“Alive” by Sharon Solwitz
Since the day his older brother was diagnosed, Dylan had felt less important in the eyes of his parents. Consequently, there is a need to make everything a competition, even if he’s competing against his own good conscience. When their mother takes them skiing, Dylan is eager to lure his brother to the more daunting slopes to prove himself despite his ailing brother’s limits — despite, even, his own limits.
About the Author
Sharon Solwitz’s collection of stories, Blood and Milk, won the Carl Sandburg Prize from Friends of the Chicago Public Library, the prize for adult fiction from the Society of Midland Authors, and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. Awards for her individual stories, published in such magazines as TriQuarterly, Mademoiselle, and Ploughshares, include the Pushcart Prize, the Katherine Anne Porter Prize, the Nelson Algren, and first prize from Moment Magazine and the American Literary Review. A story of hers was reprinted in Best American Short Stories 2012 and another was selected for Best American Short Stories 2016. She teaches fiction at Purdue University and lives in Chicago with her husband, poet Barry Silesky.
Her novel Once, in Lourdes [Random House (Spiegel and Grau)] is scheduled for publication in August 2017.
Her and Barry’s son Seth is scheduled to marry his fiancé Melissa Dunn in July, 2017.
Synopsis
It’s been snowing, and Dylan, who is 10-years-old, is looking for something fun to do, but he and his friend, Ethan, are not getting along. His older brother, Nate, who’s been in the hospital recently, is doing math homework and very concentrated. His mother is working at her own computer in the kitchen. When Dylan’s eagerness to cure his boredom is apparent, she suggests skiing. They go upstairs to ask Nate if he wants to, even though their father would say it isn’t a good idea considering Nate’s condition. “Nate’s hand went automatically to the bulge under his collarbone where a small box lay right under the skin.” (Nate’s port).
On their way to Alpine Valley, Dylan sits in the back, and is slightly resentful that he’s always in the back, and that people say Nate takes after their dad. Dylan definitely feels second rate and less concerned about, and he says from the backseat that he wishes he had cancer (like his brother, evidently). His mother stops the car and gives him a look that quiets him. Nate assures his mother, Thea, that Dylan didn’t mean it.
At the rental hut, there are 3 teenagers, one girl and two boys, who are taking up the entire bench. They are typical teenagers with attitudes and speaking inappropriately despite the people around them. Thea asks that they make room because others may want to sit, so they silently move closer to each other. Dylan is a little embarrassed about his mother’s crassness with the teenagers, but he’s too happy about skiing to let it bother him. “This was it, what he had dreamed of. The smell of wood smoke, the icy packed snow under his feet, the broad white face of the mountain.” He leaves the hut to see the slopes, and Thea and Nate join up, Nate in a helmet and Thea with a helmet for Dylan, who is irate about having to wear one. He tries to get it back off, but can’t unbuckle it with his big gloves, loses balance, and falls backwards with his skis on, tearing up with embarrassment of strangers seeing him. Nate gets close and tries to joke around to brighten Dylan’s mood.
They eat lunch, and outside, the snow is falling harder, the skiers thin. He thinks of Ethan — they were wrestling and Ethan let Dylan take him down, so Dylan calls him a “pussy” and Ethan’s mother sends Dylan home. After lunch, Dylan wants to go on the advanced slope the teens had been talking about, urging Nate as he is always competing or trying to seem braver as the little brother. Thea “impedes” him, as seems to be her nature, and suggests the First Adventurer slope instead, which Dylan is upset about. On the ski lift, he looks around. “On both sides of the lift, silvery trails snaked up the mountain through pine woods, half hidden and glimmering. Involuntarily he kicked out with his skis.”
He jumps off the lift first, later looking back to see his mother and Nate sitting, his head on her shoulder. His count is low and he isn’t handling the activity well. Dylan is resentful that his brother’s sickness is ruining the fun, and he leaves them to start skiing slowly towards the top of the hill, but the teen girl, Lindsey, comes by and hits his ski buckle with her pole. When his foot slides out, he starts to lose balance, and he clasps it again to go after her. But he wind has picked up and the snow is harder, so it’s hard to see ahead, and he finds he’s followed her to the advanced hill where he wanted to go, but its steeper than he thought. He skis faster and faster, knowing he should fall, but that’s what Ethan would do, “Falling is Nate.” But he hits something with force and goes down hard. He comes to, and is in pain, people around him trying to help, but he’s embarrassed and only wants to be helped up.
He ends up going to the hospital where Nate is being transfused. Dylan has a greenstick fracture and broken ribs. His mother stands over his bed, crying, and he feels good that he’s being cared about, but his mother says that Nate was at a nine and it’s a wonder he could keep his head up. Dylan doesn’t know what that means, but tells his mom Nate will be okay. Her crying stops and she tells him how amazing he is, which he hasn’t heard in a long time. She holds him and repeats “You’re alive. Alive,” and he decides he wants to make her feel that way about him forever.
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