Page 145 of String Boys

Seth’s YouTube channel had seen a big influx of new music over the summer and fall. Gorgeous new songs—complicated, all of the instruments he was proficient in, plus the violin, which was his baby and soared over them all.

Sad.

Heartrendingly sad.

The first time Kelly heard Seth’s new work, he’d wondered if he was still breathing. His chest hurt so bad he wasn’t sure he could.

And Chloe listened to all of them and told Seth about them in the weekly family Skype call. The one that happened upstairs, that Kelly always worked super hard to miss, because if he had to hear Seth’s voice across the fucking phone, he’d drop everything anddriveto New York just to hold him again.

“Who’s crying,mija?” He heard his father in his voice and silently apologized. He didn’t feel much like he lived up to Xavier Cruz’s memory these days.

“The man in Nana Linda’s room.”

Chloe didn’t like Matty. It wasn’t Matty’s imagination—she regarded him distrustfully, even after the past five months. He’d smile when she wandered in there, and although Kelly knew he was in pain, knew walking made his edema ache, knew his joints hurt and he could barely eat, he’d stand up from the recliner they’d moved there and hold out his arms.

“Wanna see Daddy, Chloe?”

“Wanna see Seth.”

And then she’d walk away.

“What happened?” Kelly asked now, steeling his heart. Even though Matty had earned this life through hard living and being a dick, Kelly was starting to feel sorry for his brother. Chloe meant everything to Kelly—to Seth too, for that matter. If she ever turned her back on him, he wasn’t sure if there’d be enough pieces left for even Seth to pick up.

“I was sitting in his lap, showing him Seth music.” She smiled. “There’s new Seth music, Kelly. Wanna hear?”

Oh, Kelly had heard. It was stunning. The dying song of a swan prince, the lament of a saint for his demon lover—Kelly had listened to it the night Seth released it, and had cried for an hour, unable to even muffle the sobs.

“Heard it, angel. That’s why Matty’s crying?”

“Yeah. I got him tissues.”

Kelly ruffled her hair, which they kept short because his mother was, in her words, done with ponytails for good.

“I’ll go talk with him and—”

And at that moment, X-man woke up in his crib in Kelly’s room. Chloe was sleeping in Agnes’s room now, but Kelly? If Kelly wanted a private life, he was going to have to rent another hotel room.

It wasn’t worth it without Seth’s voice in the dark.

By the time Kelly got in to see if Matty would live—for the day, at least—he’d settled X-man with a bottle and was burping him over his shoulder.

Matty was sitting up, his head leaning back against the headboard, tears tracking over his sallow face.

Damn him.While Kelly felt like an old man with no life and no hope, his brother looked achingly young.

X let out an enormous belch, spitting all over the diaper on Kelly’s shoulder and startling Matty enough to wake him up.

“Wow,” he murmured. “Just… damn, baby. That was impressive.”

Matty wasn’t getting high these days, or when he did, it was on prescription pain-relief pot that he vaped when the kids couldn’t see him. He’d told Kelly bitterly that there wasn’t a lot of THC in the prescription stuff. No pain? Sure. Good dreams? Fuck it. You were stuck in your own head until you died.

But no pain and some lucid thinking meant—oh God—sometimes he sounded just like Kelly’s brother.

“He ate pretty good,” Kelly admitted, shifting him so he was in the crook of Kelly’s arm. He was five months old and pretty big. Not quite sitting up, and he had a sort of soggy body tone that spoke of more delays, like Chloe. But boy, did he like being held. Didn’t matter who, either—Agnes, the twins, Chloe, Seth’s father.

Matty.

“Can I hold him?” Matty asked softly. “He’s pretty cute. I missed Chloe at this age.”