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We've taken different paths
And travelled different roads
I know we'll always end up on the same one when we're old
- Brother, Kodaline
The deeper they trekked into the woods, the more Sherman began to second-guess himself. It was probably enough to have his little brothers alive and all in one piece. Did he really need to see where Stan had supposedly been buried all those years ago?
Yes, he decided, he did. Too many of his friends and fellow soldiers had been lost without a trace. If there was concrete proof that the story he and the rest of his family had believed for thirty years was a lie, then he needed to stand there and witness it with his own two eyes. And if that meant tramping through what felt like miles of forest and undergrowth, so be it.
Pulling his cane free of yet another soft patch of moss that wouldn’t hold his weight, Sherman sighed. “Tell me we’re almost there.”
“Hold your horses, Shermie, it’s just up ahead,” Stan answered. Sure enough, the trees cleared to reveal the ruins of a small church next to an even smaller graveyard.
“What happened to the church, Stanley?” Ford asked.
“Thanks for assuming I had something to do with it, Poindexter.” Stan crossed his arms. “I’ll have you know, most of the damage was done by the dinosaur!”
“The dinosaur?” Ford and Sherman asked simultaneously.
Stan waved them off. “Yeah, Mabel can tell you all about it when we get back.” Stepping into the clearing, he continued towards the tiny cemetery with long, purposeful strides.
“Do I want to know?” Sherman asked, staring Ford down with his best big-brother expression.
“Well, ah, no. Probably not.” Ford attempted to meet Sherman’s gaze, but his line of sight drifted downwards to somewhere around his shoes. “I don’t know the details either,” he defended himself.
Sherman shook his head and headed off after Stan. He could hear Mabel’s story later. For now, it was time to listen to what his baby brother had to say for himself. He pushed down the emotions rising in his chest. He was still upset - mad at Stan for not telling him what was going on, mad at Dad for throwing him out for one little mistake, mad at himself for not making more of an effort to figure out what was going on with their messed up family - but there’d be time for that later.
Coming to the rusty gate of the cemetery, he stood next to Stan. Both of them looked over the collection of leaning, moss-covered stones. Sherman didn’t say anything, but after a minute or two, Stan sighed. “Not much to look at, but that’s alright. Fits a guy like me, anyhow.” Pulling the gate open with a screech of metal on metal, he led them through the rows of headstones. Despite the grass not looking like anyone had touched it in decades, Stan didn’t pause.
The gravestone was somehow smaller than Sherman expected and bigger at the same time. It was nothing much to look at, just a granite rectangle with STAN PINES engraved on it.
“I, uh, didn’t have them put a date on it,” Stan explained, his words coming out in a rush. “I figured if it was already here I might as well use it someday.”
Beside him, Sherman heard Ford suck in a breath. “Stanley,” he started.
“Nah, Poindexter, you don’t have to say anything,” Stan waved his twin off. “I didn’t think it would happen soon.” He paused, a charged energy between them, but trailed off.
Sherman didn’t know everything that had happened between the twins, but he didn’t need to. It didn’t matter right now. He stared at the gravestone with its simple inscription, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu and discovery at the same moment. This was the view Ma had told him about, crying over the phone while she told him about the funeral he hadn’t been able to attend. This was the view he had imagined seeing if he had ever come to visit Ford.
Of course, that didn’t matter now because Ford wasn’t the brother he’d had all along, and Stan was actually alive, and all three of them were standing in the same place which hadn’t happened for forty-five years. The weight of every missed opportunity and skipped year crashed down on Sherman and he had to lean on his cane.
“Stanley,” he managed, a lump in his throat.
“Oh, hey, Shermie, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Stan said.
“I’m staring at your grave, Stanley!”
Ford cleared his throat. “If you’d already started calling yourself by my name, why not put your full name?” he asked, gesturing to the headstone.
Stan shrugged. “Well, they charge by the letter y’know. And Pa already called us both ‘Stan’ anyhow.”
“Your first priority when choosing a headstone was cost?” Ford asked in disbelief.
“It wasn’t the first thing I thought about,” Stan began, before wilting under Ford’s stare. “I mean, why d’you think I chose this place?” he asked, changing the subject. “It sure wasn’t for the atmosphere.”
Tearing his thoughts away from the four decades of his brothers lives he’d missed out on, Sherman frowned. “Ma never mentioned coming out here for the funeral.”
“Oh, no, that was in town. How do you think the IRS agent got there?”
Sherman raised his eyebrows. “The what?”
“Stan…” Ford reached up under his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. “When you said ”I faked my own death”, this is not what I expected.”
The moment didn't call for it at all, but Sherman laughed anyway. He looked between the twins, not seeing the almost-elderly men that stood in front of him, but the sunburnt boys that had roamed up and down Glass Shard Beach in search of the Jersey Devil. Then, as now, Stan had a look on his face that said sure, he was sorry, but wasn’t it hilarious? Ford, meanwhile, embodied fond exasperation. Almost fifty years might have passed, but his brothers were still here, and still themselves in spite of it all.
“Really?” Sherman asked, still chuckling. “Because this sounds like the most Stan-like fake-out I can imagine!”
“Yeah, c’mon, Ford!” Stan clapped his twin on the back. “Who else could get a real-life IRS agent at their funeral?” He sounded proud, like it was an accomplishment, and Ford rolled his eyes.
“Knucklehead,” he muttered with a grin, punching Stan in the shoulder.
“Hey!” Stan protested, shoving him back.
Sherman stepped in, planting his cane between the two of them. “Knock it off,” he ordered, just like he used to when they’d starting brawling too close to Ma’s china cabinet.
Taking a step back, Stan grinned at him. “It’s been too long since I’ve heard that tone, Sherm.” When he met Sherman’s eyes, there was a sheen to them.
“Well, you’d better get used to it,” Sherman said roughly, clearing his throat to get rid of the lump that had come back. “I’m going to be around for a lot more of your lives.”
“I’m counting on it,” Stan retorted. Throwing an arm around Sherman’s shoulders, he squeezed tightly. “It’s good to have you back, Shermie.”
Sherman exhaled deeply. There would be time for tears later. No doubt, when they got back to the Shack there would be more stories and unpacking exactly what had happened to make Stan fake his death and what had happened since then. Tonight, there would be late nights and confessions over hot chocolate and possibly something stronger. There would be tears, and plenty of them.
Now, it was time for life. It was time to celebrate that his little brother had faked his own death and wasn’t actually six feet under. He’d seen the grave, and he’d probably see it in his dreams for the rest of his life, but he could at least know that Stan wasn’t there. He was here, and so was Ford, and Sherman was going to enjoy that for the rest of his life. He had his family back, and that wasn’t something he was ever going to take for granted again.