The Missing Piece

I pull the box out of the garage because the dogs need to go out. That was my excuse. The truth is less organized.

I let them into the yard and lock the door behind them. They leave like they mean it. One commits to something invisible in the grass. The other walks the fence line like it owes her an explanation.

The house closes in after they leave.

Not empty.

Contained.

The box leaves a clean absence in the dust when I drag it out. A shape where it used to be. That feels correct.

I know what’s inside. Not precisely, but enough. His things. The smaller ones. The ones that didn’t require conversation to keep. I set it on the table and open it.

The tape gives too easily. I don’t much care for that.

Inside: a watch that stopped without permission, a shirt that doesn’t smell like anything anymore, a knife I never trusted, and the brass knuckles.

I pick those up last. They don’t belong to me. That isn’t emotional anymore; it’s mere mechanics.

They sit wrong. Too loose around my own knuckles. Too heavy at the front. When I make a fist, they slide forward like they’re trying to exit before they’re blamed for anything.

He had large hands.

He had better control over objects.

He chose not to control anything that mattered.

I tighten my grip. They shift anyway. I set them down. People say objects remember their owners. People say that because they don’t want to admit some people are easier to lose than others… or that they were lost long before their final breath. People say a lot of things because the alternative is admitting nothing holds. Which is the truth, but it is rare to find a person equipped to handle hard truths.

Under them is a calendar. I don’t remember putting it there. That bothers me. It’s cheap. Half-naked women at the top like a decision that never corrected itself. A grid beneath pretending to be useful. A system.

I take it out and set it beside the knuckles.

One of the dogs barks once. Short. Final.

Then nothing.

I sit. This is what it is now. Not grief. Not in the way people prefer. No collapse, no spectacle. Just this. Sitting at a table with something he touched and being irritated that it still exists when he doesn’t.

My brother has been dead for years.

That part holds.

The rest… refuses.

People react to that like it’s tragic. It isn’t. It’s specific.

I open the calendar.

September. I think—or I want it to be September. Cold feels more appropriate; heat suggests laxity.

Most of the dates are intact. Functional. Predictable. One is not. The square is missing.

Not blank.

Missing.

I check for damage. There isn’t any. Not even the nibblings of some rodent. Nothing. No tear, no edge, no sign anything was removed.

The paper is intact. That makes it deliberate. I check the surrounding days. Those behave. I touch the space where it should be. There is nothing there.

The dogs scratch at the door, I let them in. They bring in cold air and something damp like spring. One stops at the table. Looks at the box. The other looks at me. Then at my hand.

There is nothing in it.

“Don’t,” I say. They don’t listen and let out a snort of derision. Can a dog be derisive? Either way, mine is staring at my hand with something akin to derision.

I sit back down, I write the date in. Carefully. As if that has ever mattered. I hesitate on the number. Pick one. It looks wrong immediately. All numbers do if you give them enough time. I finish it anyway. Close the calendar.

This is a test. I put the knuckles on while I wait. They slide, I adjust them. They slide again, consistency is not reliability. Which fits nicely into who my brother was.

I walk the house, not because I think someone is here, but because something makes a sound and I don’t tolerate loose ends. I can’t.

Doors locked.

Windows shut.

Hallway remains a hallway.

Nothing presents itself. Nothing corrects itself.

When I come back, both dogs are under the table. Watching. That is new. They always want food— well not food precisely, but ice cubes. Not this time. They’re far too big to both fit comfortably under the table.

I remove the knuckles, they leave marks deeper than they should. I don’t remember gripping that hard. I open the calendar, the ink is there. The date? Is not. It’s gone. Not smeared, or faded, but removed. I blink.

Nothing changes. I write it again. This time I circle it. Hard. Harder than would ever be reasonable or necessary. Press through multiple months hard.

I make food, but don’t eat it. Stand at the sink and look at the yard like it might provide documentation. It doesn’t. When I come back…

The circle is still there. The date is gone. Again. It is a small request. That is what makes this unacceptable. Not loss. Not grief. Refusal. I pick up the knuckles.

They don’t change. That feels intentional. He was the same way. He only ever changed once and that was in death.

He carried these like preparation was something you could store. Which I suppose is true in some ways, but certainly not others. Like I didn’t get a chance to prepare the first time he killed himself… sorry, overdosed.

Knives. Tools. Flashlights.

All contingencies. Backup plans. He wasn’t careless. Which for me, is the biggest issue.

He knew what he was doing. That’s the part people edit out. They prefer the version where it slipped. It did not. He knew. I am expected to be gentler about that than I am willing to be.

He believed himself to be Superman. Strong. Heroic— which to be fair he was, but between heroics and heroine one of those will always catch up to you in the end.

I have tried to make this an accident. Make it acceptable in some way, but it corrects itself every time.

It won’t stay that way.

I put the knuckles down harder than necessary. One of the dogs flinches.

“Sorry bebe,” I say.

That isn’t accurate.

That isn’t entirely accurate either. I was sorry for making the dog flinch, but I’m less sorry that my brother is dead.

That also isn’t accurate. Again very sorry for making the dog flinch, but I’m only sorry I cannot beat my younger brother bloody with the knuckles. Only the living can truly bleed. So he’d be alive at least. Beyond that— this is the part that makes me see flames— if he were back and I began beating him he would let me. He hated himself in life more than I hate his death.

By the time he died, there was nothing left to be surprised by.

People say there were signs.

Duh, Sharon. There were. Repeatedly. Countless, countless even before he drew back on one of my diabetic syringes that he stole. Before he pushed the skag into his veins for the first time. Before the first high dose morphine-like high hit. Before any of that. There were signs it could happen.

That’s what makes it difficult to call it anything but a decision neglected and extended over time.

He was my brother.

I loved him.

I hated him.

If he walked through that door right now, I would not trust myself to be kind to him.

Those are not opposites.

They are the same thing with varying degrees of consequence.

The dogs are still. Not alert. Still.

Then— a sound in the hallway.

Weight where there should be none. A shift. Something asking the floor to stay quiet. My hand is already moving. The knuckles are already on. I don’t remember putting them there. That is the first problem.

The second—they fit.

Perfectly.

No sliding. No correction. No resistance.

Like the hand is the thing that changed.

The dogs erupt.

Low. Hard. Wrong.

Wrong in the way that only you can know your own dog.

I step into the hallway.

Nothing. Of course. Nothing escalates. Nothing reveals itself. The house absorbs the sound and refuses to repeat it. I move anyway.

Front room. The window is unlocked. I locked it. I always lock them. One of those adorable side effects of OCD.

After he died, I started micro managing variables. I was already a basket case before his death now? Now I am one step from the ledge of absolute chaotic buffoonery. Control what you can. Count the entries. Reduce exposure.

Contain.

Evaluate.

Eliminate.

The window is raised enough to matter. Not enough to explain anything. I stand there with his knuckles fitting my hand and think—he would hate this.

Not the danger. He and I have had enough danger to last any devastated militant. The lack of precision. The almost. When I go back, the calendar is open. I did not leave it open. The square is still missing. Waiting. I sit. Slow. Deliberate. The knuckles are tight now. Too tight. Had they been around my throat, I would think my brother’s ghost came back to finish me off himself.

My hand aches. I take them off. They come free all at once. They leave behind deep grooves. Apt. I have to shake my head at him. Because the accuracy of it all is befitting.

I look at the square. Pick up the pen, not the date, not the time. Instead, I write:

YOU DO NOT GET TO TAKE THE DAY WITH YOU

Hard. Deliberate. Exacting my revenge on the paper. It holds.

One second.

Two.

Then—it thins.

Sinks. Rejected by the page itself. All that remains is the pressure. The indentation that even my insanity or the calendar could not erase. The words YOU and DAY cut even deeper than the rest.

I stare at it.

One of the dogs presses against my leg.

“I know,” I say. But I don’t. Now I’m lying to my dogs.

What I wanted wasn’t the date. Not exactly. I wanted a fixed point. A location to brace for, a moment— a dedicated 24 hours where I could say fuck the world, fuck people, and fuck you.

That’s where it ended. That’s where I stop carrying it. He doesn’t allow that. Even now, inconsistent. Still moving the line. Still refusing to stay where he was told, and should have.

He remains— a problem of placement.

Even now, I am still the one adjusting around him.

I close the calendar and fling it across the kitchen. I leave the knuckles on the table, not in the box. Somehow they don’t quite fit it anymore.

The dogs have since decided I am boring or too crazy right now to rationally handle their comforting ministrations so they, wisely, move to the couch and begin their snoring.

The house holds. The window waits. I will fix it later. For now, I sit.

Marked.

Missing something specific.

Denied something more important yet no less specific.

The system remains intact except where it matters.

It isn’t poetic.

Poetry is dead.