When I said hospital or busy I realized I was still talking and it took until

this week to hear anyone else, like Luke who said this summer he got robbed in

Vietnam: the thief scaled a wall and jimmied the window lock and pocketed the phone

right off the bed, and Luke prefers to have been asleep there while it happened so it

feels like he was never robbed at all, or Meg humming bluegrass in the hall, bearing

coffee in the morning and whiskey in the evening, or my grandma showing me how to pray

to the family’s patron goddess, like how they did on the boats over to the US or when

I was applying to damn med school in the first place, or Dan, the last thing he said

and will ever say to me—was it anh for big brother or no words at all, just

the signature smile and headshake—or Johnny who drives us past the airport and says my

dad would take him here to watch the planes take to sky and when I start talking, always

talking, about being jealous that I never saw this side of him, only the dad with

calloused hands, Johnny says, No you were there too, you were too small to see