This is the reason we are family.

It’s two-thirty in the morning, and I’m sitting here, shaking, angry, tired, trying to write a letter full of all the things I need to say to my ex and feeling like the world's most fucked-up person on the planet, and suddenly my phone buzzes: a text from my older brother. Just the normal hey, what's new? sort of thing. This is an event in itself, since he is extremely picky about who he talks to and when.

His text is not entirely surprising; I have been thinking about him a lot recently, and he always seems to get in touch with me after I’ve been letting my mind dwell on him, as if I’m broadcasting some sort of signal that he pick up on. I have never entirely ruled this out as a possibility. There are too many coincidences.

So I text back, Hey, not much, just writing an angry letter. You?

And I put my phone back in my pocket and forget about it, my twisted emotions fighting with each other for adequate coherent space on the virtual page.

Ten minutes later my phone buzzes again... and again. My first thought is Oh, cool, a two page text, which is awesome since he sometimes doesn't text back at all; and then it buzzes again as I'm taking it out of my pocket.... and I realize he's calling me.

So I sprint into the other room and pick up.

“Hey,” I say, and I notice my voice is warm and happy, with no trace of the shaky sadness or anger that would have possessed it only seconds ago. Just the sight of his name on my phone lifts my heart. “Why are you up so late?”

“I’m up at the cabin,” he answers. This explains a lot to me: he hates it there. It also causes a genuine smile to break across my face. His voice always does, because there have been so many times where I’ve been sure I will never hear it again.

“That’s always nice.” The sarcasm in my voice is evident.

“Yeah. It’s cold up here.”

“It’s pretty cold down here, too,” I assure him.

There is a pause, and then he says, “What a fucked-up year.”

I am speechless for a moment--the same exact thought crossed my mind while biking home just yesterday. But my surprise doesn’t last long. He and I have always been connected like this. “I was just thinking that, actually,” I say, and my voice is low because most of the effort spent in speaking is spent holding back tears that could be either joyful or sorrowful but are actually neither, since I never let them past the tremble in my words.

We talk for a moment of his ex--he wants to make amends.

“Will she talk to you?” I ask, and the question is honest.

“Probably not, but I’m going to try anyway.” That could easily be his motto, used in both good and bad contexts: No, but I’ll do it anyway.

“Will she be making the amends, or will you?”

“I will. I was a bastard for the last part of our relationship.” My heart swells with pride in his ability to see himself clearly, and the feeling is untainted by his next words: “She was a bitch, though” because I know that even if he means them, they don’t change his view of himself.

“Isn’t it incredible how your opinion of someone can change so much in such a short time?” I muse. I am thinking of his ex, who he had been with for over two years, albeit on and off; I am also thinking of mine, and the letter filled with anger sitting on the abandoned computer screen.

We are quiet for another moment, and I reflect on several things: one is that I was staring out the very same window I am looking through now on a terrible May weekend three years ago, a weekend I will forever associate with him and his strength and kindness; the other is that he is the only person I know of that I can be silent with over the phone and not feel the need to talk to fill the empty airwaves.

“We should hang out when I get back to town,” he says.

I’m caught off guard, but in my happiness, I don’t skip a beat. “When?”

“Tuesday.”

“School starts on Tuesday. But afterwards?”

“Sure.”

We sort out details for a minute, and then he says, “Well, I think I’m gonna go to bed.”

“Alright. Sleep well, ani.” The word is Japanese, the language I only took because he asked me to. It means my older brother, and I've used it as a term of affection for him for years. For the first time in a long time it doesn't feel awkward leaving my mouth. In fact, it feels like it fits perfectly, like a favorite shirt or a familiar smell.

“You too. Keep texting me, alright?”

“I will, definitely. Of course.”

“Goodnight, Sarah.”

“Goodnight, Joe.”

I hang up the phone, and when I sit back down at the computer, my anger is gone. My hands are not shaking. Even my fingers have warmed up from the icy temperature they tend to take when I’m stressed out and haven’t slept. There is a feeling in my chest that can only be described as peace, and as I open a new tab and start to type, it is that feeling that carries me through my words.

And now I am here, riding on waves of warm contentment. Because when my older brother is here, nothing can ever hurt me.

And right now I think I trust in that more than anything else.