Read Before the Dawn for Free Online Page B

what would happen.
    “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I can.”
    In the hallway she heard Katherine’s door click softly shut.

NOW THAT YOU'RE HERE
     
    My brother's coming home today.  I've been waiting for this day for a long time. There are three of us, my older sister, Susan, Rob, and then me, Natalie.
    If you believe what they say about birth order, we all fell naturally into our roles. Susan is the perfect mother hen, responsible, serious, bustling about and organizing us.  As the youngest, I admit I lived up to the expectations... a bit spoiled, needing to be the centre of attention, and rather sensitive. Still, now that I'm twenty-five, I hope I've grown out of some of that.
    Rob is the classic middle child, lost in the mix and determined to be different.  Even when he was little, he did things the hard way.  Tried to get noticed. 
    Every Christmas the stories come out, although the years have blunted the pain and worry, and turned them into sentimental humor.  'Remember the time Rob nearly set the school on fire?' 'How about when he told the head teacher he could teach the class better than she could… and then walked out?'
    Mum would shake her head, one hand lightly touching the grey streaks in her hair.  “He's the reason I have grey hair now,” she'd say.  “It's a miracle I've any left at all!” It was said with a smile, though, a sad one, because of course Rob wasn't there to defend himself.
    He dropped out of school after his GCSE's.  He didn't even bother taking them, although he could've got A stars if he'd tried.  That's what Dad always said.  'Why don't you just apply yourself, Robert? You've so much potential...' 
    It was true, Rob was brilliant. Still is.  But he never cared a bit for what people wanted, or thought, or hoped.  It was cruel of him, in a way, because we all cared so much.
    I remember the day he left. I was only eleven, five years younger than him. I stood in the doorway of his room, watching as he stuffed random dirty clothes into a holdall. “Where are you going?”
    “Nowhere. Anywhere.”  He flashed me a quick grin.  “Out of here, at any rate. This place can't keep me, Nat. I need to see the world.  Live.”
    “Will you come back?”  My voice wobbled and I blinked back tears. This was my big brother, who teased me mercilessly yet whom I secretly adored.  How could he be leaving home… how could he be leaving me?
    “Sure.  I'm not going to forget you, am I?” 
    “Promise?  Promise you'll come back, Rob.”
    He stood in front of me, typical wild grin and teasing eyes, but there was a hesitation there and even at eleven I saw it, and knew what it meant.  He couldn't promise.  He didn't want to tie himself to anything or anyone, not even me.
    “Sure, Nat.  I promise.”
    But I didn't believe it.
    So he left, and none of us could hold him.  Threats, tears, pleas, supplications.  My brother was indifferent to them all.  When he'd made up his mind, that was it.  I think my parents probably recognized that by the time he was six.
    We lived on postcards.  I remember jumping out of bed when I heard the thump of post on the doormat, running downstairs to see if one had come today.  They were from all over. First France, where he worked as a waiter, then somewhere in Eastern Europe where he picked beans during harvest time.  The places became more exotic: China, Turkey, Africa. He always seemed to find a job, land on his feet.
    I'd stare at the pictures, glossy photographs of distant lands.  A white sand beach or the Great Wall of China, the Indian Ocean, the Sahara Desert.  Places you read about, point to on a map.  It seemed incredible to me that Rob had actually been there, tasted life there.  Even then I felt a stirring of envy, like an ache.
    Those breezy messages, a few scrawled words, held a secret meaning.  Look, I've landed on my feet.  Don't worry about me.  Don't care. Of course, we did anyway.  How could we not?
    Then the postcards