He followed him across the parking lot and then across the road, which was pockmarked, full of loose gravel, and badly in need of a repaving.

“Hey,” he shouted. “Hey, Sam.”

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Sam said, holding up one hand behind him in a feral sweeping motion while sidestepping away from him, kicking up a cloud of dust. He broke into a jog, sprinting across the VFW parking lot and onto the American Legion baseball diamond. David took off after him, breaking into a full sprint for about a hundred meters until his brother stopped just shy of the pitcher’s mound, bent at the waist, gasping for air.

“Fuck,” he said, breathing heavily. “Fuck, fuck.”

David stood a few feet away, his breathing more regular. He was the runner, after all, and Sam was the smoker. David could see the sweat irridesce on his brother’s brow, his cheeks a deep, garnet red. He looked around them. It was not quite dusk. The sky out beyond center field was still a conflagration of violet and vermillion. There were small bugs hovering over the grass of the outfield, cicadas chanting in the forest behind the first base dugout. The air smelled very clear and fecund, the bottomless lushness of the Midwest at the end of summer.

Sam finally sat down and pulled out his cigarettes. David sat down across from him and opened his hands.

“Give me one of those,” he said.

Sam looked at him incredulously.

“Just give me a fucking cigarette, dickhead.”

Sam tossed over a single cigarette and then the lighter. David packed the smoke in the palm of his left hand and then lit it, leaning back and feeling the cool of the grass tickle the bottoms of his hands. God, he loved that feeling. God he missed the Midwest sometimes. All this space. The freedom to roam it, maybe the only freedom anyone had.

“What the fuck was that?” Sam finally asked, the bugs sticking to his damp forehead.

“What? Dad?”

“Yeah, Dad. What the fuck was that ‘Well, we don’t agree with everything you’re doing as parents, but you don’t see us breathing down your neck’? Who does that?”

“Dad.”

Sam finally laughed.

“It’s like he forgets, you know?” Sam said, breathless. “It’s like he thinks he was this parenting master at twenty-six. And why say that in front of everyone? Why did he have to do it like that? If he wants to talk to me, then ok, fine. Talk to me, man to man, away from everyone else. Don’t make a show out of it in front of everyone. It’s that bullshit thing where Dad just has to be seen.” Sam looked at David and pointed. “And you do the same fucking thing.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Absolutely. You and Dad.”

“I’m not as bad as Dad.”

Sam glanced sideways, out at the setting sun. There were a cluster of silver birches beyond the center field fence. He smiled at his older brother with the corner of his mouth.

“I’m not as bad as Dad.”

“Not yet.”

They laughed together. Sam’s body suddenly seemed to collapse, as if shaking off a lead blanket.

“I’ve just got this anger, man. And it’s there and I don’t know what to do with it. I’ve spent so much time forgiving people and then I keep dealing with this fucking bullshit. I forgive Dad for what happened when we were kids. I forgive Alli for what happened while I was deployed. And it’s like, what the fuck do I have to do? I go over there and I see all this bullshit, all this awful bullshit, and I come back here and Dad’s bitching at me over not cleaning the car and letting Cal watch too much television? Are you fucking serious?”

He said it so emphatically that David saw the spittle in the last light of the day. “Are you motherfucking serious? It’s like I saw all that shit over there. Going into fucking houses where guys want you fucking dead and where you’ve got grown men hiding behind little kids, and I see that stuff and I’m supposed to care about Dad’s goddamned car? And you know what? I didn’t bring that shit back with me. That war shit. I go to this group, you know, this group of guys once a week.”

“A group?”

“Yeah, it’s this thing I do. Just guys from the wars, guys who want to talk, you know? Stuff that only we can understand. And we talk, and it’s good. But a lot of those guys, they brought that shit back with them. They get drunk and go on rampages. I don’t even drink, man. Or they hit their girls. Or they get in fights. Do you know how hard it is not to bring that fucking anger with me, man? I’m just carrying it around every fucking day, this impotent anger that I can’t take out on anyone and that no one can possibly understand. This fury, man, about all that bullshit I went through. And Dad’s pissed because I smoke in front of the kid? Get the fuck out of here.”

David smiled, took a drag of his cigarette.

“And I don’t take that anger out and yet I still have to deal with all this petty shit. And it kills me, man. It kills me. I can’t talk about it with Alli or with Dad or with anyone who knows who I was before. It’s like there’s two me’s out there: the me before and the me during. And now the me after. So I guess there’s three me’s. And no one knows all three of those, except for me, and I’m stuck alone with all three.”

He lit another cigarette with the butt of his previous one.

“You don’t get it either, man. I’m sorry,” Sam said, violently shaking his head. “You’re worlds away from this bullshit. You’re lucky.”

“I miss it.”

“No you don’t.”

“Sure I do. I miss the dinners. I miss the ease of being with you guys. I miss fishing with you, and bullshitting. I miss Cal.”

Sam looked down and smiled.

“He’s cool, isn’t he?”

“He’s more than cool. He’s the greatest fucking thing in the world.”

Sam laughed and smiled at his brother.

“I know what you mean though,” David said. “The different versions of yourself. Being isolated. Maybe I don’t know the war, thank God. But I know the other stuff, at least. Everyone here who knows my past has no idea what my life in Istanbul is like. There’s this schism there. They can’t imagine life over there, can’t even begin to picture it.”

Sam nodded.

“But there, no one gets this,” he said, spreading his arms wide to encompass the dying sky, the cicadas, the baseball diamond where they used to come on Sunday mornings after church and shag fly balls. “No one knows about fish fries or Friday night football or driving around town all night drinking six packs or about watching all your friends slowly waste away or about church or about how badly I want to make Dad proud. No one knows about Rachel or that pain. No one knows about you or Cal. I can tell them. But they don’t get it. It isn’t in their blood. It’s kind of like being stranded. There’s just no way to bridge that.”

“Nope.”

The brothers smiled at one another.

“I’m sorry I said you were like Dad,” Sam said.

David laughed. “It’s ok.”

Sam let out a long, weighty sigh. “I do miss talking to you. Even if you don’t know the war. Even if you can’t. You know other things.”

“I’m sorry I’m not here.”

Sam shrugged. “I get it. I understand.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s just…what am I supposed to do about the anger, man? It doesn’t go away. It’s just there and there’s no outlet.”

“I have it, too. With Rachel.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure. It’s different. Yours is worse, probably. You have more of a right to be angry. But it’s there.”

“What do you do about it?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. Try not to think about it. Try to compartmentalize it and tell myself that I can’t take it out on other people. That other women aren’t her and that if I treat them poorly, or don’t trust them, then I’m still letting her get the better of me. That I’ve got to be a decent person regardless of what other people have done to me, ‘cause everyone’s got shit they could be angry about. Or, almost everyone. I guess it’s not about getting a reward for being a good person, right? It’s just about doing it because otherwise you’re an asshole.”

Sam laughed. “I like that.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m still furious sometimes. I still have dreams. And I still want to call Rach up and tell her that she’s a selfish asshole, as awful as that sounds. And I want to tell her that I’ve done all this amazing stuff despite how horrible she was, that I’ve traveled and written this book and that I haven’t become this cynical, bitter asshole who uses other people, that I still try to be a good man. I basically want to tell her that she’s a fraud, a scared little kid who can’t even appreciate her life because she’s too busy feeling guilty for it, and that she doesn’t look at other people as anything other than vehicles to ‘actualize’ herself. And you can’t look at people like that. But she does. And she’s too afraid of failure to ever work at anything. The only time things in her life have been difficult, she’s ran. Basically I just want to say fuck you to her, one last time.”

Sam smiled and threw his brother another cigarette.

“Christ. You’re still pissed.”

“I wish I weren’t. It makes me sick to carry it around. Because it means I still care so fucking much. But it’s there. I can’t help it. It’s there.” He smiled to himself, looked into the darkness of the forest, where night had already taken over. “What about you? What about the war?”

“Man, I can’t even explain. I can’t. You go over there and everyone hates you. You come back and no one cares. You’re there and you look at these little kids and they’re throwing rocks at you - and why not, we’re in their home, walking around with guns; I’d throw rocks, too - but they’re throwing rocks and I just hated those fucking kids, man. I hated those fuckers. I wanted to throw rocks back at them.”

David laughed. The sun was gone. The lights on the bar across the street had kicked to life, attracting a swarm of mosquitoes. The birch trees rustled softly in the wind. Clouds moved across the almost black sky like ghosts.

“And the women, all the covered women glaring at us with just their eyes and clucking their tongues at us. We’re trying to help you, I wanted to say. These motherfuckers treating you like you’re some sack of potatoes that needs to be covered and protected.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Fuck it’s complicated. Fuck you. Don’t lecture me. I’ve read the Qu’ran and the Sunnahs. Have you?”

After a long silence, David shook his head negatively.

“It started because Mohammad didn’t want anyone leering at his wives. His nine wives. You know why adoption is so rare in the Muslim world, Dave?”

“Why?”

“Because Mohammad wanted to fuck his adopted son’s wife, so God magically handed down an ayat declaring that adopted sons were lesser than blood sons. How convenient.”

“It’s complicated.”

“It’s not. They treat women like they’re sacks of meat. Like men are incapable of respecting a woman for her intellect if he can see the size of her tits. That’s bullshit. That’s fucking bullshit.”

“And we’re bastions of feminism here in northern Wisconsin?”

“Don’t do your neo-liberal, politically correct bullshit now, Dave. There’s no one fucking here to see you but me. It’s wrong and it’s backwards and you know that. Just because women get beaten by their redneck evangelical husbands doesn’t make it any less wrong. It’s all bullshit. The Bible, the Qu’ran. It’s all bullshit to pacify poor people and women and to convince people that death isn’t the big, scary, terrifying thing it is. And Dad can kiss my ass if he tries to say otherwise, with his preaching horse shit. Dad‘s just afraid of dying.”

David smiled.

“And those fucking women are over there clucking their tongues at me. Can you believe that shit? I’m not there to hurt them. I’m there because I want them to be able to fucking drive. Because I want them to be able to fucking vote. Because I want them to be able to feel the wind on their fucking hair. And they cluck their tongues at me!”

Once more, David smiled. He leaned back and felt the wind in his hair. He remembered what his boss in Istanbul once told him during Ramadan. The point of fasting, he’d said, is to be reminded of how remarkable the everyday gifts we take for granted really are. Food. Water. Wind.

“What?” Sam asked.

“There was a girl in Istanbul that I loved. Or, I think I loved her.”

“Who?”

“You wouldn’t know her. I haven’t talked about her. She was covered. She wore the full hijab. We worked together for a while.”

“So you never saw her hair?”

“No.”

Sam scoffed. “That’s stupid.”

David laughed. “Listen.”

Sam rolled his eyes and lit yet another cigarette. They were almost in complete darkness.

“Some people you just have that spark with, right? You just connect with them and it goes beyond language. You can’t explain it, but you feel it, somewhere in your stomach. It’s just there and it makes no sense.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, unsure of where his brother was going.

“Well, we had that. From the first moment we met. She would come into my office and we would sit and talk. About writing. She painted ebru, which is a form of Islamic art.”

“I know what ebru is.”

“Well, you and nobody else. We talked about art, and about Istanbul at night, and about childhood road trips. I would wear ties because I knew she liked them. I hate ties. I would wait and wait for her to come in. I loved her, no doubt about it. And we talked about faith, too. About hers, mostly. She wasn’t an idiot, Sam. She was brilliant. And she believed. This was a brilliant woman and she looked at being covered as a form of prayer. She said it made her feel closer to God, knowing that only He and a few others got to see her like that. And she would tell me about how much thought she put into her head scarves, how you tell her mood depending on what kind of scarf she wore.”

“So what happened?”

“Her family set up a marriage with a guy. She had to move to Ankara to be with him. She was distraught about it, giving up her life in Istanbul, giving up her career. She hated Ankara, she said. They had nothing in common. But it was God‘s plan, she said…”

“But you told her you loved her and that this was all bullshit and that she should marry you and stay in Istanbul and have babies and write gay ass poetry together, right?”

The brothers laughed.

“Fuck you,” David said.

“I’m serious. You told her, right?”

“No. How could I?”

“You’re a pussy. You’re such a fucking pussy. You think you’re not because you went half way around the world because some stupid girl broke your heart but you can’t even tell another girl that you love her.”

“The day before she left she came into my office. We were the only two people in there. And she came over to my desk to show me some of her art work. And, I mean, we couldn’t touch. We couldn’t shake hands or hug. It’s strictly forbidden.”

“I know, I know.”

“Ok, well it is. But she’s there, right next to me. I could smell her breath. I could see the hairs on her wrist, on her knuckles. Our forearms were maybe millimeters apart. I could have just flinched and I would have touched her. It was torment.”

David could just make out his brother smiling in the night.

“What?” he asked.

“She loved you.”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course she loved you. Why else would she have done that? She wanted you to tell her and you were too much of a pussy.”

“You’re delusional.”

“So she actually married the guy?”

“It was God’s plan. Of course she did.”

“Fuck.”

David laughed, put out his cigarette. “But I interrupted. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s fine.”

“What?”

“It’s passed now. The anger. It’s gone for now. It seems stupid to bring it back. I go over there and risk my life and these people try to blow me up. I come home and all anyone cares about is bullshit; they can’t even point out Afghanistan on a fucking map. Whatever, right? It’s over. The war’s over. I’m home. No one cares or understands. But most days it’s ok, you know? Most days I got Cal and I got Alli, and you know, I’ve forgiven her, and life’s pretty ok. It’s just when those lonely days hit, man, it’s like this rottenness in my stomach that you wouldn’t believe. It’s like there’s just nothing at my core, and it’s so fucking hopeless, man, ‘cause there isn’t a soul I can make understand all of it. The people who get Dad and Alli don’t get the war. The people who get the war don’t get Dad and Alli.”

“That’s life.”

“That’s life?”

“Sure. I guess. I don’t know.”

Sam laughed, stretched his legs.

“You’re lonely and sometimes you’re not,” he said, mostly to himself.

“Maybe the anger’s good, right? I wouldn’t have written my book if I weren’t so fucking angry.”

“No?”

“No way.”

Sam reached out and took his brother’s ankle in his hand.

“You should forgive her.”

“You should forgive Dad.”

“Dad’s a self righteous asshole.”

“No he’s not.”

“Yes he is. Parading me around to everyone like I’m some kind of saint after I got home from the war. ‘Here’s my son, he served in Afghanistan, won the silver star.’ You remember what Dad said when I told him I was enlisting? He said I was a disgrace to our ancestors. But all the men in town, with their macho bullshit, eat up the war, as long as they don’t know about it. So I come home and Dad can’t take a shit without telling everyone I won the silver star.”

“He’s proud. In his own way.”

Sam slapped his brother on the leg, hard.

“I heard something I liked one day, at Friday prayer.”

“In a mosque?”

“Yeah. I go sometimes, with my co-workers. I like the ritual of it. The washing, the silence, how private it is. I mean, I don’t feel anything deeper than that. But the ritual is kind of comforting. Anyway. I’m there one day and the imam gives his sermon, effectively. And afterwards my boss translated for me, since my Turkish is still bad. And the imam was asking everyone in there if they had anger in their heart, if they had someone they hated.”

“So you thought about Rachel?”

David ignored this. “And so most people kind of nodded, or lifted their hands. And then the imam said, well ok, right now, I give you an opportunity, a one time opportunity. You can throw that person into the fires of hell. You can condemn them to burn for all of eternity, right now, if you just want it enough. Then he paused, for effect, and asked, ‘How many of you would actually do it?’”

He could feel Sam smiling in the dark.

“You wouldn’t, of course,” Sam said.

“Of course not. Never. I love her too much for that.”

Sam was silent for a long time. The stars were beginning to unveil.

“I like that,” Sam finally said. “That’s real good.”

“I thought so.”

Sam took a very deep breath. “There are days when I leave work and I get in my car and I think that maybe I’m going to leave. That maybe I’m just going to drive as far as I can, and then just keep driving. It’s so fucking stupid. It’s the most clichéd American thing ever: trapped man takes to the open road. But it’s so seductive. It sounds so nice in the moment.”

“I know.”

“Well, you actually did it, kind of. But I just drive around town. I drive past Alli’s house. I drive past our old place, on Grant Street. I drive past the drive-in movie theater and the trail in the woods where we’d always party in high school. Basically I drive past my whole life. It takes, like, twelve minutes, tops. But then I always feel a little better. Not much better. But just enough better. It’s enough. It’s just barely enough.”

They sat for a very long time in silence. David could hear his brother’s striated breathing, the soft little hesitation as he drew in the hot, steamy air. He thought about his heart, it’s thoughtless pumping, the strain of those cigarettes, and the child, and the war, and those drives around town. He wanted to reach out, to reach into his brother’s chest, to massage his heart, to somehow make it new again, to take away all that ossification and damage, all the scarring. He wanted to make it new again. He wanted it maybe more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. But he couldn’t even begin to explain.

“What?” Sam asked, sensing some unspoken thing, in the way brothers or lovers can know a silence, can come right up to its edge and almost understand.

“Nothing,” David said.

“Fuck you. What?”

“Nothing. I miss driving. I miss the smell of autumn here, the leaves dying. I miss having the windows down and smelling the leaves and feeling the cold air while I run the heater on low. I miss that so much more than you can possibly understand. There are days in Istanbul when I’d give anything to be here, just driving.”

“No, I know,” Sam said. “Trust me on this. I know.”

“Really?”

“We’re brothers, right?”

David laughed. He craned his neck and looked at the sky, listened to the night envelop them and thought, Now I am here. Soon I will be in Istanbul. Then I will be somewhere else. And then I’ll be dead. But now I am here. I am here. Right here. Beside my brother. Right here.