Memphis’s heart tightened. There was no question that he loved his brother. But Memphis was nearly eighteen, with dreams of his own. Dreams he kept having to push into smaller drawers inside himself under a label of “tomorrow.” He worried that he’d never see any of them realized: never set foot inside A’Lelia Walker’s grand town house with the likes of Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen and Zora Neale Hurston, never see a book of his poems in the front window of a bookseller’s shop, never see the world outside Harlem. How could he ever get away when there was always some undertow of obligation pulling him back?
“We’ll always be together,” Memphis said. He held Isaiah a little tighter, as if he could will his love to overcome his resentment. “It’s late. You oughta be asleep.”
“Not tired.”
“That’s not what your eyes are telling me.”
Isaiah laced his fingers through Memphis’s. His anger was gone. He seemed frightened.
“What’s the matter, Ice Man?”
“I see things in my dreams.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Monsters,” Isaiah whispered.
“They’re just dreams, Isaiah. Dreams can’t get you. Only I can!” Memphis tickled Isaiah, who giggled, crying, “Stop! Stop!” happy as any ten-year-old.
“Ice Man,” Memphis asked as he tucked the blanket under Isaiah’s chin, “what do you remember from before you had your seizure?”
Isaiah blinked up at the ceiling, remembering. “Mr. Johnson was walking me home. He had a shortcut he wanted to take so I wouldn’t be late and get Octavia sore at me.” Isaiah paused for a second. “And I remember I was sad about Mama being dead and Daddy being gone to Chicago.”
Memphis felt the squeezing in his chest again. He hated knowing that Isaiah was sad. “What else you remember?” Memphis said, more gently.
“Mr. Johnson told me he could take that sad right out of my head if I wanted him to.”
“How was he gonna do that?”
“Don’t know. He was teasing me, I think.”
“Oh.”
“And then I had my fit. It was like I was underwater. I saw…”
It was right there on a high shelf of Isaiah’s mind, just out of reach. He had a glimpse of a strange man. But then the face became Bill Johnson’s, and then it was gone.
Isaiah shook his head. “I can’t remember nothing else.”
Memphis took a deep breath. He stared at the floor. “And when you were asleep after your fit, did you know I was right by your bedside?”
Could Isaiah remember Memphis’s healing hands on his arm?
“Huh-uh.”
“But after you woke up, you… you felt all right. Didn’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t feel sick or anything? Just felt like your old shrimpy self.”
“Ain’t shrimpy! Gonna be taller’n you!” Isaiah said, play-hitting Memphis. “Sister Walker said I’d prob’ly be taller than Daddy.”
“Well, now. Guess we’ll have to see on that.”
Isaiah’s lightness evaporated quickly. “Memphis. I miss going to Sister Walker’s house.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think she’s bad. She was too nice to be bad.”
“Lots of folks can seem nice,” Memphis said, but in truth, he’d always liked Sister, too. There was no proof that the work Isaiah had been doing with her, developing his powers, had anything to do with his fit. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he have had more of them? It troubled Memphis.
“She made me feel special,” Isaiah said. “But I guess I’m not special after all.”
“Don’t say that. That isn’t true,” Memphis said, putting his face near his brother’s like they used to on Christmas Eve when they’d try to stay up and catch Santa Claus, reasoning that he’d have to come to Harlem first; after all, Harlem even had a St. Nicholas Avenue.
“Memphis? Will you tell me a story? To help me sleep?”
“All right, then,” Memphis said quietly. “Once upon a time, there were two brothers, and they were close as close can be.…”
Isaiah reached out a hand and placed it on his brother’s arm while Memphis cocooned him with words, wrapping him tightly in the magic of a story well told. Just before he fell asleep, Isaiah murmured to Memphis. “I ’member something else from when I was sick. There was a man. A man in a tall hat…” Isaiah muttered, trailing off into sleep at last.