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From photographs.

Article Excerpt
1979

"He died when I was 12," Maeve said of her brother Mark. She walked away from me, going back to folding clothes at her bureau.

I looked at her, confused, and glanced again at the photograph of him.

I had been seeing Maeve for two weeks. I was 16. I had watched her in the halls of our high school for three months, wanting to know her, wanting her to be in love with me. For the past two weeks, we had both seemed so intent on being open and sharing our lives. But I was young and naive; I thought everything important in a person's life should have been shared in 14 days. Why hadn't she told me before? I wondered how long she would have waited had I not noticed the photograph.

"How come you never mentioned him before?" My voice was edged with annoyance. Considering the tone of my voice, Maeve could have been harsher than she was. Whirling around, she looked at me intensely. "What was I supposed to say?" she said. "'Oh by the way, my brother died when I was 12? He was a nice guy?' I was going to tell you. There just never seemed to be a right moment."

Now I felt like a selfish jerk. She had a point. A brother's death was not something easily brought up in conversation.

"How'd he die?" That was not what I was supposed to ask. It was what I wanted to know.

"He committed suicide."

SUICIDE? I sat on her bed and stared at the floor. I had expected a car crash, a drunken mishap, a fall while hiking, some kind of accident. Suicide?

"Uh, sorry, I didn't know," I mumbled.

"Don't be sorry. It's not your fault," she said dismissively.

Silence. A fresh April breeze blew in the window, making the curtains dance.

Suddenly she sat down. I put my arm around her and drew her closer.

"How'd it happen?" I whispered, and immediately wished I hadn't. This wasn't the time to ask. I knew that, but it seemed important to know, as if knowing the details would help me understand why.

"He set himself on fire."

There is a framed picture of Mark in Maeve's mother's condominium in Boston. It has hung between two doorframes in her living room for 10 years. The picture is black and white, and no more than five inches square. The gray matting is cut in a circle, like a halo, around a handsome young man with hair that reaches halfway down his neck. He's wearing a top hat. It is Mark's high school senior picture, taken in 1971.

I had known Maeve for two months when I first noticed the picture. I had been in and out of her living room so often I thought I knew the room...