Darcy opened the door for Monroe as they stepped into their home. Monroe looked tired. He walked her over to their kitchen table as she sat down. “Now that we’re home, do you want me to make you something to eat? That turkey leg couldn’t have been enough.”

Monroe watched him with worried eyes. “If you don’t mind, that would be great.”

“I’ll get right on it.” He said as he walked over to the stove. He turned it on, but he did not move again. He stood frozen as the evening washed over him.

Monroe was watching him from behind. She lifted herself off her seat and walked behind Darcy, stopping inches away from him. She did not need to see his face to know what he was thinking. “Darcy, don’t blame yourself.”

Darcy’s head turned back towards Monroe as his brows knotted together, tears building up behind his eyes. “Who…who says I blame myself? I—I don’t blame myself!”

Monroe watched him with a frown. She knew he was suffering. She didn’t know how to make it better, but she didn’t want him to blame himself. “I know you do. You can lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to me.”

Darcy watched her with shock. She knew him so well. He turned his head away from her, unable to continue meeting her eyes. “I should have done more to help him. I—I shouldn’t have ever introduced him to the life. You know there was a time when we first started partying and doing drugs where I felt really close to my brother.” Tears were now falling freely down his cheeks; he tried to keep his voice steady as he continued. “Closer than we had ever been before. But soon enough, I became consumed by it. I didn’t care what it was doing to me and I certainly didn’t stop to think what it was doing to George.”

He moved away from the stove, resting his palms against the marble countertop. “By the time I was ready to stop, it was already too late. George was consumed by the life. I spent the next twenty years trying to help him. But I could never get through to him.”

He gripped the counter tightly, his fingers scratching at the marble as he did. “Then he killed mum and dad. I felt responsible but instead of dealing with those feelings I shunned him. Because every time I looked at him, I saw all my failures. I should have helped him then. Maybe he would have been more receptive to getting help. But I didn’t do that. I simply pushed him aside. I pretended he wasn’t real.”

Monroe embraced him from behind, snaking her hands across his chest. Darcy struggled to keep his composure, the only thing grounding him to this planet was Monroe’s arms, holding him firmly in place.  “The truth is if I hadn’t introduced him to drugs…mum and dad would still be alive. My brother would still be alive.”

Monroe’s face was pressed against his back, rubbing against it softly as she spoke. “It wasn’t your fault. You tried to help him. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want help. You know that.” Monroe squeezed him tighter as a silence stretched between them. After a moment, Monroe spoke again. “In your grief you were very cruel to Val. You need to apologize to her. She lost her brother too.”

Darcy turned around to face Monroe, taking her in his arms as he did. “You’re right. I’ll call her tomorrow.”

***

               Valerie walked over to the three portraits that hung on her wall. She walked slowly, her fingers grazing her portrait of herself, then Darcy’s, then finally reaching George’s. The frame was shattered. She still remembered the day it had broken, the day their parents died. She ran her hands through the broken glass softly. George looked so young in the picture, he was only twenty years old in the portrait. His smile was bright, full of life, not yet burdened with thirty years of substance abuse and addiction. She sighed. “Oh Georgie. Why couldn’t you let us help you?”

After a few moments her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID; it was Darcy. She took a steady breath and answered. “Hello?”

Darcy’s eyebrows were pinched with concern. “Hey Val. How are you holding up?”

Valerie gripped her phone tightly as she leaned on her wall, George’s portrait beside her. “Oh, I’ve had better days. And you? Are you still not relating to me at all?” She said as tears streamed down her face.

Darcy shook his head instinctively, though Val could not see it. “No, Val. I called to apologize to you and to tell you that you’re not alone. I’m grieving too. I just didn’t want to admit it.”

“Why?” Val asked.

Darcy’s eyes were wet with tears as he frowned. Why? “Because what right do I have to grieve? This…is all my fault.”

Valerie was shocked. Monroe had been right; Darcy was blaming himself. “No, DeeDee. This isn’t your fault. George made his choices; he stood by them until the very end.” She took a breath as she continued. “One of the last things he said to me was that he wasn’t going to stop.”

Darcy swallowed at her words. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “I just can’t stomach this. He died alone, Val. Did we not do enough?”           

Val sighed. “I don’t know. I’m the one who kicked him out. I just didn’t know what else to do. He was drinking and doing drugs. He was making a fool out of me. I don’t know what else we could have done. He knew where that road led, and he still chose it. We might have to accept that there is nothing we could have done.”

Darcy’s eyes shot to his coffee table; he was sitting on his cream couch. Monroe was not home yet. He longed to hold her in this moment. Admitting that George was a lost cause was hard. “That’s a hard pill to swallow. I still feel like I didn’t do enough. I pretended like he wasn’t even my brother for five years. I feel like scum. I ignored him and now he’s gone.”

Valerie didn’t want Darcy to feel that way. She knew George had given them no other choice. “You only did that because he killed mum and dad. You didn’t just ignore him out of nowhere. You tried to help him for twenty years. He simply went too far. You reached a breaking point. I understand that and I can’t blame you for it.”

Darcy’s expression was detached; his eyes were forlorn. “It was so hard to admit that I still cared about him after he did that. A part of me hated him…I couldn’t accept I still loved him. He died thinking I hated him.”

Val’s free hand traveled up to George’s portrait again. “I like to think he knew we loved him. Sometimes I wondered if he understood the severity of what he had done. But in the end, I think he used the drugs and the drink to numb himself. I think he could never process that he killed mum and dad. Just as we couldn’t process it. They were his parents too after all and he was always the favorite.”

Darcy gave a fragile smile recalling bittersweet memories. “They loved him. He was the golden child. Even with all his defects, they loved him. I never saw mum and dad as caring and warm as they were with George. They were never that way with me, but it was nice to know they were capable of caring.”

Val reached her face to wipe her tears as she smiled. “Mum and dad certainly weren’t perfect, neither was George.”

Darcy gave a small laugh as he spoke. “And neither are you and I for that matter. But it’s okay, because perfection isn’t real.”

Val’s face became a bit serious after hearing his words. “It took me a long time to realize that.”

There was a short silence for a moment. Darcy understood. It had taken a long time for Val to get to this moment. To a moment where she could accept she wasn’t perfect.

“Thank you for talking to me DeeDee. I needed this.”

Darcy smiled again. He cherished being able to speak so openly with Val. It was a strange feeling; they had both grown a lot. “Anytime Val. I’ll always be here for you.”

***

               Darcy walked to the center of the cathedral, next to George’s coffin. He stood before a large crowd of people, friends and colleagues of George, people who also mourned him. He smoothed out his black trench coat as he spoke. “Thank you to all of you who came today.” His eyes searched for Monroe amongst the crowd. Her gaze steadied him as he continued with a smile. “My name is Darcy Hart. I am George’s twin brother. George had been lost for a few years leading up to his death. So, in the end, I’m afraid we weren’t close. But there was a period of time where we were inseparable. We used to get into all sorts of trouble, doing things we probably shouldn’t have done. We were young. We thought we were invincible.”

His smile faltered for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. “Unfortunately, George never quite outgrew the feeling that he was invincible. He raced through his life. George believed in excess above all else. Whether it be work or alcohol. He was a flawed man, but a genius, nonetheless. Most of you here know George from work. He was a talented cinematographer. A true tortured artist. Unfortunately, in the last few years of his life, his vices took hold and didn’t allow for much work. It was a real shame.”

He cleared his throat after a moment. “I just hope that wherever he is, he knows that we love him and that we hope he’s found peace. Thank you.”

The crowd clapped as Val stood from the pews approaching Darcy. “Thank you Darcy, that was beautiful.”

After the funeral, Monroe walked over to Darcy, her hand reaching out to his. “Are you okay?”

Darcy’s face was even as he spoke. “Yeah, I’m fine. How was my eulogy? I realize it may have sounded a bit harsh but it’s difficult to talk about George without mentioning his…carefree spirit.”

Monroe gave him an easy smile. “That’s one way of putting it. Well, I think it was perfect. I think George really would have appreciated the honesty.”

“You think so?” Darcy asked timidly.

Monroe averted her eyes, thinking of George as she did. “Yes, though I only knew him from a conversation we had once.”

Darcy knew what she was talking about. George had mentioned to him that he had tried to get with Monroe while he was in rehab. “He told me about that. He said he took you to a bar.”

Monroe watched him with embarrassment as she spoke. “Yeah, I agreed to go because I was trying to get information from him. And then he kissed me.”

Darcy’s expression flattened at that. “He what?”

Monroe waved her hand at him, as if she was saying it was no big deal. “Oh, it was nothing, he was trying to derail the conversation. I yelled at him, and we went back to talking.”

Darcy felt a possessive streak at Monroe’s words. George had conveniently left out that part of the story when he had told Darcy. “Yeah, that certainly sounds like George.”

He inhaled deeply as he continued. “He was a pain in my arse, but…I’ll miss him.”

Monroe wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into an embrace. “I know, it’s okay to miss him.”

Darcy gathered the courage to speak to Monroe again. “I was thinking, would it be okay if we named one of the babies George? I understand if you don’t want to, but I just think it would be a nice way to honor him.”

Monroe pulled back a bit to stare at Darcy. She smiled at him lovingly. “Darcy, I think that’s a beautiful way to honor him. We can name one of the babies George.”

Darcy watched her with wonder in his eyes. He loved her so much. He leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her lips. Her warmth was all he needed to stay tethered to this earth.