Fish Stories

On the day my dead brother came home I awoke to the smell of salty broth, mushrooms swelled with water and heat, the tang of sugared limes. My mother entered my bedroom, pulled me from sleep with cool fingers. He’s home, she said. Who? Your brother. When she said his name, I pushed away the thought of the boy I had once known, glasses round and thick, framing eyes whose lashes I never stopped envying, a checkered shirt or perhaps his Manchester United polo, a missing canine that had never grown in. Instead, I rolled over and said, My brother is dead. Let me sleep. Patiently, my mother peeled back the covers, waited for the February air to work its way under my pajama shirt. He’s in the living room, she said. He needs a change of clothes. Give him something of yours.

When she left the room, I heard her speaking to someone, asking my brother if he was hungry, when was the last time he ate. When I stepped into the living room with a sweatshirt and shorts folded in my arms, my mother was seated on the low sofa, rubbing her hands over a flowered pillow. He’s soaking, she said, give him the clothes so he can change. I placed the clothes next to her and asked why he was wet. It’s a storm, she said, and as she said so I heard the drum of rain against the window. Also, he had to swim so far to get here. He can’t swim, I said.

My brother had drowned years ago when we first arrived in this country where children learned to swim before they could walk, burbling mounds of fat and feathery hair dropped into communal swimming pools like coins, careless wishes tossed by believing parents. My mother looked at me. He learned, of course, she said. He had to swim all that way.

What’s that smell, I asked, my nostrils pricking at the acidic cloud that was drifting from the kitchen. I’m making soup, my mother said. Help him change while I go check on it. She left the room, and I heard the clicking of a spoon against a pot, the splatter of garlic and mustard seed frying in oil. They’re just ripe enough, I heard her say, followed by the whack and tear of plantain skin peeling from body. Moving to the couch, I sat where my mother had been and fingered the pile of clothes next to me. My brother was older than I, but he had always been slight, his cheekbones carving his face into delicacy, his collarbones knocking against mine whenever we hugged. Which wasn’t often, but I remember him slinging his arm over my shoulder as we walked home from school, whispering low into my ear to drown out the calls of the kids on the field. Where did you even come from, they would call. What happened to your dad? My brother would stroll over with an easy cool, nod his head at the boys who were doubled over in cruel laughter, and steer me away. Just like that.

Something was crackling in the kitchen, maybe dried chilies added to the pot, the ticking of the back burner that never quite worked. Almost ready, my mother called, her voice high-pitched, sing-song, like it wasn’t past midnight and she didn’t have to be up for work in five hours to stand on her feet in a cold hospital waiting room all day. OK, I called back, then picked up the pile of clothes and shoved them under the pillow.

One day, I had arrived at school to find that no one was interested in bothering me. Instead, I found a crowd of sixth-grade boys around my brother, and my brother recounting story after story, his hands shaping the air into mountains, rivers, elephants, swords. Yes, we rode lions to school, and for dinner my mother would kill a monkey, crack open its skull for us to feast on fresh brains. Yes, for my last birthday I had tea with the King of Uganda; we shared a cake made of mango flesh studded with passion fruit seeds like jewels. Yes, he sent my family on a mission to far-off Canada. We swam here; it took us a whole year. Yes, a few days into our journey my father realized he had forgotten to bring our money, so he had to turn back to fetch it. He’ll arrive any day now, with our money, too. The boys were nodding, nodding, what looked like hesitant admiration in their eyes. Later, I would understand it as jealousy.

I heard my mother humming over the stove. In the kitchen I found that she had coiled her hair into a high bun atop her head and that sweat was speckling her nose from the steam rising out of the three steel pots. She had her arm nearly all the way into one of them, working a fork over the matoke, grunting with effort. Do you need help? I asked, but she shook her head, her back turned to me. You just keep your brother company for now, she said. He’s missed you. She pulled a wide bowl from the cabinet, ladled in broth and heat-drunk vegetables, sprinkled a palmful of salt over the sticky mound. He never liked spicy much, but—she said, adding a green chili. Then, balancing the vessels in her arms, she turned around to face me and my brother. Oh, she said. Where did he go? I looked beside me, at the seat that I had pulled out. My mother walked over and lined up the two bowls and the mug, folding a sheet of paper towel under the spoon. Steam curled up around the empty chair, thick with oil and salt. Just as the plate had sat seven years ago when we waited for my brother to come home from school, the spoon untouched, the napkin to be folded up and placed back in the cutlery drawer, though the food would be left out all night. In the morning we had found bugs feasting on the corn, an upturned fly floating in the orange grease, its belly swollen, glutted. Later we would learn that some of the boys had challenged my brother to prove that he had swum across the world, leading him down to the creek after school. If only he had mentioned the airplane, or the boat, or even the life jackets. My mother sat down in the chair across from the brimming bowls, wiped her wet fingers across her stomach. Never mind, she said. He’ll be back any day now. We’ll just leave this out until morning.