The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers. Thomas Mullen

sure I don’t.” Whit clapped his brother on the shoulder. “C’mon, sit.”

      Jason had always thought Weston looked like someone who couldn’t possibly be related to him. Weston was too bookish; he seemed to have inherited the personality of an elderly man from the moment he turned twelve. And in the past few months Weston had aged at a pace that seemed almost science-fictional. He was naturally slender, closer in physique to Whit than to Jason, and the skin of Weston’s face was even tighter than usual, with dark circles around the eyes. Looking at him made Jason too aware of his skull. Weston recently had started wearing glasses, and Jason wondered if that had less to do with deteriorating eyesight and more to do with a need to distinguish himself from the faces on those wanted posters.

      “We wish we could have told you sooner,” Jason said. “But we still don’t trust the phones. Things are a bit crazy at the moment.”

      Weston seemed to be crumpling as Jason spoke. His head fell into his hands and then through them, hanging so low his nose grazed the table. His fingers kneaded into his hair for a moment and then stopped, but even at rest they shook. When he sat up, his eyes were wet and his muscles tense. Jason and Whit glanced at each other; they both had been so worried about how Ma would take the news of their death, they hadn’t thought much about their brother, with whom neither had been terribly close the past few years.

      Jason stood up and walked to his seated brother, leaning over to wrap an arm around his shoulders. “It’s okay, Wes,” Jason said, guilt pouring in. “I’m sorry we worried you.”

      Jason sat back down and Weston nodded, waiting out the tears. “We’ve had police outside, reporters from all over the country,” he finally said. His voice was quiet. “And now everybody’s reading the paper and calling us. What…what happened?”

      “Who else is here?” Jason asked.

      “June and the boys are upstairs.” Weston took off his glasses as if to make sure his brothers still could be seen by the naked eye. “I called a few folks this morning, so they could hear it from us and not the papers, but…no one’s been able to come by yet. I told them not to, because of…all the ruckus out front. I wasn’t sure if—”

      “No, that was good. We’ll need to hide out here a bit, and the fewer people to explain things to, the better.”

      Windows were open behind the curtains and flies clumsily patrolled the room. Jason wondered if it was just his imagination or did the insects seem to be particularly interested in him and Whit. He hoped the others hadn’t noticed.

      “So…” Weston let the word drag like a broom. “The pictures in the paper…?”

      “Not us,” Jason answered.

      “But…what happened?”

      Whit looked to Jason, who replied, “Look, a lot gets blamed on us that we didn’t do. That may not be fair, but this time it’s worked out in our favor. Looks like somebody saw two fellas they thought were us, and they told the cops out in Points North. Cops ambushed the poor bastards, then got all excited and called the papers. There you go.”

      “Didn’t they take fingerprints?” Weston asked.

      “You’d be surprised how incompetent cops tend to be,” Jason said.

      “So…” Weston again took a while to get his question out. “What happened in Detroit?”

      “How did you know we went there?” Whit asked.

      “The radio said…something about an ambush?”

      “Look, I know this is all pretty strange,” Jason said, trying to keep a calm front while spinning his lies and taking in Weston’s information. “But what matters is we’re okay, and the folks chasing us are all relaxed right now because they think they got us.”

      “Are you boys hungry?” Ma asked, standing up, apparently anxious to conclude talk of her sons’ lesser deeds. “Can I get you anything?”

      “Ma, don’t worry about—”

      Weston’s rebuke was interrupted by his brothers saying, actually, yes, they’d love a bite to eat. They surprised even themselves with this; after an evening of feeling curiously detached from physical needs, the sights and smells of the family dining room had stirred something within them.

      After she had walked into the kitchen, Weston glared at them. “She didn’t sleep all night, for God’s sake. She certainly doesn’t need to be slaving for you two right now.”

      Jason shrugged. “You know damn well she’s happiest when she’s doing something.”

      “I wish you two could have seen this place yesterday. I wish you could have seen her.” Weston’s shock seemed to be giving way to his normal personality at last; this was the brother Jason knew. “As if she needed a scare like that, after Pop.”

      “We didn’t come here to get lectured, Wes,” Whit said.

      “What did you come back for?”

      “Look,” Jason said calmly, to keep Whit from escalating the matter. “The cops think we’re dead. We’re still trying to figure a few things out, but it seems best to lay low until the commotion dies down. The heat’ll finally be off us, so we can pack up and make our way someplace, start over.”

      “And then you can start participating in the fabled straight life. I get it. What’ll it be, law school for Whit, and maybe sales for Jason?”

      “Knock it off,” Whit said.

      Weston shook his head. “Jesus Christ. My brothers resurrected.” He studied them for a moment. “You both look kind of gray.”

      “It was a long night,” Jason said. “So what’s new, Wes?”

      “Not much.”

      “How’s the job going?”

      “They’re still paying me.”

      “That’s good. How’s Aunt June?”

      Weston paused. “The same.” As if on cue, they heard the floorboards from above. “That’s probably her. Maybe I’ll go up and tell her myself, ease the shock a bit.”

      After Weston left, Whit excused himself to the bathroom, and Jason sat there watching the flies.

      

      Whit closed the bathroom door behind him and looked in the mirror. The light wasn’t terribly good, but he did seem to look colorless, as if he hadn’t been in the sun in weeks. Which was largely true, of course, as he and his brother had lived in hiding ever since the Federal Reserve job more than two months ago. He ran his fingers over his stubble. His hair was still growing. But he’d heard that happened with corpses, that undertakers needed to shave the dead, sometimes twice, so that didn’t mean anything, either. He reached into the medicine cabinet for the razor he had left there weeks ago. He stared at himself again, then looked down at his left wrist, turned upward to present its veins. They still looked blue. He rolled up the left sleeve, then turned over his left arm, a few freckles showing through his dark hair. He took a breath, gritted his teeth, and sliced at his forearm with the razor, feeling the burn as it slid across. The opening in his skin seemed to widen for a moment, a yawning release. The air on the wound felt hot, as if oxygen were toxic to his insides. Then the gash flooded red. The viscous shine deepened as the tension of its molecules stood above the skin a bit. He exhaled, unsure whether he should be relieved or frightened to learn that he could still bleed, still feel pain.

      He took the wound to his mouth and sucked, then removed his arm and dabbed it with toilet paper, waiting for the bleeding to stop.

      

      Starting with Pop’s arrest four years ago, Ma had taken in boarders to help with the mortgage. Her space for paying customers had shrunk eighteen months ago, when her sister June was widowed and moved in along with her three kids. June shared Ma’s room,