Distant Relation

He always told us that he didn’t feel like he belonged as part of our family. Of all eight of us kids, Thomas was by far the quietest. We all talked like there wasn’t enough air to finish a sentence. His words were quiet and with purpose. We hated chores in the horse stalls where as Thomas was as happy as a pig in you know what to help out in the barn. We were all allergic to cats, Thomas loved them. He liked the mountains and we liked the lake. Tenny said she liked fishing with him but almost drowned when Thomas took her out a second time and then refused to go with him ever again. Fish guts just made me feel light headed. Our skin was all pale like the moon, he was tan like the sun through haze over wheat fields. It went on and on. One thing that we did have in common though was that we were brothers and sisters. That was for sure one way or the other and I felt a connection to him that you just know means you came from the same mother and father. It wasn’t likes or dislikes or sharing allergies. It was something completely silent and intangible but that overrode your thoughts at every instance. I loved him and couldn’t picture him not in my life even though our views of that life pretty much never met.

He was so different that when he said he wanted to take a cargo ship to China one winter no one was surprised. But when he said he was never coming back it hit me hard like the first time Thomas and I snuck sips of Uncle Mac’s corn whiskey in the study. All of us were dazed and also a little afraid about what he decided, not because we didn’t think he could handle it but because without him the equilibrium of the family would be completely thrown. He was like a silent sun thats gravity stabilized the orbits of the planets that frantically circled around it.

When I asked him why he wanted to leave his answer was not vague but too vast. I couldn’t understand completely but he did. What I could grasp was that he thought maybe he might fit in better, maybe there were more people like him somewhere else than here in America. He said he was looking to find something new but I think that what he really needed was to find himself. That person, who he was, wasn’t here in our childhood home or even on the continent. It was important to him, like a mission from God except he wasn’t religious like us.

I wondered why he picked China. Spain or the Riviera sounds like a nice place to find yourself to me. I’d find me with a sangria and a cheap romance novel on a white sand beach but he liked China. For him it wasn’t a choice. It was just something that he needed to do. He said he’d send me a postcard.

Six months later the card came postmarked from somewhere called Yinchuan,Ningxia. It had a picture of a big orange dirt mound on the front. His words were short and to the point. It said, “I made a mistake.” The date on the postmark was March 18, 1937. That was 75 years ago now and it was the last time that I or anyone in my family ever heard from my brother Tommy again. Now I look back and think of his face, him sitting silent and watching, almost smiling. I really hope he’s happy.