The Catskills—I remember laughing at the name when I was a little girl. Jamie and I had been working on our map of the United States—the massive puzzle we had spent the whole first week of summer putting together—when I heard the name for the first time. It was humid that day, especially for June, and Jamie and I leaned in closely toward the fan we had sitting on the table beside the puzzle. Mom had just finished screwing in a new LED bulb into the light fixture above the table, its brightness interrogating our work from above. Our house was always bright. Mom said a well-lit house made for a happy home. She said that a lot. Sometimes with wet, filmy eyes.
+++++“What are cat skills?” I asked Jamie. I think I was about six at the time. He was in middle school and had far more interesting people to hang out with than his baby sister, but he always made time for me, to make me feel special
+++++“The Catskills,” he mused, taking the puzzle piece from my hand, rubbing his thumb over the textured range, “are part of the Appalachian Mountains.”
+++++“But why are they called that?” I asked him.
+++++“I’m not sure. Why do you think they are called that?”
+++++Then he got that playful look on his face, flashing me with the “Jamie eyes,” as our mom called them. They would squint a bit, forming little peaks and valleys of wrinkles, his blue irises glinting like sapphires. I wanted to be playful like him, to make my eyes do the same. But mine are gray, like Dad’s.
+++++“Well, maybe,” I ventured, “a cat with a lot of skills lived there.”
+++++“Yes, of course,” humored Jamie, “and what type of skills, Miss Gracie?”
+++++Addressing me as Miss Gracie was how he made me feel important to him, that I ranked just as high, perhaps even higher, than all his neighborhood friends he could have been playing wiffle ball with.
+++++“Well, maybe they can…umm…bake cakes,” I suggested, instantly embarrassed by my silly idea. But no—he played right long, the harsh lighting dancing playfully within his wide eyes.
+++++“Maybe we have some Catskills right here,” he ventured as he darted into the living room, skating across the floor in his mismatched socks en route to Buford the cat. Buford must be the grumpiest cat ever born. He hated being touched, much less picked up, but Jamie was convinced he could make anybody happy, especially with all those stories he was so good at creating.
+++++Holding the cat like a ticking time bomb, he raced back toward the kitchen, the beast hissing all the while. Jamie’s own chestnut hair matched Buford’s cinnamon-tabby coloring, and I always saw Jamie as something of a mischievous feline himself, moving nimbly throughout his silly operations. He slipped his little cat paws into Mom’s oven mitts.
+++++“EWW!” I screamed, thinking about all the cat hair that might wind up in our food. But a fit of giggling soon took over me as I listened to Jamie’s make-believe voice for Buford.
+++++“Welcome to Buford’s Bakery,” Jamie said in a deep, methodical voice, swishing the cat’s paws through the air as if he were a conductor. Buford and I were both shrieking, but my cries were ones of delight.
+++++“Make me a cake, Mr. Burford!” I commanded, creases of joy ringing the outside of my own eyes now. Jamie made his way to the pantry while awkwardly balancing Buford on his forearm, stumbling with the weight of the ceramic jar of flour. But Buford, ever the opportunist, used that moment to mount his counterattack. Dragging a claw across Jamie’s forearm, the cat leaped from his arms, caterwauling through the halls as he scuttled away. And poor Jamie—lost control of the jar, which came crashing down. All I could do was watch it shatter on impact, a thick haze of flour mushrooming around it.
+++++“IS EVERYONE OKAY?” Mom screamed as she careened into the kitchen from the office, nearly trampling that glorified vermin of a cat on her way. A scarlet claw mark erupted across Jamie’s arm, and the smile from his face evaporated.
+++++“Jamie, are you okay?” I whispered, terrified by the terror animating his face. Could he be hurt that badly?
+++++“Just help me, will you?” he begged, dropping to his knees and frantically picking up the ceramic shards. It was then that I finally heard heavy boots driving ruthlessly into the porch steps.
+++++Dad.
+++++I ran as fast as I could to get the broom and dustpan. I needed to think. I was the one who dropped it, I could say. He always went easier on me. I had been trying to make him a cake. No, he would never believe that. I didn’t know how to bake a cake. And I would never want to make him a cake.
+++++He threw the door open so hard that it slammed into the wall. I moved spastically with the broom. My hands trembled. Mom moved mechanically toward the door, trying in vain to intercept what we all knew was coming.
+++++“What the hell is this?” he shouted as he barreled past her, his eyes narrowing into thin, dangerous slits as he stared at Jamie kneeling on the floor, ringed by flour. For some strange reason, I wanted him to lie down and make a snow angel. Maybe Dad would have joined him.
+++++“I…I was just cleaning it up…I’m sorry,” Jamie stammered, picking up a few more shards as he rose to his feet.
+++++“Now, what the hell does a man have to do to get some respect?” he seethed. His nostrils flared wider with each word. I smelled that sour smell on him. Alcohol.
+++++“I work all day for you people, and I can’t even walk into my own damn house without there being a damn mess everywhere,” he snapped. He stumbled as he bent down toward the ground and forced Jamie onto his feet.
+++++“Is this what I deserve, huh?” he grunted at Jamie. I watched my father’s eyes attack my brother’s. Sapphires splintering against the sharp, gray steel.
+++++“Jonathan, enough,” my mother whimpered. But my father shoved her toward the wall. He lifted a twitching hand to Jamie’s shaking face.
+++++A slap. A punch. A push. A fall. A tearing apart of puzzle pieces. Falling like shrapnel. A scrambling toward a childhood bedroom. My mother’s tears. My father’s shouts. My feet moved listlessly beneath me as I looked to find that cat. What else could I do?
+++++Sobs echoing through the floorboards.

***

The Catskills—the name brings a tepid smile to my face. Ten years ago, Jamie and I laughed and cried over them in a single night. Now I stand outside the cottage tucked within them that he rents. They let him stay there cheaply in exchange for him tending to all their landscaping during their travels abroad.
+++++He is nine hours from Virginia. From me.
+++++When he left a year ago, we had no idea where he had driven to. He had turned his location off on his phone, and despite a few messages here and there telling us that he was alright, that was it. All we knew was that he was gone. That he didn’t want to be found. Until a week ago, when he texted me an address and told me he wanted me to visit him. Just me. I guess I should have figured he would be here. It had always been our imagined happy place. I just never thought he would go there alone.
+++++I get out of the cab. The air blows bluntly across my face. I have never felt a chill in June before, but I suppose that happens with the elevation. With uneasy steps I approach the soft, moist wood of the porch. All the blinds are shut. My heart quakes within my chest as my knuckles rap on the door. This must be the only house for miles.
+++++I hear nimble steps from within. Jamie.
+++++The door squeals as it opens. One inch, then two.
+++++Then I see them. His eyes meet mine, two sapphires reflecting the midday sun, somewhat tired and dull, and yet they are truly his. I wonder if they can still make light dance.
+++++“Miss Gracie,” he says huskily. The door is now wide open. His tall, skinny frame. His shaggy brown hair. His sheepish smile. Jamie.
+++++“Hi,” I whisper. Hi? Is that really all I can say? I wanted to say more, but I was still recovering from the words Miss Gracie. I hadn’t been Miss Gracie since he left. How could I pretend to be that again?
+++++“Come in,” he insists, and with a few halting steps I make my way into the cottage. Aside from the thin beams of light fighting their way in around the blinds, there is no brightness at all. He closes the door behind me. We are in a cave.
+++++“How was the train?” he asks, shoving his hands into his pockets.
+++++“Fast, I guess.” I wonder how long he will talk about pointless things. I know I should be patient. But then again, I have been patient for a whole year. And he was the one who left.
+++++“Good,” he nods. He tries to smile, but it is weak. No wrinkles form near the corners of his eyes. He looks exhausted. We sit down in stiff wooden chairs across from each other at the round kitchen table. I notice the absence of cat hair on the floor. Buford is still alive. I wonder if he wonders about the cat.
+++++“How is the bookstore?” I ask as he takes me into a sitting room, since he hasn’t told me the name. “It’s alright, but probably not what I should be doing,” he sighs. He rubs the heels of his hands against his thighs. Back and forth. I listen to a faint murmur from somewhere way down below. The Delaware River gurgles listlessly.
+++++“How is the writing, then?” I venture. That was his dream, after all. He was going to finish up at the community college, see what job he could get from that, and write those stories he was so good at telling. Dad hated the idea, but I loved it. Still, nobody thought it involved fleeing home.
+++++“Even worse,” he grumbles, “I just haven’t felt inspired in ages.” His false smile erodes as he says these words to me.
+++++“So, what? Are you just going to quit writing?” I ask, with more than a hint of frustration laced into my voice. Has he really left me at home all this time and done nothing?
+++++“What do you think I should do?” he asks me. His face falls into his hands.

***

“Here, read this!” a seventeen-year-old Jamie demanded, thrusting the paper in front of me as if it would burn his hands off if he held it any longer. I was only eleven, but given my high grades on all my grammar tests, Jamie told me I would be the best person to proofread his short stories. He always told me I had a “writer’s eye.” I never quite believed him, but my heart still quickened when he said it, as if together we could invent our own reality–a better one. I set the paper down on the kitchen table, rubbed my eyes, then looked at it again. His letters were formed so hastily. Narrowing my eyes, I looked at it again, trying to parse each word from the other in their mad scramble toward the end of the page. I could at least make out the ending:

And she held her hand to his face, catching every one of his tears in her palms, and he watched as they rolled into the grooves of her hand, absorbed into her skin until they were gone forever, and he knew then and there that he would be okay.

My heart throbbed as I read it—I longed for love, for escape, for romance, even if I had no clue what any of it meant.
+++++“Well…it’s a run-on sentence,” I laughed as I handed the paper back to him. It was understood that, when I had no comment other than the grammar, I adored it.
+++++“Who has time for punctuation when there is an entire story to tell?” His eyes flashed like azure lightning as he spoke, his smile flowing like sweet honey across his face.
+++++“But what’s the whole story about?”
+++++“Well, it’s about trying to find hope, despite, you know—”
+++++A door slammed. The house shook. Why was he home two hours early from work? They must have made him go home early. He had already been caught once for drinking on the job.
+++++“Where is my dinner?” he bellowed. Five angry stomps of his feet, and he was before us.
+++++“It’s…it’s only 3:30,” Jamie said meekly, his eyes looking at anything but Dad, “and Mom isn’t even home.”
+++++“And you couldn’t have made anything for me?”
+++++Three rapid steps. He was behind us. I winced as he snatched the paper from the table.
+++++“Hah!” he laughed. Jamie’s jaw locked tightly, furiously. I had never seen that before. I’m not sure how Dad was reading the jumbled letters drunk if couldn’t manage it sober. Maybe he didn’t have to read a word to know he hated what it stood for.
+++++“Well, aren’t you a poet!” he mocked. The page was so softened by Jamie’s hands that it barely made a noise as Dad tore it.

***

“I think you need to write. You…you left me so you could write, so write!” Why am I shouting? I’ve been here for only ten minutes. I was silent for a whole year in his absence. I want to talk now. I need to.
+++++“Is that really why you think I left?” Jamie asks. His voice is hoarse with emotion. His gemstone eyes are chipped, wounded.
+++++“Well, yeah. Dad thinks it’s stupid, so you went off to do it anyway. And that’s nice, I guess, but if you’re going to leave me to go do your own thing, the least you can do is, well, do it. Meanwhile, I’m at home with—”
+++++My voice breaks. Tears drip rapidly down my face. They splash onto the table. Nobody is there to catch them.
+++++“Gracie, Gracie, please,” Jamie begs, “I, I did leave, but I didn’t mean to leave you, at least not for long.”
+++++“You didn’t even tell me where you were! Why?”
+++++The angry words flow out of me like the sputtering river far, far below.
+++++“Because…because I wanted everything to be ready before you came.”
+++++“Wanted what to be ready?”
+++++“Just…everything. I wanted to get my footing at the job, you know? Write something, something really good this time. And then, once everything was good, I would invite you to come and stay here as long as you wanted, at least for the summer. But this place isn’t any good, is it? It’s worse than home.”
+++++My anger melts at the crushing sight of my big brother, broken. I rush over to him and hold onto him tightly. The silence of the cottage is punctured by the rattling table as his legs bounce incessantly. I wait for the sound to still before I talk again.
+++++“Jamie, why did you want me to come, then?” Maybe he wants to create but can’t. Not with a ravaged heart. Maybe he needs me to help.
+++++“It’s…it’s silly,” he begins, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, “but, I…I saw something at the bookstore yesterday and bought it. It reminded me of you, or us, or, just—”
+++++He bolts toward the sitting room. There is a box tucked behind it. He glides across the floor the way he would as a kid. He lays it on the table. A jigsaw puzzle of the world.
+++++“It’s different from the one we used to have, but maybe we could try to finish it this time?”
+++++There they are. His eyes, crinkling with unfettered joy, marble lustrously as the sunlight slices in through the blinds. I scramble toward the windows and draw the blinds up all the way, and I let the light blanket the whole cottage. Like children we tear the plastic away from the box, slide off the lid, and scatter the pieces like wildflower seeds across the table. Who knows if Jamie will be able to build his own worlds again, but we can start with this one.
+++++“How should we start, Miss Gracie?”
+++++He already knows—we are both searching for the Catskills.

[Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash]

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Marlene Elaine Brasco

Marlene Brasco is a current junior at the College of William & Mary studying English and creative writing. She has published a three-part story Colic with Close To The Bone as well as The Song of the Suburbs with The Piker Press. When she is not writing, she is either reading, playing with her Labrador named Macaroni, or working as a camp counselor for children with intellectual disabilities.

Latest posts by Marlene Elaine Brasco (see all)

• A Missing Peace - March 8, 2026
• Colic – Part 3 - March 14, 2025
• Colic – Part 2 - February 28, 2025