The Sky Between Us

The night before my brother left for the city, the stars were brighter than I’d ever seen them.

We sat on the rooftop, legs dangling over the edge, watching planes blink their way across the sky. He had a ticket, a packed suitcase, and a heart full of dreams.

I had none of those things — just a camera that barely worked and a head full of questions I never asked.

“Promise me something,” he said suddenly, his voice quiet against the hum of the night.

“Anything.”

“Don’t let this place make you small.”

He said it like a joke, but I knew he meant it. He always meant what he said — even the smallest things. That was his way.

He left the next morning.

The house felt emptier, the walls thinner, the air heavier.

My mother cried quietly in the kitchen, pretending she was only chopping onions. My father just stared at the road until the bus disappeared around the bend.

I wanted to run after it. But I didn’t.

I just stood there, camera in hand, and took a picture of the road.

It came out blurry — the kind of photo that somehow feels more honest than the sharp ones.

Years passed. He called less. Then even less.

City life swallowed him — work, traffic, deadlines, new friends.

Our conversations became shorter, polite.

“Doing okay?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Same.”

I used to wait for his messages, checking my phone like it was a clock counting the distance between us. But they came less and less.

Then one day, they stopped.

When my father fell sick, I called him.

He didn’t answer.

I texted, emailed, even left a voicemail. Nothing.

Two days later, my father was gone.

The sky that night was empty — no stars, no planes. Just a quiet kind of darkness that felt too big to fit inside me.

At the funeral, my brother didn’t come.

No call. No letter.

Just silence.

My mother didn’t say his name for months.

I didn’t either.

One afternoon, while sorting through my father’s old drawer, I found something tucked under a stack of bills — a small envelope with my brother’s handwriting.

It wasn’t addressed to anyone, just sealed and slightly wrinkled.

I hesitated for a moment, then opened it.

Inside was a photo — the same road I’d once photographed the day he left.

On the back, he’d written:

“I keep this with me every day. Tell Ma I’m coming home soon.”

It was dated two years ago.

I didn’t know whether to feel angry or sad.

Mostly, I just felt tired — tired of waiting, tired of wondering why he’d vanished into a life that didn’t seem to want us in it anymore.

That night, I went to the rooftop again.

The stars were faint, hiding behind clouds, but I still looked up and whispered,

“Do you remember this sky?”

The wind didn’t answer, but it carried something — a faint scent of city rain and dust.

And for some reason, that was enough.

Months later, I was sitting in the kitchen with my mother when the doorbell rang.

She froze — the knife still in her hand, mid-chop.

I opened the door.

He stood there — older, thinner, eyes sunken, but it was him. My brother.

He didn’t say a word. Neither did I.

He just stepped forward and hugged me.

It was the kind of hug that didn’t ask for forgiveness — it just was.

My mother came to the doorway, her hands shaking.

When she saw him, she didn’t cry. She just said, “You’re late for dinner,” and turned back to the stove.

That was her forgiveness. Quiet and whole.

Later that night, we sat on the rooftop again.

The same old concrete beneath us, the same stars — though fewer now, hidden by the city lights.

He lit a cigarette and passed it to me.

“I quit years ago,” I said.

He smiled. “Then one puff won’t kill you.”

We talked for hours — about everything and nothing. About how time slips faster when you’re not looking. About how guilt can feel heavier than grief.

About how coming home is harder than leaving.

Before going back inside, he said softly,

“I thought if I stayed away long enough, I’d stop missing this place. But I never did.”

I didn’t know what to say. So I said nothing.

Sometimes silence says it best.

Now, years later, the rooftop’s cracked, and the walls are older, but I still go up there sometimes.

I take my camera and photograph the sky.

It’s never the same twice. Some nights are bright, some are cloudy, some are just plain empty.

But every time the wind moves past me, I feel it — that old, familiar promise between us.

That no matter how far we go, some part of us always stays here, beneath the same sky.