I want to tell you about my brother before mom died.

He had a kind of sweetness, you know? He was funny, warm and loving, but you could tell he was fragile. All of us girls in the family adored him, but he was closest to me.

He had a canary in his chest, a tiny bird of golden fire, and it loved to sing, though you could hardly hear it through his skin. He was intensely private and worked hard to kept it secret.

He fed it stolen snickerdoodles from mom’s abandoned kitchen, bits of bread and crackers, but nothing seemed to sate it.

He would come to my room some nights and sit on the edge of my bed. He’d go on breathlessly about stories he’d written, wildly futuristic worlds he imagined, characters more alive to him than anyone in our family. Sometimes when he talked, the bird would grow restless inside him, chirp loudly enough to penetrate a brief silence between us. He would get flushed, sputter excuses, and rush out my door.

One night, my brother became particularly animated. I clearly heard the bird fluttering and piping inside him. He could feel it moving around in there—I could tell by his expression, somewhere between joyful and alarmed, when he noticed me noticing. He looked at me for a long moment, then gave me a sly smile. He reached for my hand and placed it flat on his chest. I felt the movements of the bird, flitting rapidly from rib to rib, the vibrations of each bright note quivering on my fingertips. We smiled at each other, saying nothing. He knew I would never betray his secret.

We never talked about mom. He was too young to remember what she was like before she got sick. The way she would hold him and sing so softly you could hardly hear it, and he would fall asleep in her arms. After his youngest years, he’d almost grown up without her, between her cancer, depression and long hospital stays.

Mom died the Sunday before Easter. There was a stunned silence in the house. It seemed impossible that Spring was arriving. Remnants of rain glistened on her tulips in the garden, but it was too painful to look at them.

After that, my brother would come out of his room to sit among us at dinner. He would look you straight in the eye, revealing nothing. He seemed to listen right through conversations, as if they weren’t real enough to concern him. Strangely, his grades improved. He did all his chores without being told, then went back to his room. He seemed less nervous, less disturbed, and definitely less joyful. I guess he was a bit more like everyone else.

I still invited him for talks on my bed. Most times, he declined. When he did come, I did most of the talking. I’d tell him about something I’d read in a magazine, or a new song I loved on the radio. I’d ask him what he was writing, but he wouldn’t share much. I would pause between topics and listen carefully, hoping to hear those shuffling sounds within him, but the bird was silent, its golden fire snuffed out. He’d sit with me a while, still sweet, listening, but finally he would say goodnight.

Years have passed and left me these memories I can’t decipher, a feeling that it’s nobody’s fault, but still—I sleep with golden feathers underneath my pillow and sometimes dream of my brother. I wake and listen hard for birdsong.

Alfred Fournier is a writer and community volunteer in Phoenix, Arizona. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Quibble, Lunch Ticket, Delmarva Review, New Flash Fiction Review, The Perch Magazine and elsewhere. His poetry chapbook “A Summons on the Wind” is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Find him on Twitter: @AlfredFournier4.