My brother’s story is a small town romance. He chased his high school sweetheart for five years before finally winning her heart. In the middle of those five years he had enlisted in the service, with the understanding that he would be called overseas for a year.

When the deployment approached, he and his girlfriend went to the courthouse and married in secret. They honeymooned in a Gulf Shores hotel room for one night before Uncle Sam took him away.

*** *** ***

Fortunes began to change in the second game. The rim turned on me, spitting out even the softest of my jumpers. My brother kept pounding, barreling into me with power I hadn’t felt on a court since college. He found the range on his hook shots, burying several in a row to give himself a lead.

I drifted farther and farther away from the basket on offense. I was determined to fix my outside stroke, even as my brother ran away with the game. By the time I finally put one in, he was at game point and I was nowhere close.

The sun was beginning to set over the trees in the distance, but it brought little relief to the midday swelter. The pavement trapped the heat and hugged it close, so that it felt like we were playing in a sauna. With every jab step, every quick change of direction or collision of bodies, arcs of sweat flung off our skin and fell to the driveway.

Tim’s wife emerged from the house holding twin glasses of ice water. Here was the light at the end of the tunnel. He stepped back, farther than I trusted him to shoot, and carefully lined up an old-timey set shot.

The ball rolled around and dropped through.

Game. Now we were even, one apiece.

*** *** ***

When Tim is deployed he creeps into my thoughts every day. When he was a baby I used to take care of him, used to feed him and read him Little Golden Books at night. And now he’s on the other side of the world, with a flag sewn onto his uniform, carrying live rounds and shaking the sand out of his boots.

What you believe about wars and policies fades when it’s your little brother out there. You just want him to be safe.

*** *** ***

Tim and I were deep into a third game – the rubber match – when he suddenly stopped, mid-dribble. He tucked the ball under his arm and bent over.

“I think I’m done,” he said quietly, sweat running off the tip of his nose.

“You okay?” I asked him.

He said it was the humidity. He said the country where he’s stationed doesn’t have Alabama humidity. He said it was his shoes; the only pair he could find were dingy sneakers. He said they were giving him blisters.

Soon we were driving down the long gravel road, away from his in-laws’ home. My tires crunched the gravel, churning out billowing clouds of white dust behind the van. Swallows skimmed low over the fields of grass, searching for one last meal before the darkness covered everything.

Tim was quiet in the passenger seat beside me. Perhaps he was thinking about going back. His leave was up in a few days and he would be due back with his unit until Christmas.

“You have to come back,” I said sternly. “We have unfinished business to settle.”

The van kept rolling, chasing the thin strip of pink sky on the horizon.

My kid brother smiled.

“December,” he said.

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