Day 6—Dream Brother

She sat in Ed’s Café, studying her Anthro textbook. She cleaned her nails nervously, noticing how dry her knuckles were. She hated how stalkerish she seemed in this situation but there really wasn’t much of a choice. He was there every Thursday, and she even noticed that sometimes he requested the exact same table. Extrovert, she thought. Doesn’t mind being seen. No wonder we were separated.

He glides in at his usual time. Smooth, clean, almost compulsively arranged dreads. Messenger bag, headphones. Metrocard back into the wallet with such a continuous movement that it looked like martial arts.

Her affect is quiet, but there is still that low lull of nervousness. When will the right time come? She texts with Marilyn for a few minutes. Reloads the twitter app. Tries to figure out what this song is on the satellite radio station. His face is so fine. Chiseled, serene. Barely any blemishes. Mostly smooth caramel skin. He’s fiddling with a set of keys. He places his blended coffee order. This is it.

“Hi. Um, Garrett?”

He swivels around. “Hi there.” He looks predictably perplexed.

“You’re Garrett McInerney, right?”

“Um, yeah. How did you know my last name?”

“I was doing some research online. You were in the system for a while, right?”

“Ok, what the hell. Please tell me how you know all this and why you’re acting like a creepy stalker.”

“We’re brother and sister.”

“Seriously, stop harassing me or I’ll tell the restaurant staff. This is making me uncomfortable. I’m a fucking regular here, you know. I can get you kicked out.”

“You never noticed me sitting over in that corner every Thursday, too? Wow, you must be oblivious.”

“Look, I have a big fucking script to work on. What the hell do you want?”

“If you’d like me to, I can email the info to you. I’ve saved it. In the meantime, I wanted to give you this.” She pulled out a small heart made of rose quartz and placed it on the table close to his hand. “I hope everything’s ok. When I was little I used to have dreams about you. You looked different, but I could tell it was still you when I did the research and started seeing you in here. Oh, and in case you care, we’re a quarter Sri Lankan, and some Cherokee and Blackfoot a while back. And our cousin Jenny looks really, really white, so I’m pretty sure that’s in there, too. I hope everything’s going ok for you. I’m sorry that mom was acting a fool and put you in the system. She was doing a lot of drugs at the time, I know. Maybe you were lucky to have not grown up with the Bible-banging and the threats. So anyway, sorry to bug you. I still have dreams about you. I hope everything goes ok.”

His face relaxed slightly. “Have a good day…what was your name?”

“Katrina.” She smiled.

---

A couple hours later, she was done with her reading. She hadn’t noticed that he’d left in the meantime. A sleety, sloshy rain had begun to fall. She packed up, and started fiddling with the song menu on her phone. Jeff Buckley’s “Dream Brother.”

Don't be like the one who made me so old

Don't belie the one who left behind his name

'Cause they're waiting for you like i waited for mine

And nobody ever came.

“I love you, Garrett. Even if you don’t know who I am. And I miss mom.”

---

That dark angel he is shuffling in

Watching over them with his black feather wings unfurled...