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The week before he was shipped off to boarding school, Connor invited him out on the boat.
He asked so earnestly Roman couldn’t help fighting him on it, unnerved. They didn’t do things alone together. Even back then Roman understood that Connor was a member of a different species than the rest of them - too old to fit in with him and Kendall and Shiv, too young for dad’s crowd. He couldn’t speak any of the household languages right.
“Why do I need a reason to spend some quality time with my little brother?” Connor said. He was already twenty-nine; Roman was eleven and resentful of the way his eldest brother still crouched down to speak to him like he was a toddler. “You want a reason? Okay. Here. I love you, kiddo.” At this he actually ruffled Roman’s hair. “Let’s catch some cyprinids together, me and you.”
Everyone, everyone else in the house had been avoiding him then. Shiv and Kendall and mum and even the fucking maids. At least out on the water Roman didn’t have to keep obsessing over why that might be.
It was easier to get along out there, just the two of them. Roman let Connor rattle off freshwater fish facts to his heart’s content and Connor let him use his own fishing terminology: the gut-wrangler, the squirm pot, a three-spined shittleback, a common crap.
Hours of awkward silence and some half-baked attempts at conversation went by, hours of nothing, until Roman felt a bite and they both immediately went apeshit, yelling and hollering and knocking the boat around under them. The ensuing three minutes of wrestling with it were surprisingly terrifying.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my fucking god, fuck this thing,” Roman said, sweating, fighting against the cramp in his hand. The idea of losing it and having to look Connor in the eye afterwards, of going home empty-handed, of listening to Shiv and Kendall and dad crack jokes about it to each other over dinner, it was like it was already unfolding around him then and there. He could feel his grip on the reel fumbling, and then Connor reached out and tightened it for him, his brother’s big hand encasing his.
“You got it!” Connor let go of him again. “You got it, come on! Reel that sucker in!”
“Fuck you! ” Roman screamed at the fish.
He pulled the rod back as hard as he could and reeled and reeled, eyes squeezed shut, until something thudded against the side of the boat - and there it was. A largemouth bass, according to Con, wriggling on the end of the line.
“You are so fucking ugly,” Roman told it gleefully. He was riding such a high he even high-fived Connor’s proffered hand.
Connor unhooked it for him. “It’s a good size, Rome,” he said, sounding genuine about it and everything.
Roman got past his initial disgust and became more interested in posing with his cold dead catch. He put one foot up on the rim of the boat and held it up heroically and Connor gave him a humouring smile and some light applause, and it was patronising in a way that didn’t hurt.
“You know, this is nice,” Connor said. Then his head dropped forward like a string had been cut, chin burrowing into his chest. His hands came up to press against his eyes.
Roman blinked. “Are you crying, Con? Over this little monster?” He held up the fish. “C’mon, you - c’mon, man, you’re way too old to cry.”
His hand hovered uncertainly over Connor’s shoulder for a moment. He patted him there once, twice.
Connor lifted his head again. He smiled, a tight line that strained across one side of his face. “I wasn’t. I’m not.” He blew out a breath, half-laughing, and looked out at the water. His eyes were still wet when he turned back to Roman. “How about we get this baby back to shore?”
It was turning dark when they got back to the house. Connor said goodbye to him at the front door.
“Why don’t you just come in?”
“Oh, you know, supper time, it’s not really my thing,” he said, vaguely. “I don’t have that English sensibility the rest of you got.” He ignored Roman’s muttered fuck off. “I’ll head back to my place in the city.”
Roman almost asked to go with him, but that would mean admitting he wanted that. Besides, Connor had nothing cool at his place except a collection of old baseball cards nobody was allowed to touch.
Connor reached out and held onto his shoulders tightly.
“Okay, well.” His smile was stiff and blank-eyed, the way he looked in family photos. “I’ll see you soon, champ.”
Roman gave him a look. “Uh, yeah. See you then. Champ.”
In the house, one of the maids was in the process of washing every piece of clothing he owned.
Panic set in. He followed her back and forth from his room to the laundry room asking her why she was doing it, what the hell did she think she was doing, who had asked her to do that?
The louder he raised his voice, the more agitated she got, until finally her eyes flicked briefly to meet his and she said, “Your father.”
“My father,” he repeated automatically, numbly.
She ducked her head and walked past him again. She was holding his balled up Ninja Turtles pyjamas in both her arms like a lumpy baby and he knew the instant he spotted them that he was being sent away. They were beginning the process of packing him away.
The world swayed. The maid heard it when he threw up all over himself.
She came back over to him and kneeled. “Let’s do a trade,” she said, softly, and then she took all his ruined clothes that smelled like fish and vomit from him and gave back his orange Michaelangelo pyjamas. He undressed and redressed right there in the hallway, staring at the floor shamefaced.
Shiv came out of her room at that point. She still makes jokes about it sometimes, the time she caught Roman hugging the maid.
-
On the boat, when Roman hesitantly asked about his mom, Connor responded by staring straight ahead and saying nothing. Margaret was a banned name in their household, same as Rose was.
Connor got this look on his face like he was somewhere else completely. Another planet, Ken once explained to him, Connor’s from another planet.
It was hard to look at him. Roman relented.
“We don’t have to…” He gestured meaninglessly. “About it.”
Connor tugged the flat of his cap down. He reeled his line in and fiddled with the hook as he spoke.
“Let’s not,” he agreed.