Daniel had always hated his hands. They were weak hands, small and smooth with long, spindly fingers. Hands that needed protecting. Daniel’s hands were the complete opposite of his brother’s. Zachary had strong hands. They were big and strong, with calluses from working on cars that made them feel rough. Hands that protected. Hands, Daniel had found, show a lot about a person. He can tell a person’s career, emotional state, and their strength all based on their hands. But somehow, even Daniel does not have strong hands.

That was okay when he was growing up, because Zachary protected him. When kids teased him in school, Zachary would go up and lecture them in a deceptively calm voice about manners, his hands clenched tight into fists at his sides, knuckles white and his whole arm trembling from trying to keep them still.

Zachary’s hands were the same now. They were clenched on his lap, trembling and pale, even as his face showed confusion.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Zachary said, but Daniel knew, could see in his hands, that he did understand.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Eldridge. It appears your cancer is metastatic, meaning it has spread throughout the body. I’m sorry to say you don’t have very long to live,” Dr. Baland said, not looking very sorry at all. His hands, pale and thin with fingers that looked like they better belonged wrapped around someone’s throat, lay placidly on his desk. His face was pallid and thin, and his eyes were so pale a blue they looked like someone had sucked the color right out of them.

Zachary’s hands shook a little more as he forced a smile on his face. It looked incredibly fake.

“Oh,” he said simply, and his strong hands suddenly looked very vulnerable. “And how long do you think I have?”

“About a year and a half,” was Dr. Baland’s answer.

Zachary’s eyes glistened and he swallowed hard, “Oh,” he said again, and it sounded hollow. Daniel knew he was thinking about Sadie, his girlfriend of two years, and the ring he had bought two weeks ago. Zachary’s hands clenched and unclenched a few times before he rubbed his hands over his dark brown hair, blowing out a long, drawn out breath that was unusually loud in the silent room.

Daniel suddenly felt very obtrusive, and he shifted a little in the hard chair, staring at his hands, so small and weak and unable to help his brother who was falling apart two feet from him. He was only there because he was the one who convinced Zachary to visit a doctor after he had fainted while working on a minivan. Zachary had tried to play it off as exhaustion and had promised to eat more, but Daniel had insisted. And now he was here, feeling oddly relieved now that he knew what was wrong with his big brother. The relief was a hollow feeling, but he couldn’t feel much of anything else. He felt empty inside, and Dr. Baland’s words echoed inside of him as if he was speaking into a large bell. And he was falling, falling through everything and nothing, drowning and flying and crashing all at once. And just as he felt he might lose himself in these overwhelming sensations, a big, strong hand reached over and grabbed his small, shaking one.

It was Zachary. Zachary was smiling wanly, tears shining in his eyes, and even though it was Zachary who was dying, Zachary whose world was falling apart, it was also Zachary who was supporting him and protecting him again.

Daniel felt guilty for accepting his brother’s support, felt guilty for leaning on him when Zachary was the one who should be supported, when Zachary was the one crumbling. But Daniel didn’t know what else to do. He wasn’t strong enough, his hands weren’t big enough, to hold his brother’s life together.

They shook Dr. Baland’s hand before they left. The doctor’s hands were ice cold and limp in Daniel’s, and he wondered if Dr. Baland was even alive, or if he was dead. If every time he watched a patient die, a part of him died too, taking with it some color and warmth and life. Suddenly, Daniel pitied the man and wanted to ask how he did it, how he watched people die every day and still functioned. Instead, he kept quiet, and followed his brother out of the office and into the parking garage.

The car ride was silent, Daniel’s weak, useless hands gripping the steering wheel tightly as if it would help Zachary, who sat pale and still, in the passenger seat. Zachary’s hands had never stopped moving before. They were always fiddling with something, swinging wide as he talked, or just fluttering in response to something no one else could hear. But now they lay listlessly in his lap. Quiet, silent, cold. Like the dead. Like Zachary will be, whispered an evil voice in Daniel’s head. Daniel squeezed the steering wheel as tightly as he wanted to squeeze his own throat at that moment, as if to choke those thoughts out of his mind.

Sadie didn’t react at all as Daniel had thought she would. He had expected her to cry, to scream, to sob, and to hug Zachary like he would be dying the very next minute.  But she had only paled and slumped down in her seat, gripping the arms of the armchair like it was the only thing keeping him alive. Her hands, usually so steady, shook furiously as she held onto the chair so hard Daniel was afraid she would injure herself. But she wouldn’t, because her hands were strong.

Sadie had small hands, too. But her hands were different, were stronger than Daniel’s. Her hands, while small, were rough with calluses from playing the cello, and her nails were kept blunt and short. Sadie never wore nail polish or jewelry; her hands were only there for her work. There was a sort of quiet, practical strength in Sadie’s hands. She was a protector, too. Which was why Sadie did what Daniel couldn’t, and supported the one who has always supported. She pulled Zachary to her, holding him as he cried. She looked up over his shoulder and gave Daniel a look so desperate and broken, it looked like she was dying too. Daniel wished, not for the first time, that his hands were strong enough to help.

Two months later, Daniel had to leave for his last year of college in Boston. He had wanted to stay, to be there for his brother, but Zachary had given him a lecture about how he shouldn’t put his life on hold for anyone, not even his brother who may or may not be a little sick right now. So Daniel left, with a promise to keep in touch. He called every Tuesday, and texted more often than that. Zachary was always ‘doing just fine’, and that’s all he would say about it. He wouldn’t talk about his illness or the treatment. Instead he would tell Daniel all about that stupid kid who messed up his engine doing something Daniel didn’t quite catch, or about Sadie’s most recent recital, or about that puppy he found but couldn’t keep because he also discovered he was allergic. Daniel didn’t mind the evasiveness, because he didn’t really want to think about it anyway.

When Daniel came back, three months before the day Dr. Baland had said his brother would die, Daniel regretted not asking about his brother’s health. Zachary was frail. He wasn’t working on cars anymore. His hair was shorter, cropped close to his head. He was thin and gaunt. Daniel couldn’t help but to think that those two things combined made his brother look like a skeleton. Zachary had lost twenty pounds, his job, and his tan, but he still smiled. He smiled even as Daniel yelled horrible things at him, cursing him for not telling him that they had stopped treatments because they weren’t working, for not telling him when he had lost his job or that the real reason he didn’t keep that puppy was because he couldn’t afford to feed it with all the medical bills.  

Zachary smiled when Daniel came back an hour after he had stormed out of the house, crying and apologizing. He smiled when Daniel grabbed his hand, his hand that used to be so strong and was now so frail, to help him up. He smiled even when Daniel whispered to him that he was scared of him dying and leaving him and Sadie all alone. And he smiled when he reached up with that pale, weak hand to hit him on the side of the head and tell him that he was being stupid, that Zachary would always be there, even when he was gone.

“Besides,” he had laughed, “If I’m not scared, you shouldn’t be, either. I’ll take care of you, Danny.”

And even though he hadn’t been called Danny since he was twelve, even though it was a nickname Zachary had only used when he didn’t know how to calm him down, even though Zachary’s hands were shaking and his eyes were shining and he looked so very scared at that moment, Daniel smiled back. And he decided that he would help his brother as best he was able with his weak hands.

It got hard, though. With Zachary out of work, they ran low on money quickly. They didn’t have enough money to pay the medical bills, even when Sadie put down her cello and picked up a job as a waitress. Daniel offered to quit school and get a job, but Zachary blew up.

“Why can’t I get a job, help pay the bills? I’m living here, freeloading off of you guys, and you won’t even let me pay for groceries! I can help, too,” Daniel’s voice cracked, and his hot tears prickled behind his eyes. “I’m part of this, too.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t be,” Zachary said, staring hard at a spot behind Daniel’s head.

“What do you mean?” Daniel tried to ignore the betrayal as it clawed its way up his throat, choking him with its sharp, sour flavor.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be part of this. It’s not like anyone asked you to stay here.”

Daniel remained pointedly silent.

“I don’t need you here, Daniel.” He was still speaking to the wall, Daniel mused. How absurd! There was a strange, desperate hilarity about it, and Daniel smothered a laugh where it bubbled painfully in his chest.

“I don’t want you here.”

Suddenly, the pale yellow walls of the kitchen were incredibly interesting. If he stared hard enough at the dirt smudge in the corner, Daniel could almost not notice the way the words felt like knives being twisted in his gut.

“Oh,” he said, and remembered Zachary’s reaction to the news of his illness, how small and hollow this one word had seemed. Despite this, he could not think of anything else to say. “Oh, okay.”

Zachary’s face was full of emotion, but Daniel did not, could not, understand any of it. He dropped his eyes to his brother’s hands, the hands that had always shown Daniel the emotions he couldn’t read in a face. But the hands were foreign to him. They were still, thin and weak and so very much not Zachary’s that Daniel wanted to cry. Instead, Daniel turned on his heel and walked out the door.

It was wet in the woods, having rained the day before, and Daniel lamented his decision to leave the house without grabbing a jacket, even as he acknowledged that he hadn’t been in the state of mind to make any wise decisions. He didn’t quite know where he was, and remembered the rule his mother had told him, almost twenty years ago. If you’re lost in the woods, hug a tree. While he didn’t feel much like wrapping his arms around a tree trunk, Daniel understood the meaning. So he sat down and waited.

As he sat, Daniel thought back on the argument. He didn’t understand where it had come from. He had offered to take a year off school and get a job to help with the bills, and Zachary had blown up. He had told him he wasn’t wanted here. Daniel figured that Zachary must have been thinking that for a while, for it to come out in an argument like this. And he understood, he really did. Daniel was a burden, especially with Zachary’s medical bills to be paid. They never asked for him to come home that summer. Maybe they had even hoped he would get himself an apartment up in Boston, near his school, so he could get a job and an apartment, staying out of their home, out of their wallet, and out of their hair. He would get a job, he decided, and an apartment. And he would move in before the ink was dry, because Zachary didn’t want him around.

The sun had started to set, casting long shadows in between the trees and painting the sky with pinks and oranges. A light was moving towards him. As it got closer, he realized it was someone holding a flashlight.

“What are you doing sitting down way out here?” It was Sadie, and she smiled at him, the shadows making her eyes appear to be a deeper brown than they usually were.

“I got lost,” Daniel admitted, scuffing the toe of his shoe along the dirt.

“How’d you do that?”

“I started walking without thinking, and by the time my head cleared up, I was already lost.”

“Yeah,” Sadie said, “I heard about the fight. I would have stormed off, too, if Zach had said those things to me. Honestly, that man…” she trailed off, and shook her head. “Anyway, just ignore him. He wants you around. He’s just worried about you.”

Daniel didn’t understand why Zachary would be worried about him when his own hands were so frail, until he remembered how his brother’s hands used to look like they could hold the world together and still have some strength left over.

Sadie must have seen the way his fingers had fluttered in confusion because she spoke again, “I mean, he’s worried for your future. He doesn’t want you to put off your education and your career because he’s sick. He doesn’t want you to die with him.”

Daniel opened his mouth to protest, but Sadie kept speaking, “He’s always protected you. I know that. He’s still trying to protect you. But maybe it’s time for you to protect him.”

Daniel wanted to tell her it was impossible, that his hands weren’t strong enough to protect Zachary no matter how much he wanted to, but he saw the way her hands were clenched in fists at her sides, the way the dim light of the setting sun cast shadows across the tendons in her wrist and the way her engagement ring glittered, and it made him stop. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed that Sadie had accepted the ring. He wondered why they hadn’t told him. They walked the rest of the way home in silence.

Two days later, Zachary collapsed while trying to get a glass of water. Sadie didn’t seem very surprised, and he was almost angry for the indifferent way she had cleaned up the glass before bringing Zachary to the hospital. But then he remembered there was a month left.

Daniel had decided to stay for the last month. After that he would leave Zachary and Sadie alone. But only Sadie would be left alone, a small part of his mind interjected snidely, because Zachary would leave them first. He ignored it, and the feeling of guilt that came with it.

Zachary was staying at the hospital all the time now. Daniel and Sadie would take turns visiting him. Daniel also got a job as a barista in a small coffee shop the next town over. He would pick up groceries with his own money, putting the money Sadie would give him back in the savings jar a few days after. It was the only way he felt he could help, and somehow Daniel still felt useless.

The hospital visits reminded Daniel of the phone calls he and Zachary had when Daniel was in school, where they spoke of everything and nothing, and never mentioned the illness. Even if it wasn’t mentioned, Zachary’s impending death was present. Misery hung around the hospital like a funeral shroud, and it was hard to keep an optimistic attitude when he had to pass the funeral parlor on the freeway to get to it. Daniel’s optimism was waning with Zachary’s strength, and left Daniel clinging desperately to any chance of hope he could get. He hoped, even as it grew more difficult, that maybe it was their spirit keeping Zachary alive.  

“So, I stopped by to visit Munchkin today. She somehow managed to chew through a TV remote,” Daniel said, and Zachary smiled weakly. He liked hearing about that puppy, the one he couldn’t keep and had to give to his neighbor. Daniel liked to think it was because Munchkin, with all of her shenanigans, was the most exciting thing in Zachary’s life.

“Make sure you keep visiting her. That family can’t handle her by themselves,” Zachary said.

Daniel swallowed thickly, “You mean we’ll go together once you get out, right?”

Zachary laughed, and the sound was thin and high, like rubber stretched so thin it’s about to break. “No,” he breathed, “I think we both know that next time I leave the hospital it’ll be for the funeral parlour.”

The air in the room felt thick and stale, and the only sounds were that of Zachary’s ragged breathing and the beeping of the machines. Daniel didn’t want to agree, but he realized his brother was right. There wasn’t much short of a miracle that could save Zachary now, and they both knew it.

Zachary’s hand twitched, and Daniel reached out to take it. His hand felt weak and frail, and the skin on the back of his hands was thin and pale, and hung loosely because of how much weight he had lost. The harsh lights of the hospital room made his skin translucent, and Daniel tried not to notice how cold his brother’s hands had become.

“Can I tell you something, Danny?” It was that nickname again, the one that meant that Zachary was walking on eggshells. “When you left for college, I got a lot of tests done. They reevaluated me, or something. I don’t really know.” He paused and breathed deeply but seemed to not be able to draw enough air. He continued despite this. “Anyway, they told me that they didn’t think I’d live a year, said something about being sorry for giving me false hope. I’m about a half a year over now. I wanted to see you graduate, but I don’t think that’ll happen now. Sorry, Danny. I always knew you’d do great things.”

Part of Daniel realized that Zachary confessing to this meant something big, but he was too dumbfounded to really process it. He wanted to tell Zachary that he had gotten a job, that he would go back to school, that he wanted to help pay the bills. He wanted to promise to look after Sadie, but he didn’t know if he was strong enough. But Daniel wondered for a moment why he wasn’t strong enough when Zachary, with his frail hands, had held out for six months longer than the doctors said he would live just because he wanted to see Daniel graduate. When Zachary, with his weak fingers, was stronger than any weightlifter or construction worker because he let his soul take over when his body gave out. And as Daniel held onto his brother’s hands, so sickly and weak, he thought that if those hands could end up being so strong, then maybe, just maybe, so could his.