I am my brother's keeper.

I'm 25 and my only brother is 16, quickly approaching 17. I was 8 when he was born, and I'll never forget how he screamed when I held him for the first time at the hospital. I remember being secretly disappointed that he wasn't born with a facial deformity like I was.

Apparently that was foreshadowing. I didn't realize it. I was only 8.

My memory of our childhood together is spotty--moments of playing with the Fisher Price pirate ship and watching Barney tapes with him interspersed with flashes of me, at 12 and 13 years old, yelling in anger at him for wearing the wrong shoes, or ignoring me when I told him to pick up his toys.

I seem very laid-back to most people, but I'm actually a closet perfectionist. As a kid, I released all that nervous energy in being a little mommy. My parents were around, but my dad had an offshore worker-type schedule and my mom's always has weird sleep habits and this sort of disconnected way of parenting. So I gave numerous baths, read bedtime stories, made lunches, cleaned up little pirate ship toys, helped with homework...I was always my brother's keeper.

But I would get so frustrated when he wouldn't go to bed at his bedtime, and my mom wouldn't wake up to do anything about it, that I would hit him.  Or if I wanted him to wear the blue outfit, and he wore the red one, I would yell and scream. I just wanted to be heard. 

We both grew older. I was in high school, he was in elementary school. I started getting angry that he seemed to be allowed more freedoms and liberties than I had at that age. I had always been outwardly compliant, while my brother has always been "strong-willed." I resented that he could be a brat and still get his way, while I'd always been the good one. It wasn't fair. And I was still angry at him for being cute and leaving me to be the family oddball. Growing up, I thought my parents were so relieved to have a beautiful child that they let him get away with whatever he wanted, because he was what they'd *really* wanted all along. 

I started calling him names, like "stupid" or "idiot" for anything. When he forgot his homework at school, when he got caught doing something wrong, when he didn't listen to me when I told him to buckle up his seat belt in the car. I was trying to make things fair.

I was my brother's keeper, so long as I could keep him under my foot.

Now I'm 25 and my brother is 16. We don't talk. When I visit, he walks through the living room as if I'm not even there. I haven't lived at home for more than two years, so it's not like I'm an everyday sight.

He doesn't hate me. He just doesn't care about me. Over the years we learned to *not* enjoy each other's company, so I guess it's just natural. I can't say I'm surprised.

I checked his MySpace page this week. It's the only way I know what he's doing, but he doesn't know that I know it's there. Even though he's 16, he keeps his page open for anyone to see. I read his post on a friend's page from last weekend, describing his Friday night.

"I just did some bars and went to bed."

Bars = Xanax, for those not hip on their drug lingo.

Add Xanax to the Oxy, Lortab, alcohol, LSD...

So on Sunday I spent hours Googling the side effects of Xanax abuse, what counts as a lethal overdose, how addictive those Xanax pills really are. I am still my brother's keeper, but it's not like it matters now.

I can't tell my mother, because I told her about the Lortab and some of the other drugs, and she under-reacted. She dismissed my concerns and said he was probably just bragging.

I'm afraid if she under-reacts, he'll just learn to hide it even better. He might catch on that his MySpace page is a source of information, and I'd rather know what he's doing than not know. I want to be able to see the downward spiral coming, I guess. 

Sometimes I highlight his name on my cell phone. I really want to call him. I've never called him just to talk to him. Never. I'm afraid he wouldn't answer. Or that he would answer, and he'd tell me, one way or the other, that a big sister is something you need only when you're a kid and you can't make your own lunch or put a Barney tape in the VCR.

I was my brother's keeper for so long that I don't think he ever had a sister.