My Cousin's Keeper (22 page)

We're brothers, we are.

That moment had never left me, the year that Bon and I had turned nine. Now, in the year that we had both turned eleven, I caught the fragrances of shampoo in his hair and laundry soap in his clothes. They were the smells of Nan's house and ours, of our family.

“Before we go back, there's something I have to show you.” Bon leaned to one side and pulled something from his back pocket. “It was in Nan's mailbox yesterday afternoon when I got home from school. I saved it for today. For up here, where it's like you can nearly see the whole world,” he told me. “It's to both of us. You'll feel happy.
I
felt happy when I got it. There's an address on it that we can write back to.”

In his hand, he held what looked like a photo, but I realized it was a postcard. The front showed a beach landscape of pale sand and dry green hills behind the shape of a distant lighthouse. Bon smiled warmly and turned the postcard over.

Bon's name and Nan's address were in large penned letters on the back. Next to it was a written note — a girl's handwriting, with
j
's that looped and
a
's and
e
's that curled at the ends.

Dear Bon and Kieran
, it began. As Bon handed it to me, he leaned against me a little, the way he did with Nan and Mom.

Slowly, I took the postcard from his hand and began reading.