I buried my brother 42 years ago. His name was Thomas. Tommy, we called him.
He was 19 when the Greyhound bus he was on went off the Coquihalla Highway during a January snowstorm in 1983. They told me 17 passengers died that night. Tommy was one of them.
I identified his body at the morgue in Hope, British Columbia. I was 23 years old, and I had to tell our mother that her youngest son was gone. Last Tuesday, my phone rang at 2:00 in the morning.
The caller ID showed a number I didn’t recognize, but the area code was 604—Vancouver. At 65, you learn nothing good comes from calls at that hour, but something made me reach for it. Maybe the same instinct that used to wake me when Tommy had nightmares as a kid.
I answered. A voice said, “David? Is this David?”
I sat up in bed, my heart suddenly pounding.
The voice was rough, uncertain, like someone unused to speaking. But underneath, there was something that made my blood run cold. “Who is this?” I asked.
Heavy, labored breathing on the other end. “It’s me,” the voice said. “It’s Tommy.”
I dropped the phone.
My hands shook so badly I could barely pick it up again. The line was still open. I could hear him breathing.
“This isn’t funny,” I said, my voice cracking. “Whoever you are, this is sick. My brother died 42 years ago.”
“I know,” the voice said.
“I know how long it’s been. I just… I just figured out who I am. I found something.
A newspaper clipping about the bus crash.” There was a pause. “And there’s a picture of me, but the name under it says Thomas Carr. That’s me, isn’t it?
I’m Thomas Carr.”
I couldn’t breathe. “Where are you?” I managed. “I don’t… I don’t really know.
A place called the Downtown Eastside. I’ve been here a long time. I think I live in a shelter on East Hastings Street.
But I don’t remember how I got here. I don’t remember anything before about fifteen years ago. Just waking up in a hospital… they said I’d been found on the street, no ID, couldn’t tell them my name.”
My mind raced.
A scam? Someone torturing me? “What do you remember?” I asked, testing him.
“Nothing clear. Just feelings. Sometimes I dream about snow, being cold, people screaming.
And sometimes… a house with a blue door. And someone… used to make pancakes with blueberries. Every Sunday.”
Tears started then, hot and sudden.
I remembered that house, that blue door. And Mom, making those pancakes every Sunday morning, Tommy always eating twice as many as anyone else. “What do you look like?” I whispered.
“Old,” he said sadly. “Really old. Weathered, I guess.
Lived rough for a long time. But I found this picture… from the accident. Even though it’s 42 years old, I can see it.
I can see myself in that face. We have the same eyes.”
“Tommy had a scar,” I said, my voice tight. “On his left forearm.
Fell off his bike when he was seven. Twelve stitches.”
A long pause. Then, “I have a scar.
On my left forearm. It’s old. Really old.
Never knew where it came from.”
I was crying now, the way I hadn’t cried since the day we buried him. “Give me your address,” I said. “I’m coming to get you.”
“I don’t think you should,” he said quietly.
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