The moon sings softly on the nights Esther climbs in through her brother’s window. These nights turn sparser as Amador stays in his new apartment across the country. During these nights, her heart beats in a lulled pace while she sits on his empty bed.
There’s a soft click as she unlatches the window and when she crawls in, she makes sure to land on her toes. She finds more than just her older brother. She doesn’t know what she’ll see or what she hopes to see. When she’d last seen him, he’d slammed the door, tears streaking down his face and voice hoarse from screaming. She still doesn’t have the full pieces from the fight that led to her father’s roaring voice startling their home into silence and the unusual pitch of Amador’s voice as he walked out the door.
She opens his bedroom door to see if he is in the living room or spending his time in a library. She hopes he’s found a library he likes here despite all that has transpired.
Amador’s head is lolled on the couch, his mouth parted and dead to the world. His body is slightly tilted with one arm around his childhood friend, Maya’s sleeping form who was hugging her brother’s waist. The ugly green blanket Esther had gifted him as a joke is bunch around their feet as if kicked. There’s Snakes n Ladders, playing cards, and Candyland strewn across the table.
Maya had always filled Amador’s head with ideas—little fantasies that didn’t include Esther most likely that he could escape into. Frowning, she steps forward, fully planning to yank the woman out but the floor creaks loudly under her feet. They both jolt open, Amador’s shaking his head and Maya drags her hands across her face to remove her hair from her mouth, scrunching her face.
When Amador turns around to face the source of the sound, he finds her face and gives a dopey smile. ‘Hey, you’re home. When d’you come here?’
This is the first time she heard him call this place home, and a little piece of Esther’s heart cracks as if he’s renouncing the family home. Something vicious crawls onto Esther’s tongue as she bites out, ‘Thought you’d know that you’ve not succeeded in getting rid of me yet.’
Milas flinches as hurt flashes across his face, and in an instant, Maya grips his arm. Esther can never guess how Maya knows that while still keeping her piercing gaze fixed on her.
‘I don’t want to get rid of you,’ Amador says in confusion before letting out a shaky laugh, ‘no matter how annoying you are, you little rugrat.’
Esther should ideally know that. She doesn’t have the full pieces of the fight he had with mom and dad, or the unfamiliar way he’s glancing at Esther, still wary but now distant. Even in the moonlight, she can see the color back on his face, the surety of his movements as he tidies up the table and the blanket to give Esther a place to sit.
When Maya flicks on the floor lamp in the corner, his eyes crinkle at Esther and he pats the seat next to him. His cheeks are no longer sallow, his face no longer as pale as Esther, and he no longer sways in a way that makes Esther worry that a faint breeze could have knocked the husk of a rock her brother used to be.
Her brother had been wasting away for months, and Esther had not noticed.
From the corner of her eyes, Maya walks in with two plates balanced in a tray and slides the biggest portion of what looks like heated leftover lasagna to her brother, glancing warily, as she reminds him, ‘You’d promised you’d eat tomorrow nine hours ago. It’s 12:03. Eat up.’
She offers another to Esther as she leisurely nibbles on peanuts to keep her brother company. Her brother makes a little face at the size, and Maya produces a bar of chocolate in her fingers seemingly out of thin air as a bribe and chews obnoxiously loud until he drops it. He slouches to rest his head on Maya’s shoulders in acquiesce like Esther had seen him do a thousand times since she could remember, and the woefully domestic scene sours her heart.
Her plate remains untouched and she nods her head in gratitude for the food and the company. She makes excuses poorly at best and outlandish at worst, and walks out the door.
One day, she would know the words of the fight and Amador’s dreams if he’d let her, but for now, she takes the earliest train home. As she looks through the window, she sees her mother’s eyes with dark circles underneath. They both have her eyes, but this new Amador’s eyes gleam bright enough to quiet the moon.