The Back Road He Still Takes

My brother picks me up from my mom's every few weeks and drives me back to my place, and every time he takes River Road, which adds twelve minutes and isn't the way either of us would tell a stranger to go. I never asked why until tonight, mostly because I finally caught myself timing it. Right around the old house, right where the fence used to lean, he lets off the gas. Not a full stop. Just enough that the engine drops half a note and the porch light our parents never turned off, in three separate owners' worth of time, slides across the windshield a second longer than it should.

He does this every single time. I've been in this car probably sixty times since we sold that house and I only just noticed the pattern tonight, which says more about me than him.

I open my mouth to ask if he does it on purpose. He starts talking about traffic on the highway instead, easy, like he heard the question before I said it and already had an answer ready that wasn't going to be the real one.

I let it go. We're the kind of siblings who communicate mostly through fifteen-minute drives, and neither of us has said the word house since it stopped being ours. I don't know what I'd do if he actually told me. Probably just say yeah, me too, and look out the window like I always do right about here.