My mother taught him to make pierogi at the kitchen counter. She placed her hand over his and showed him how to fold the dough.
“Your father always pinched them too hard,” she told him. “All the filling came out.”
“I did not,” Jesse called from the table.
“You absolutely did,” she said.
Levi grinned.
My father took him fishing at the lake where he had once taken Jesse. He gave him an old tackle box and pretended not to care when Levi caught the first fish.
I watched them from the dock, my brother beside me.
For a long time, neither of us spoke.
Then Jesse said, “I don’t expect everything to be fixed.”
“It won’t be,” I said.
“I know.”
“But you’re here now.”
He nodded.
