A Flush of Heat

I should have never returned to this house: this house of madness and sorcery

and paintings of witches on every wall. Witches on broom, witches pale under a

full moon, witches smiling seductively at two blond children-- their eyes wide

with incomprehension, witches stirring a cauldron of murky liquid with lizards

hanging from its rim.

My brother, Hans, tells me that I saved his life once so now I must be here to

say good-bye to him as his life is ending. But I never saved his life -- he is crazy.

And his craziness is what has kept us apart for so many years.

The doctors say that there is nothing that they can do to save him now. His heart

is as fat and bloated as the rest of his body, and he is merely waiting to die. He

never listened to their warnings of what he was doing to his heart and body. He

eats anything that he can find that is fat and sweet-- cookies, cakes, pies, fudge

and donuts, My brother has had two heart attacks already and one bypass

surgery. His son Gabriel tells me that the next heart attack could come at any

time. Hans has signed DNR papers- Do Not Resuscitate. He doesn't want his

family or friends to call a doctor when the next heart attack hits. We should let

him die peacefully in his home.

I make him double chocolate chip cookies event though I feel like I am only

encouraging him to die sooner. Fat kills. I know this. But he tells me it is like

adding arsenic to cyanide-- it really doesn't matter at this point. "Bake like you

did in the old days, when we were teenagers. You made the best muffins and

cookies then.

I am as thin as a branch in winter, eating only fruits, beans and vegetables. I am

all lines and angles, no curves.

Hans wants to reminisce, to talk of the past, of what he insists happened

between us, but I refuse. His ramblings of the past are what drove me away

from him. Instead, he tells me how his son is doing well in the business that they

own together: Angel Gabriel Real Estate.

Hans named his son Gabriel because it is the name of an archangel who is the

bearer of good news. Like his belief in witches, my brother believes in omens

and spells. He believes that giving a baby a special name can make him grow

into a man who is kind and successful. He believes that the utterance of a sound

or a creation of a thought can bring about miracles.

Gabriel's mother never cared what his name was. After delivering her son, she

rested for a week in this cottage and then left. She writes once a year asking for

money, inserting her request in Gabriel's birthday card. Hans always sends her

a substantial check. It is good luck, he tells me. Whatever you give away is

given back to you tenfold.

I open the oven to put the cookies in and there is a blast of heat so forceful that

it seems to suck me in. For a fraction of a second, it feels like flames are coming

out. I drop the cookie sheet on the floor and it lands dough side down so

everything is ruined. My brother touches my arm to comfort me, and his touch

makes me feel leaden, as heavy as he is.

I run from him: run out to the front porch crying. I have spent less than a day

with him after not seeing him for twenty years and already he has worn me

down.

An hour later, I look up to find him standing by me. Despite his heft, he is a man

who appears and disappears like a star on a cloudy night; he loses and finds

himself with the ease of light years folding in on themselves. He tells me it

doesn't matter who is right or wrong, who knows the truth and who is crazy. He

says he is dying and needs to make his peace with me. We talk of other things,

how the hills are the greenest that we can remember, how his grandchildren

love to swim in the creek, how he will leave Gabriel well off because of their real

estate business.

"I want you to have this house," he tells me. Gabriel has a beautiful home that

he built with his own hands and doesn't want this. It is a simple cottage, but will

let you live here comfortably. Get out of the city and that cramped apartment.

"But this cottage has bad memories for me," I tell him.

"If you don't confront bad memories, they will haunt you forever," he says sadly,

and his eyes fall gently on one of his witch paintings, the witch's black robe

swirling as she smiles sweetly at a crying child.

"Besides," he chides me, "You tell me that there are no bad memories. That other than an uncaring stepmother, our childhood was fine."

Indeed, when I think about it, he is right. I can't think of any bad memories.

There's no reason for me to hate this house like I do. But then, it is as if I have

no memories of my childhood at all. I can't remember what happened to our real

mother, have no sense of who she was or what became of her. If we had a

stepmother, we had to have a father, but I can only recall a thin man standing

sadly in the doorway, cradling in his arms a loaf of bread as if it were a precious

gift.

"My house, I want to leave you my house."

"Yes," I tell my brother although my face becomes flush with heat. "I would be

honored to have your home after you die."

Hans' bony elbow nudges into my ribs. No matter how overweight he gets, his

arms and fingers are always thin as if trying to fool the world that all of him is

thin. As if trying to convince someone that there is nothing substantial to him.

"I've been talking to you, but you're somewhere off in space," he says. "Maybe

walking those forested hills, maybe taking a swim in the creek. How you used to

love that creek when we were kids."

"I loved the way I could sink down into it," I tell him. "The water would fold over

me and make me feel safe. The creek make me feel like I was someone else,

someone loved and protected."

Hansel shakes his head and then strokes my hair as if he is trying to comfort

me.

"I'll be gone soon. I'm fifty-two years old, young by many people's

standards, but I'm ready to go. I have no quarrel with my life, the turns it has

taken, but I want something different now. Something easier. I want to die like I

am waking up. I want to see that light at the end of the tunnel and yawn and

stretch. Just sort of slowly lumber towards it the same way I lumber out of bed in

the morning. But I did want to see you again before I die." He takes my hand

and squeezes it gently. "To talk. We've let this thing stand between us for too

long.

"The witch," he tells me gently. "We need to kill her again before I die."

"Stop it," I warn him. Again, I feel the flush of heat and my heart pounds harder

as if I'm in danger. I want to leave. Want to run away of from this house of

witches.

"We need to talk, we need to own what happened and make our peace or I will

have no peace in death. I feel it. The witch will haunt my grave just as she's

haunted you your whole life although you close your eyes to her."

"Stop it, Hansel. There is nothing that haunts me but your insistence on this

whole insanity." Still, my face turns red, remembering in the city how I cried

when a woman in a black cape rushed past me one evening; or how when I go

camping with friends, I won't sit near the campfire, preferring to sit inside the tent

where it is cool and dark. Safe.

My brother talks foolishness. Yet, that night when I finally sleep, I dream. I

dream of being a child watching as my brother holds out a twig through the bars

of a suspended cage to fool the witch into thinking he is thin, so she will not kill

and eat him. With a rush of black cloth, the witch opens the oven’s door that is

hot and red and leading to Hansel’s death. I push her hard, push her through the

blackness into the fire until all that is left is a cottage in the woods.

When I awake, my face is flushed, as if it has been burned by an open flame.

When I awake, my bother is leaning over my bed crying. I feel the heat of his

breath and the warmth of his body as he holds me. I see an earnestness in his

eyes as if he is trying to read my face for clues to my dream.

"Did you push her again, Gretel? Did you kill her for good?" he asks.

I nod my head yes. Hansel kisses me forgivingly on the forehead, and I know. I

know now that he will be able to die in peace.