Thomas, I am sorry.
I am sorry for the years. I am sorry for the empty casket and the photograph on the easel and every birthday Mom set an extra plate for before she stopped. I am sorry I watched Dad's funeral from across the street like a ghost who lacked the courage to haunt properly. I am sorry I let you be an only child when you still had a brother who was simply too ashamed to come home.
You were always the better of us. You stayed. You built a life on a quiet street. Marcus says you keep your lawn neat and you help the neighbors and you wear that same style of plaid shirt you wore in college. He says you are a good man. I believe him. I have no right to ask your forgiveness, but I am asking anyway, because the dying are allowed a certain shamelessness and I have used up every other kind.
If there is anything left of me that you can love, love that. If there is not, then burn this letter and keep the brother you buried. He was cleaner than the one who lived.
Tell Marcus thank you. He was the only friend I had at the end, and he never asked me to be anyone but the wreck I was.
Your brother,
Andrew
P.S. — The man in the parking lot fully recovered. I looked him up years later like a thief returning to the scene. He has two kids and a hardware store in Gloucester. I ruined my life over a concussion that healed in six weeks. Remember that, if you remember nothing else: most of the prisons we die in are the ones we build ourselves.