My brother and I were never the best of friends. He lied. A lot. He stole. A lot. He cheated. A lot. He did a lot of things I never thought good people would do. I never thought he was a good person. 

He was three years older than me and far meaner than I would ever become. He beat me up more than a few times.

I was eleven when my grandfather broke up a particularly nasty argument that had me lash out and punch Bart as hard as I could. He saw the punch, not what led to it. He sent Bart in the house for some ice and some good old-fashioned consoling from our grandmother. I imagined he would twist this into some lie, and I would get the blame for it somehow. I was right, but that’s not what this is about.

Granddad pulled me aside and said, “Do you want to play marbles?”

I was confused. Was this a calm before the storm?

He nodded. “Sure, you do.”

He went to the porch and grabbed my marbles off the swing. They were in a purple Crown Royal bag my dad gave me. He came back to where I stood, still unsure of what was happening. He knelt, wiped dirt away with his palm and drew a circle with a stick in the clearing he had made. The marbles went into the circle and we each picked out a shooter, his a plain green one, mine a shiny purple one with white speckles. 

We only played for a few minutes. At one point, I took my shot and knocked a yellow and white swirled marble from the circle. Before I could pick it up, he did. 

“That’s mine,” I said.

He looked at it. “It is.” Then he reached into the circle and picked out another yellow and white swirled marble. He held his hand out, the two marbles side by side on his palm. Then he closed his hands.

He spoke in the way only he could, calm, soothing and wise. “Brett this circle is your world, your surroundings. These marbles …” He pointed to the ones within the circle. “… are the members of your family. These two …” He held up the two yellow and white swirled marbles, one between each pointer finger and thumb. “… are you and your brother.”

Grandad dropped one marble inside the circle. “This one is you.” He dropped the other one on the outside of the circle. “This one is your brother.”

He paused, as if thinking of what to say next. “Sometimes, you will not like your family. Sometimes they will do things that make you mad and you will not want to be around them. But they will always be your family.” He picked up the marble representing my brother. “You may not like him, but Bart is your brother and one day … one day you will wish you kept him in your circle.”

Grandad set the marble back in the circle, stood and went inside the house. I stared at it for a moment or two, then scooped them all up and placed them back in the bag. At some point, I lost track of that bag of marbles.

Life went on and Bart and I never really got along again. 

Twenty years have passed since that day. I found the bag of marbles the other day as I helped clean my grandparents’ house. It had been sitting empty since Grandad’s death a year ago. The bag was at the bottom of one dresser in the room I slept in when I was a kid. I opened it up and dumped the marbles out. Among them were two white and yellow swirled ones—my brother and I. 

I stared at it for a long while …

…

…

Now, here I stand, at my brother’s grave. It’s been four years since drugs took him in the form of an overdose. When I leave, I will go visit Grandad and tell him he was right—I wish I would have kept Bart in my circle. For now, I will stand here a little longer, silent and in thought. Before I leave, I will set one of the two yellow marbles on his head stone. I will never have him back in the circle, but maybe … maybe this will wash away some of the guilt and pain I feel. I doubt it, but it’s worth a shot.

***

Before anyone asks, the only thing true in this story is the game of marbles and the conversation my grandfather and I had when I was a kid. Yes, it did come after a moment of fighting between me and my real brother, but it never escalated to the point of the two brothers in this story—thankfully.

AJB