After yet another long day of talking to lawyers and attempting to avoid the press, I head to the hospital for another visit with Eddie. This time I am alone. Sylvia is on another two-day business trip, so she can’t attend. I would ask Éclair to go with me, but after I had run out of her home like a little bitch I doubt she would have agreed. I don’t know –maybe I am being too critical of her character. I’m sure Éclair would have come if I had asked her to, but truthfully I am glad that I will be getting some alone time with Eddie.

Instead of reading through the same old book again, I had gone to the library and checked out a copy of Moby Dick. I’m not sure if it’s something Eddie would like or not, but it’s something for him to listen to –if he can actually hear me, that is. I’m just glad that Lillian got this shit straightened out quick. The few days of not being able to visit with Eddie had driven me absolutely insane. I stroll up to the hospital, thinking about the book I have in my hands and worried whether or not Eddie would even like hearing me read.

I check in with a nurse who is monitoring the hallway that is full of comatose and life support patients. You have to go through a sort of security check in this wing of the hospital. It is one of the most depressing areas in a hospital I have ever been in –especially the waiting room. Everyone is either dying or almost dying or just barely hanging on out this way, so there is always someone out in the nearby lobby or waiting room balling their eyes out after getting some bad news that their brother or daughter or whoever has been put on life support or that they are not going to make it. I am just hoping that any news I get won’t make me into one of those ghostly looking faces I see every time I come here.

When I enter into Eddie’s room after speaking to a nurse, I immediately start talking to him without looking around the room. “Hey, Eddie, I brought a new book today,” I say, not realizing that Eddie has another guest.

The guy sitting in the chair next to Eddie’s bed jumps slightly and wipes his face dry, clearly he had not expected someone to just come walking in all of a sudden. If it wasn’t for his tear soaked face, I probably would have shouted for a nurse to call security. I don’t recognize the guy at all, but there is something somewhat familiar about his face. He looks to be about Eddie’s age, maybe a little younger. He’s wearing a simple button up shirt and stained tie, blue jeans, and tennis-shoes. He kind of looks like an underdressed Geek Squad rep from Best Buy.

Slowly, he stands, probably sensing my surprise and slight discomfort at seeing someone else in the room. Eddie does not exactly have a lot of guy friends, and those that he did have had all waited around for when they had known I would be here for a visit –no one close enough to just pop in all of a sudden at the hospital unannounced. Plus, who gave this guy permission to come back here? I’m the only one on any sort of emergency contact. The guy forces himself to smile, “Y-you m-mu-must b-b-be J-James,” he says with the worst stutter I have ever heard in my life.

“Uh… yeah…” I say as I come somewhat closer. He sticks out a hand to shake, and I shake despite my discomfort with this stranger’s presence.

“Ed-die’s t-told m-me so m-much about y-y-you,” he says as he releases my hand.

“I’m sorry, but who the hell are you and what are you doing here?” I say in the nicest tone I can manage.

He frowns and then half-heartedly smiles at me, “I’m-m s-sorry. I’m M-Max. I’m-m Ed-die’s little br-brother.”

I feel my throat tighten, but I’m not sure why. I have never met one of Eddie’s other half-siblings before. “Oh.” I say, and that is literally all I can come up with.

He looks embarrassed now. He straightens his tie and steps away from the hospital bed. Max puts his hands in his pockets and looks down at his feet. “I sh-should go.”

“No,” I say quickly, not wanting to chase the poor guy out of here. He had actually bothered to come visit, so I wasn’t going to punish him for it by making him uncomfortable. There was nothing for him to gain by coming here, so I guess I may have made a few harsh judgements about Eddie’s siblings. I can admit that, but I am not entirely convinced of it yet. “Stay,” I say and steal the guy’s seat right next to where he had been sitting next to Eddie’s head.

Max nods and pulls up another chair. We are both uncomfortably silent for a while. Max breaks it after a short period of time. “Ed-die d-do-doesn’t de-deserve this s…sort of sh-shit,” he says.

“No, he doesn’t.” I say, trying not to make it obvious that I am having to focus really hard to understand whatever he is saying.

A part of me is curious about the stutter, but I would never in a million years ask about flat out about it –but I suppose he can sense my curiosity. He just points to the side of his head and says, “B-brain inj-jury. It u-used t-to be worse, b-but Ed-die g-got m…me in sp-peach th-therapy n-now.”

“Brain injury?” I question.

“One of m-my,” he pauses and I watch him shake his head embarrassingly for a moment before deciding that he needed to take his time, “One of my m-mom’s old boy…boyfriends kn-knocked me out of a m-moving car when I w-was a k-kid.”

“Shit man,” I say, “That’s fucked up.”

“N-no,” he says and waves a hand towards Eddie, “this is f-fucked up.”

I nod in agreement. I can tell he is trying ridiculously hard to cover up the stutter in front of me. Max clearly is not comfortable being in the same room as me. It is a little weird that we have never met before, but it’s not like I ever showed any interest in getting to know any of Eddie’s family. I decide to try and talk to him so that he doesn’t feel like he has to leave. The next thing I know; we are having this long conversation about Eddie.

I tell him about growing up with Eddie. About Eddie and I running around my dad’s company. About family holiday’s. About sibling rivalries. That sort of thing. He asks a lot of questions, and I answer them the best I can. I tell him that he looks like Eddie a little, and it makes him beam with a bit of pride. I ask about him, but everything he has to say points back to Eddie in one way or another.

Max tells me that he grew up with a single mom. Apart from her shitty taste in men, she sounds like a decent woman. She worked two jobs to take care of Max growing up, but she could never afford to get him much help with his condition because they could not afford health insurance. Eddie, a few years ago, had come looking for all of his siblings, and Max had apparently been the first he found. Max was able to introduce Eddie to the others. Eddie had paid to get Max into speech therapy, and he had helped to set up a retirement plan for Max’s mom. Max also credited Eddie with helping to get him a job.

I could hear it in Max’s voice –the incredible amount of gratitude he had for what Eddie had done for him, and it makes me feel like an ass. Clearly, Max is not just some freeloader that I had assumed all of Eddie’s siblings would be. In fact, by the end of the day, I would even be willing to call Max a friend. The two of us wind up going down to the cafeteria in the hospital to have dinner together, and we keep talking until they kick us out.

Now I feel bad that I haven’t gotten to know him before now. It shouldn’t have taken Eddie being put on life support for me to meet Max. It makes me wonder about Eddie’s other siblings, and hell, about his biological father too. I ask Max about his and Eddies’ father, but Max deflects as though it was too sensitive of a topic. Weird considering our very first conversation was about him being pushed out of a moving car by his mother’s abusive boyfriend.

The two of us exchange information once visiting hours are over, promising to stay in touch. I decide that once things settle down and Eddie is doing better that I am going to try and meet the rest of Eddie’s family like I should have done a long time ago.