Aftermirth by Hillary Jordan

as coffee and tea. We all went for the Bloodies, meanwhile Izzy lapped at some water George had left for him in a gold-rimmed china bowl on an ornate silver tray. “Don’t get used to it, buddy,” I told him.
    We sat down, me next to Elena on one of the half-dozen sofas in the room and Catherine and George in chairs across from us. An awkward silence fell, and we all looked at Catherine: she’d called this convention. I was prepared for some kind of psychobabbly speech about grief and healing, but she surprised me once again.
    â€œMy brother’s name was Caleb,” she said, without preamble. “Caleb Breedlove. He was actually my half brother. Our mother left his father and married mine when Cal was two, and I was born a year later. We grew up together in Austin, but he never really liked the city. My dad was a petroleum engineer who worked for the university; Cal’s was a hill-country farmer, and that was the life he wanted. As soon as he graduated from high school he moved back to Kerrville to help his father on the farm. I was inconsolable when he left. In spite of our differences, we adored each other. I’ll never forget the time in grade school when some jerk in his class told me I wasn’t his real sister because we had different daddies. Cal found me crying and broke the kid’s nose. He got paddled for it twice, first by the principal and then, when he refused to apologize, by my father, but Cal didn’t care. I couldn’t have wished for a better big brother. We grew apart over the years, but we made a point of talking on the first of every month, and he always sent me yellow roses on my birthday. That’s how I knew something was wrong last April, because the florist didn’t come.”
    Catherine swallowed hard, and I thought she was going to keep going and tell us how Cal had died. Instead she stopped and turned to me. Expectantly.
    I gave her a look: Why me? Her glance flickered to Elena and George, and I saw that they were both looking at their hands, struggling. They weren’t ready yet, but somehow, because of everything that had happened in the last seventy-two hours, I was.
    â€œMy wife had the most beautiful laugh you’ve ever heard,” I began, and told them our story: how we’d met, all the things I’d loved about her. It came much easier than when I’d told Elena; I wasn’t even fighting tears. I stopped before the storm, following Catherine’s lead. When I fell silent she gave me an approving nod, and I felt myself glowing like a fourth-grader who’d just gotten a gold star on his long division test.
    Elena glanced at George, but he was silent, so she took a deep breath and gave us Julio Santiago, Santa to his friends. Her voice thickened in a couple of places, but she managed to get through it. And when she finished and received her valedictory nod from Catherine, I saw her sit up a little straighter.
    â€œAnd then they died, all these wonderful people,” George said, startling us all. “One, two, three, and Shane makes four.” The bitterness and raw pain in his voice made me wince in sympathy.
    Addressing Elena and me, he said, “Did Catherine tell you how my beloved met his maker?” We nodded, both of us using the smallest possible motions of our heads. “It was my fault, in a way. When we first got together Shane was smoking a pack and a half a day. I’d watched my mother die of lung cancer, and I was always after him to quit. It took me two years of pestering and pleading, but he finally kicked it, and that’s when he started with the chewing gum. And it couldn’t just be any old gum, oh no, it had to be grape-flavored bubble gum—can you imagine? Like an eight-year-old kid. There was always a fat purple wad of it in his mouth. I came to hate it almost as much as the smoking. One day I lost my temper and told him it made him look like the trailer trash he was. He just