One of my greatest fears is to be two seats behind my brother or my sister and not realize it until they've stepped onto the platform and the doors are closing behind them. Whenever I leave the house, I have it in the back of my mind that today might be the day that one of them grabs my sleeve on the street.

In my first memory of him, my big brother is nine and very much alive. It is summer, and he is wearing cut-offs, Sears tennis shoes, a plaid shirt with pearl snaps. We are standing by the closet at the top of the stairs. As I watch, he grabs his shirttails and yanks them apart, unsnapping his shirt from navel to neck in a single, ripping motion.