He was seven years old, and his brother was five.
Outside a van, outside a church, outside Pittsburgh PA.
He’d seen the tallest buildings in the world in the distance, where they jutted out from the endless highway as they drove. He knew better than to ask where they were going, but his mom had still offered an explanation in the simplicity of ‘we’re going on an adventure’. It was a fun sort of ignorance. The excitement of adventure. The idea of wondering what lies behind the next lake or stretch of cornflower-green field.
He was still small, but by the time he was big, he’d see the whole world.
He’d known kids who’d never seen the edges of their own towns, but he’d seen entire states end-to-end. Layed down like so many van-jostling railroad tracks stretching ominously across forgotten villages and unused bridges. He’d known kids who’d never seen the difference in grays between the water from the ponds and the water in the ocean. He’d known kids who’d never built sandcastles on the beach and in the desert on the same weekend. He’d spoken to kids who’d only ever known one school and one desk and one teacher.
He’d never known these kids for long, but he pitied them.
He wasn’t afraid to see the whole world, but his brother was a scaredy-cat. He’d scream and whine and grip the grass with his weak little hands when their mom put them in the van again. The old, tan, behemoth was their steed in their lifelong personal odyssey, and it was home to them. Still, his brother dreaded the drive. He’d complain of stomach cramps and endless spinning after just a few hours. His face would go pale and his legs would kick and kick and kick and kick until he sat exhausted and ready to sleep. His brother was a coward, and he cowered even now as they sat in the sparse grass and gravel outside the van. He knew his brother would come to his senses sooner or later, but until then, he’d let the kid cower behind the boulder he sat on in the church parking lot.
The sun sank low on the horizon, just barely holding on, just moments from dropping out of the sky like an egg from its cracked shell. He watched the dandelions close and the grass grow still and cold as the night gradually fell, and they waited. It wasn’t long after dark when the church people came to take them inside. His brother was a scaredy cat, and he cried and cried and cried and cried as they were led away from the van and their mom.
Unlike his brother, he was brave, and followed the strangers into the foreign building to find another new thing to see. Another new place to go. He wasn’t the one to ask questions for fear he’d look stupid, but he knew to answer a question when an adult asked.
“What’s your name?”
“Albert Oliver Felix.” He’d practiced his answer with his mom many times to make sure he knew it right. It was his name after all.
“That’s a bit of a mouthful, eh? Mind if I call you Al?” The kind stranger suggested. Albert Oliver Felix wrinkled his nose at the sound of his name so shortened and butchered. He’d known many kids who only knew their nickname, while he’d been given a full one. He pitied them.
“No, I'm Albert Oliver Felix.” He insisted.
“How’s Albert?” The stranger tried again, more insistent this time. Albert Oliver Felix felt his face twist into a pout against his will, but he said nothing. He knew better than to make demands of strangers. His brother said very little as the strangers led the boys inside and got them settled in the pews. Comforted by blankets and unappetizing wafer cookies, His brother's cries and hiccups eventually calmed enough for them to get his name as well.
“Fre-edrik Thodoror Felix…” He mumbled, not as practiced in his own name as Albert. He didn’t seem bothered when the people decided to call him ‘Fred’, But Albert knew it wasn’t his brother's real name.
They waited in the church for so long that their eyes became heavy and their young boy fidgeting became still. They waited for so long that the night became early morning, and the church people began bringing out sleeping bags and mats so the boys could get some rest. They then waited even longer, fitfully sitting or lying in their bags, and wondering when their mom would be back. Wondering when they’d go back to the van. Wondering when the waiting would end. Albert didn’t like the sleeping bag, however generously donated it was, and he missed the swaddled comfort and security of his bucket seat. He waited and stared at the ceiling, counting the tiles and then counting the holes in the tiles until he ran out of numbers and lost track of what they meant. When he rose the next morning to the gentle nudges and hushed murmurs of the church people, he couldn’t remember if he’d slept or not. He felt like he could remember every second of the night's wait until it gradually filled with the day's light as a glass filled with sweet, pulpy orange juice.
The church people didn’t take them back to the van. They set the boys up with breakfast and chatted with them about useless little boy things, speaking in hushed tones around the conversation as if Albert couldn’t hear.
Albert could hear. He could hear how they worried over the boys, how the boys would react if they knew, and how the woman had just shown up without explanation. He could even spell well enough to know h-o-s-p-i-t-a-l spelled trouble. He listened carefully to the church people as they discussed things not meant for little boy ears, but he knew better than to ask questions.
Albert wasn’t frightened when they were led to another van, a black one with steel ornaments. It looked much newer and ran much smoother than their behemoth. He knew why they were there and where they were going, but his brother Fred was ever the frightened and suspicious child. He clung to the kind church woman with the orange juice and asked for her to save them. He begged not to go in the scary new van and to be taken back to their mom. Albert placated him as much as he could when he, too, was nervous about the situation; but he knew their mom was ok. He’d been listening.
They sat in the back while the robed people of the fold ferried them across town to the UPMC McKeesport Hospital. He held his brother's hand when they were led inside the hospital of McKeesport by the fold strangers, and led through the endless fold of hallways by the hospital strangers. He knew what they were there for but he didn’t say anything to Fredrick Theodore Felix. He didn’t know whether to be afraid or excited or angry. He didn't know how Fred would feel once he found out what had happened. He kept trying to say something, but he remained quiet when he couldn’t decide what it was. After minutes that felt like hours to a child, of wandering in the wake of those much taller and much more uniformed strangers, the boys were led into a room that looked exactly the same as the hundred rooms they’d already seen. The only thing more familiar about the identical room they’d been walking past for so long, was the woman seated in the bed it contained.
“Mom!” Fred dropped Albert's hand like a weight as he rushed forward. There was audible disapproval from the hospital strangers who’d brought them there, but their mom just leaned down with one arm and hugged her child excitedly around the neck. Usually, she’d scoop Fred right off the ground. She looked tired, and her arms were otherwise occupied. Albert approached her bed, equally excited to see their mom again, but more aware of why she was in the hospital to begin with.
He stood on his toes and lifted his head high to peer over his mother and brother. He spied his mom’s other arm wrapped protectively around a small bundle of blankets, and the tiniest face he’d ever seen.
His mom smiled at him over his brother's shoulder, releasing him from her free arm and sitting back up slightly. The nice church lady who’d given them orange juice lifted Fred up off the ground by his armpits, holding him on her hip so he could see better. Albert could see fine with his brother out of the way, but he still stood on his toes to see farther as his mom introduced them.
“Boys, I want you to meet your new little sister.” She smiled down at the face in the blanket. It was squished, with closed eyes like it was sleeping. Well, like she was sleeping, Albert supposed. Albert looked at the only version of a human that was smaller than he was, and he somehow felt just as shocked as Fred, even though he’d overheard what had happened. He didn’t know what he thought he’d find, or how he thought it worked, but he didn’t expect he’d have a younger sister in one night. He thought it would take longer, require more paperwork, or possibly be too expensive, as many things were. Where had she even come from? His questions and all other thoughts quieted in his mind when his mom noticed him staring, and gently she asked.
“Do you want to hold her?”
“I do!” Fred piped up helpfully from his place in the church woman's arms. “I wanna hold the baby!”
“You are still a baby.” His mom replied, only taking her eyes off Albert for a moment before fixing him with a stare again.
Albert couldn’t hold a baby, adults held babies. He didn’t even know how it was done. Did he need lady arms? Was he going to make her cry? He knew babies cried, but he didn’t know much beyond that. His distress over the question must’ve been obvious since his mom broke her stare to look down at the baby again.
“You don’t have to, love.”
“But…” Albert didn’t say he didn’t want to. Did he want to? He was brave! He wasn’t a coward like Fred or a baby like his new sister.
“No, I wanna try.” He said finally, reaching out perhaps a little too quickly. His mom laughed, but it sounded weaker than her usual hearty laughter. She sat up a little more and leaned forward, instructing Albert on how to carefully hold his arms, and making sure he wasn’t too shaky. He’d hardly even realized it before she leaned back, and he was standing on his own with the baby.
Suddenly he was adrift, in the lake without a lifejacket. He didn’t mean to lose it, but now he was at the mercy of the water, swimming without aid and kept afloat only by his own power. His heart pounded with anxiety, but the baby didn’t break. He could feel her moving as she shifted in her sleep. He felt her breathing in her tightly swaddled blanket. Albert had never held anything that breathed before, not even a pet. It was so terrifying but once he’d stood for about a minute and nothing happened, he felt the tightness in his chest and limbs loosen a little.
He watched his sister sleep for a moment as his mom talked to the church woman about their behavior. He watched her sleep and he felt…bigger. It was an unfamiliar feeling, next to so many adults who were so much bigger than him, on a road in a van in a world where everything was just so enormous. He was, for just a moment, big. He was a big brother.
And someday he’d see the whole world.
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