around us both and asks how she got so lucky to have two brothers like us. My chest is full of my own breath. I see him with his one eye wet with tears.
Lisette calls us Her Boys.
I study with all my might (and with lots of his help) and I get my GED!
E
It’s summer again and I am loved.
We both get jobs cleaning the YMCA northwest of Brown Deer. Sometimes we even get the same shift. He dances with the mop. I make dinosaur noises in my big yellow latex disinfecting gloves.
FEET
His white Nikes are almost completely yellow. I tell him I can clean them up for him if he’d like. He says he’d like that very much. I clean each shoe very carefully, using a rag and the soft pad of my finger and my nail to get into the stitching. When I’m done, they are white as white. He says, Thank you, many times, and I say, You’re welcome, many times, until it becomes another game we play.
MY BOYS
Lisette tells us how proud she is of us. It’s already autumn, but I got a good tan in. He tells me how handsome I am with my tan. I tell him he’s the most beautiful one-eyed ghost I’ve ever seen.
We touch mouths. Then lips. Then tongues.
He wraps his arms tightly around my back and I do the same. I can feel his shoulder blades underneath my spread palms. I bury my head in his neck and he pushes his ear into my shoulder. His heart is beating so fast, as if frantically knocking on the door of my chest.
OFTEN
We are swans together.
THE GIFT
One morning, he unhooks his necklace and puts it around my neck. He tells me he wants me to have it. I tell him I can’t, I really can’t accept it. He says, Please, keep it safe for me. What do you mean, safe? I ask.
SHE’S GOT HER BELLY BUTTON PIERCED
With a dangling jewel. She almost always shows it off with a cropped shirt or sweat-shirt or sweater, or sometimes she just rolls her T-shirt up so it sticks out. Her best friend’s got long auburn hair she lets slide over her shoulder. She looks angry and heart-broken at the same time.
WE SEE THEM WHEN WE GO TO THE MALL
So we start to follow them.
IN THE BATHROOM STALL
I say his name once for luck. Once for safety. Once for warmth.
HE POINTS THEM OUT TO ME
“There they are,” he says. We follow them up the escalator. We wait outside of Victoria’s Secret.
They walk out as if they’re holding in a laugh, they walk briskly. They stop at the fountain. They poke at each other with wide smiles. We wait. They go to the food court. We walk behind them. They stand in line at the Cinnabon. We sit at a table and watch them. They sit at a different table. The blond one looks over at us. She has a smile that’s sweet and psychotic at the same time. I don’t trust her. I tell him, I’m scared. He tells me not to worry, because he will always take care of me. I look into his eye and I feel calm and repetitive.
He tells me to look back at the blond and smile shy the way I smile shy. I am shy. I don’t like to talk to people I don’t know. And I don’t like to talk to girls I don’t know. And I don’t want to talk to anyone, except for him. And my sister, Lisette.
But I smile shy at the blond. And then he says, Smile like that at the brunette. So I smile shy at the brunette one too. She looks back at me tightly. I think she’s angry with me. But I’m not sure why. Maybe I’m the one who is angry? Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between what you feel and what someone else feels.
HE TAKES MY HAND UNDER THE TABLE
I’m not going to let anything happen to you, he tells me. Then he gets up and I get up with him and we start walking over to the girls.
WE’RE STANDING AND THEY ARE SITTING
“I’m Sveta,” the blond one says, “and this is my bestie, Tanya. What are your names?”
“I’m Moshe,” he says, “and this is my brother Rémy.”
“That’s funny,” Sveta says. “He doesn’t look like your brother. He’s too brown. Plus you only got one eye.”
Then she puts her hand over her mouth.
“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that! It looks
