The golden afternoon light painted the old building walls by the time Felix pushed open the door of the café. A small bell announced him to no one in particular. The place was filled with a quiet that filled the yawning emptiness in Felix's head. Low jazz from a speaker somewhere, the hiss of a milk steamer, four or five other patrons spread across mismatched chairs. Felix stepped inside and let the door close behind him.
He stood at the counter and looked up at the menu board.
He kept looking.
The chalkboard listed maybe fourteen items. Coffee drinks, teas, a lovely almond and brown sugar Danish listed as the daily special. None of that should have required serious consideration. And yet Felix stood there, hands loose at his sides, grey eyes moving from one line to the next, hardly registering in his mind. The barista glanced at him once, then busied herself with something beneath the counter. A minute passed. Then another.
Behind him, the queue grew by one.
"Alright, mate, it's a coffee shop."
The voice was sharpened with the edge of someone who had been running on too little sleep for too many months. "Pick something. Anything. They're all going to taste roughly the same after the second sip,"
The voice stopped.
Felix turned around slowly, the way he did most things.
The man behind him was younger by perhaps five or six years, though the difference didn't show itself kindly on him. He wore a grey overcoat that had seen better seasons and a loosened tie the colour of old wine. His jaw was unshaved in the particular way of someone who simply couldn't care. He was holding a leather satchel by its strap, and his hand had gone very still.
His name was Jasper.
Neither spoke yet the world continued moving around them. The jazz kept playing. The steamer hissed somewhere behind the counter. Jasper's mouth, which had been halfway through shaping another word, closed.
"Felix." he said quietly.
"Jasper." the response came sharp.
Jasper's breath hitched. He looked briefly at the barista, then at the menu board above Felix's head, then back at his brother. He stepped forward and set the bag on the counter and cleared his throat with more force than necessary. "The oat milk latte," he said to the barista, with a slightly strangled authority. "Two of them. And the daily special." He glanced sideways at Felix. "You still have a sweet tooth?"
Felix considered the question for no longer than a passing moment before giving a small, hollow shrug.
"Two Danishes, then. Please."
They sat at a small table near the window, the kind that wobbled slightly and had a paper napkin wedged under one leg. The latte was set between Felix's hands for a moment before he wrapped his fingers around the cup. Jasper sat across from him with his coat still on and his satchel leaning against the table leg. His knee bounced once beneath the table before he stilled it deliberately.
"You look well," Jasper said, though there was a question buried inside the statement.
"I look different." Felix said it plainly. He did. He was broader across the shoulders than Jasper remembered, and his hands looked as rough as bark. There was grey at his temples now, worked into the brunette strands like thread. Felix looked like a plain imitation of what he used to be. There used to be warm smiles and a calm demeanor. But now Jasper found he could no longer recognize the man sitting across from him.
"I wish I knew you were back. Where have you been? Where are you living?"
"North of the city. About two hours." Felix lifted the cup and drank.
"The hostel near the forestry?"
"Yes. Timber work."
Jasper nodded, his fingers curling around his own cup. He took a deep breath and mustered the courage to delve into his own life. "I see. Well, I'm still in the firm," he said. "It's stable now. All debts paid. I got married."
"Good." Felix meant it. That much was apparent, and somehow it only made the absence of anything warmer behind it more pronounced.
"It's been three years now." Jasper said in a much smaller voice.
Felix nodded once, and looked out at the street beyond the window.
Jasper watched him. In the old days Felix would have wanted to know how Rose was or whether the firm had changed. He would have found something kind to say, or at minimum, something wry. Now he sat with the passive stillness of someone who had quietly excused himself from the world entirely and saw no particular reason to return.
Jasper's knee started again beneath the table.
"Look, I'm sorry but I can't keep this to myself anymore." he blurted out. His words were directed at the table rather than his brother's face. "I had you committed on false grounds." He exhaled. His rapid-fire confession jumped out of his guilt-ridden lips.
"I know."
"On false grounds. I lied, sabotaged you."
"I heard you." Felix's eyes had returned from the window and settled on Jasper with no particular expression. Not contempt. Not grief. Not vengeful fury.
Jasper had expected anger. He had prepared for it. In fact, faced with Felix's apathy he found he would have welcomed it enormously.
"I was hemorrhaging money," Jasper continued, and his voice had taken on a slight unsteadiness at its edges. "My in-laws had made it very clear I needed to be more stable. My employees were weeks from redundancy. People with families." He stopped. Took a breath. "I'm not saying that's a good reason. I know it isn't."
"So you took me out of the equation and kept the money for yourself." Felix concluded. His every word was flat as still water.
Jasper's throat bobbed. He pressed his hands flat against the table and took another shaky breath.
"I barely slept," Jasper continued, his every word a flurry. "I couldn't eat. I couldn't breathe without the bottle. I couldn't think past three days without feeling the walls come in." He stammered it with the effort of a man who has not spoken about this perhaps anyone. "And when the terms of dad's inheritance came to light I knew I stood no chance in my state." He stopped. Swallowed. Took a breath. "I wasn't well, Felix."
Felix was quiet for a moment. Then another flat "I know." followed afterwards.
"You know." Jasper repeated, an almost helpless whisper slipping from his all too tense lips. "Right. Of course."
"Father always said there's no reason to rehash the past." Felix looked at him levelly. "I'd prefer we follow in his foot steps."
Jasper tensed and looked away from Felix. His jaw clenched for a bit before he let out a shuttering sigh. "Follow his footsteps? The ones that led him to the end of a noose?"
Felix sighed and shrugged. "He decided it was time to go. He left on his own terms. What can I say?" Felix remarked, his voice a flat melody of solemn acceptance.
Jasper's knee had started up again though he didn't bother to stop the tapping this time. "Are you insane? What's wrong with you?"
But Felix gave no response to that question. He'd sooner accept insanity over the dull emptiness that had settled in long ago.
Jasper sensed that he'd get no answer soon. He looked at his brother for a long minute then found himself speaking before he noticed it. "What was it like? After you got out."
Felix considered this with the same unhurried patience he had applied to the menu board earlier. "Quiet," he whispered. "I kept my head down, didn't talk to anyone." He turned his cup once. "I wandered around after. I found the work. It helped to have something to lift and cut. It's not complicated."
"And apart from the work?"
Felix looked at his brother. His dull grey eyes held Jasper's weary green ones expectantly.
"Do you have friends?" Jasper stopped, recalibrated. "Anyone to go back to?"
"People at the site. They're fine." A pause. "I don't really talk."
Jasper watched him, and the understanding arrived slowly, sinking in until it was impossible to ignore. Felix wasn't being guarded. He wasn't performing detachment as a defence against the conversation. This was simply what remained. The years of isolation and silence and physical labour had apparently settled into him like sediment, and whatever had existed above it was buried too deep now to surface easily.
"Felix," he said. He'd dropped the defensive quality from his voice. "How can I help you?"
"I'm fine."
"That isn't what I asked."
Felix met his eyes. "I get up. I work. I eat. I sleep." He said it without complaint, as plain recitation. "I manage."
"That's not right!" Jasper stopped himself. Started again more carefully. "That's not a life."
"It's mine." Not defensive. Just factual.
Jasper pressed his hands together on the table and held them there as though keeping them from doing something he hadn't decided on. "I'm not going to ask you to forgive me today," he said. "Or at all, if it comes to that. But can I help you?"
Felix said nothing.
"You can move in with me, get you back on track," Jasper continued, with more steadiness than he felt. "Or at least find someone to talk to. Maybe therapy." He looked down briefly. "I owe you that much. I owe you considerably more than that."
Felix looked at him for a long time. Those grey eyes looked right through Jasper's skittish form.
He didn't give an answer. Jasper's knee went still and he let out a shaky sigh. "I just don't want you to end up like dad."
Another long minute passed. Felix's brow furrowed while he considered his brother's desperate attempt at reconciliation. Eventually he'd made a decision, as reluctant as he was.
"Maybe. I don't know well see." Felix muttered with his head hung low. Felix finish his latte and stood without ceremony. He nodded once at the table as though concluding a minor errand.
"Felix." Jasper watched his brother stand up. He lowered his head, digging in his pocket for a notepad. "Give me your number. We can meet up again," He stopped.
Felix had already turned toward the door.
"Wait." Jasper called out shakily as he rushed to follow after him. But the small bell above the door had already rung, and by the time Jasper reached the window, the street was busy. People moved past in both directions, swallowing Felix's form whole.