It takes about ten minutes to will away my erection—the smell of my mother’s hand lotion helps—but when I finally exit the bathroom, Joey’s waiting for me in the hall and the damn thing’s back. He wears jeans and not sweats, thank God, but every little thing about Timothy that I think is just a tad imperfect—the few gray hairs entwined in his beard, the slight double chin, that pout of his—is absent in my brother. Joey stands in the hallway like a model torn from the pages of L. L. Bean, a heavy flannel jacket already on, his hands shoved into large pockets at his waist. Hair still disheveled—I want to smooth it down or plunge my hands in its depths, one of the two, and since I don’t know which it would be, I fold my arms across the front of my chest to keep from reaching out. Because he’s
