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when i was little, kisses were “lip hugs” and big brothers were happy people.  little plastic bags were never hidden under his pillow and his clothes never smelled like bad things.  those were the days when instead of climbing out his window to make smoke rings with his friends, he would twirl me in the air and say that someday i would find someone like his miranda to lip hug.

miranda was the girl that would come over for dinner with smiley eyes and yellow, flowered dresses that twirled when she walked.  we would play tea party and she would teach me songs that we would sing until it was time for her to go home.  then brother would take her hand and they would stand on the porch talking about things i never knew but still liked to listen to as their happy voices floated away under the starry sky.

miranda left us with the skid of a car and it’s blackened skeleton still lies by the side of the road to remind us of the seconds between life and nothing.   when we pass by, my brother looks at it like there’s nothing else in the world and for him-- there isn’t.

brother doesn’t go on walks anymore and his voice doesn’t do summersaults in the air when he talks.  i haven’t even seen him smile in a few years but i imagine his teeth are rotting away beneath his lips.

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after miranda went away, i decided there was no one i wanted to lip hug.  brother never objected.  if i even brought someone home for dinner he would give them glares that would send chills up my spine.  i never had a boy stay for dessert-- not that i wanted them to.  i knew i might just lose them to car collisions and stay paused in time forever.

Even when I finally found someone worth the risk, my brother looked at me with dark, distrustful eyes.  how could you they said.

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“your gonna get hurt.”  he said watching his own cigarette pull away from his mouth and the smoke that floated away in tuffs and swirls of gray, as we sat in rocking chairs on the front porch.

i just looked down at the wooden spaces in the porch floor, wishing i could slip through the slits of darkness and away from this conversation.  “i think it would be worth it.”

“oh yeah?”  brother looked angry, stomping the rest of his cigarette into the ground.

“yeah.” i said.

“i don’t want to see you get hurt.  i can’t.”  his words tumble to the ground and through the cracks that i could not fit through.

“im not miranda.” i get up with a groan from the chair and close the back door behind me.

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my wedding day is white.  white flowers, white cakes, white dresses everywhere.  i stand behind the doors, ready to walk down the red pathway and into another world.  music beckons me to cross the threshold which winds through crowds of sitting people in white chairs.  when i finally pass them, i am confronted by the priest and my love.  we say words that can never be undone or said in any other way and then we lip hug, as the crowd begins to cheer.  as a new wife, i turn and look into the audience to spot a familiar face.

there he is, sitting, momentarily unshrouded from his past.  tears reflected glints of light from his face and for once, they weren’t angry or sad.   for a second the world stops its spinning as i see-- for the first time in eight years-- my brother smile.