You have to give Justin credit. Even though he doesn't understand exactly why it's important that you do this like a normal person (kind of like Spider-Man applying for a debt consolidation loan), he hasn't complained at all, or asked why you didn't call a moving company, or asked why the hell you filled all the boxes to the top before embalming them in duct tape, or any of the shit you would have carped about at his age.
You kind of want to carp too, but you can't, even though the boxes are too heavy and you worry about Joey's leg. You just give them lots of soda and tell them to stop every ten minutes when you get tired.
Joey sucks at stopping. You knew he would.
You sit on the bottom step and feel like a wuss while the backs of your calves tremble. Your grandmother asked you to do this because you were in better shape than any of her best friend Mrs. Isaacson's grandkids, but your muscles, your endurance, are a different kind. There's no joy in this, nowhere to go inside to forget it.
You start to remember that you paid your dues moving in and out of shitty walk-ups and even smaller places, like cars, and maybe it wouldn't hurt to let go of whatever you're here to prove. But you remind yourself that's not why you're doing it. All of your acts don't have to be about something. They aren't all answers to interview questions. Maybe you're just doing a favor for your family.
Justin finally takes a break to hose Joey with shaken-up Code Red. He's wearing a fume mask and goggles and choking We come in peace! as he pretends to die an alien death. He and Joey end up covered in pink foam and yard dust.
You rehearse a dozen ways of saying Don't mess with her husband's stuff, he's gone and she's in a home and can't stop you, but none of them make sense, so you settle for not watching.
You head inside and pick up a box stacked with photographs. You remember that there were a few more upstairs, on the nightstand lately littered with half-full pill organizers and wadded Kleenex.
Her bedroom is painted cool blue-green. She did it herself, your grandmother told you; they picked out swatches together, teased the cute blond guy who worked at the Sherwin Williams, matched the plaid curtains.
She just faded so quick after Ernie died, said your grandma, like the cancer moved into the space he left behind.
You wonder if it's better to die than be empty.
You find the last picture collapsed between the table and the bed. It's a face shot, probably from some late anniversary. Mr. and Mrs. Isaacson, twin seamed faces, twin heads of snowy hair, twin pairs of age-scrubbed eyes. He has a bright scarf in his pocket. She wears an orchid on her breast.
As you bring it into the sunlight slanting through the west window, you see the hairline crack that splits the glass from top to bottom. It's oddly beautiful, a twisted rainbow fault, like the aura of precognition. It's a someday sundering, the fated death of permanence. You sit down to think about it for a while.
You hear the guys open the screen door downstairs, laughing about something, and you struggle for something lighthearted to say about what's in your hands. You plan to go wave the picture at Justin and croak Why don't you kids get married anymore? in your little-old-man voice, but tears collect at the corners of your eyes and your arms feel heavy, heavy. You will in a minute.
The sun moves from the Isaacsons's bodies to their faces, the rainbow ripple braiding to white. Joey surprises you when he takes the picture from your hand and kneels in the crumpled newspaper. He says Okay? and tugs you into his arms without asking again. He's solid and warm and calm, and smells cedary.
You mean to say Yeah. You don't say anything.
The light changes, a little more golden, and when you look up Justin's standing in the door. His scalp glitters under the wriggles of quick-growing curl, and his eyes are big and dark. He wants to come in, you can tell, but he's so afraid for your fucking pride. You must be, too, or you'd nod to him, welcome him.
Fortunately, Justin never waits for your consent. He sits on a box nearby and says Chris? and when you glance up, he kisses you.
It's nothing romantic. Not that kind of kiss, not friendly or brotherly either, just...soft, and itchy, and exploratory. You get the feeling it's going to etch your soul, but slowly. Moving seems more complicated than it did an hour ago.
Chris? Joey echoes, voice like dark roast coffee, and kisses you too.
You don't know these people. Don't know how they got so close that they can taste your tears without making you defend them. All you know is that Justin's hand feels perfect spanning the small of your back, and Joey's heart thumps against your cheek.
It's not marriage, but it's love. It'll last.
You end up in the kitchen. They never really let go of you; your best friends touch you all the time, and that hasn't changed, but you savor it like you never let yourself before. Justin makes you peanut butter sandwiches because it's the only thing he knows how to cook, and Joey cracks You better not be cooking peanut butter, Timberlake, and of course Justin has to fry them then to prove he can.
He burns them. Both of you eat them anyway, with lots of cold milk.
Afterwards, they kiss you again, then each other, eyes closed and eyes open, laughing and watchful and somber. They show you all their faces.
I love you, Justin says in the middle of Joey's declaration of the same words. Their voices are more alike than you would have thought, light and tensile, but there's still harmony to the music they offer you. You heard it years ago. You never really stopped.
You wonder if there's any point in claiming you're not like that, now that you shared both of their mouths, their space, their secrets. Then their arms enfold you, powerfully loving, and you can't think why you would.