The Half Brother Read Online Free Page B

your conscience,” he said, “that still, small voice, you will regret it the rest of your life. That is always true. Till the end of time.”
    And then we were singing the school hymn. “In wisdom, stature, love for man …”
    After chapel, Preston made a point of greeting everyone at the door, like a regular parish priest. As I waited, I absorbed the medieval kitsch of the chapel: soaring vaults, carved friezes, and every face in every stained-glass window solemn, with dark-ages circles under the eyes—but I was ready to love it all. All around us, the names engraved in the stone blocks of the walls—the unfortunate young dead, captains of industry, do-gooders, past headmasters and their wives, a couple of senators, and, by the door, the Grey boys—bore silent witness to the sturdiness of the past, to virtuous productivity, and, if one lived long enough, the accolades waiting if one followed certain scripts thoroughly and well. If one listened to one’s conscience, at least some of the time.
    When it was my turn to be greeted, the directness of Preston’s gaze, his effortless simulation of affinity, enveloped me. “I didn’t know that about your father,” I said, which of course was asinine because I didn’t know anything about him. “That he left.”
    “A difficult thing.” He’d taken my hand to shake it, now covered it with his other one, a gesture that felt provisional rather than warm. “It was a long time ago.” He cocked his head at me, a polite nudge.
    “Charlie,” I said. “Charles Garrett. English department. From Atlanta.”
    “Of course. A fellow countryman.” He smiled his saddish smile and gave my still-enclosed hand a tolerant pat. I didn’t know yet thathe exuded intimacy only from far away, in the pulpit. “A long time ago,” he repeated. “We survive, don’t we? Ah, and here’s young Mr. Bratton,” he said to the boy behind me, with the same consuming recognition, and the large, dry hand was withdrawn.
    AND THAT DAY, that first day, when I’d seen May beside the bright green playing field, in the mist?
    They took a picture that day, the Bankheads. It turned out to be one of those fortuitous snapshots that acquires a distinct identity and function over the years, or so May told me. Someone would say, “In the lacrosse picture …” and everyone knew which one that was, although there were a lot of lacrosse pictures. And in this particular lacrosse picture, there wasn’t even much visible lacrosseness, except for Laird’s uniform, which was mostly hidden by others’ shoulders, and Laird’s sweat, which had glued his hair in a perfect tousle.
    The three boys and their parents: William, who was already in college, and who refused to answer to Binky anymore, do not call me that; Henry, the youngest boy, the sweetest; Laird, the best athlete; and then Preston and Florence flanking them, the frame fully filled with their five faces, the day’s flat light perfect, making the colors bluish and poignant. You can see why that picture survived, why it ended up as an eight-by-ten on the grand piano (which no one played) in the living room, along with more official portraits of weddings and graduations and christenings: by some trick of light, some alchemy of chance, they all look relaxed, with themselves and even more unusually with one another.
    They look like a family that laughs every night around the dinner table; Preston looks like a father whom the sons consult regularly, respectfully, gratefully—a father who takes long walks with each son in turn, scuffing through fallen leaves in a pretty, civilized wood. Florence looks like a mother who rules with a firm but fair hand, a taskmaster of the domestic who’ll make you fold your laundry and set the table and write prompt thank-you notes, a woman whose price is far above rubies. Her head is flung back with both satisfaction andgratitude: her sons are nearly grown, look what she has wrought! And the boys look solid, full of