Weekend Away

Eighteen years ago, my mother won a weekend away. It was February when we went. I remember my cousins being big. I remember being jealous of their imaginary horses. I remember the morning that became the last morning because my brother died at breakfast. I see it like a movie now, up close and from afar; sweeping scenes of disbelief in the dining room, jump-cut to Cathal back-slapped and dangling in my uncle’s arms, the ambulance’s neons, the stale beige of hospital corridors. My aunt drove the rest of us home, stopping at McDonalds for Happy Meals, as though that was how all holidays end. And now, I don’t tend to enter competitions because there’s a little heart-shaped gravestone that I visit when I’m home. Where I stop myself thinking about mom, turning on the radio and picking up the phone, cracking a smile because her answer is right, congratulations, you’ve just won a weekend away.