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“Isaac, Zac is a grown man. And he has Kate.”

“Zac is my brother.”

“I’m your wife. I’m expecting and I need you here.”

I paused for a moment. I loved Nikki with all my heart. Well, almost all. I still felt responsible for Taylor and Zac, and Zac needed his big brother to talk some sense into him.

“Nikki. I’m worried about Zac. He tries to hide it, but I know he isn’t eating and it isn’t healthy. I need to go help him.”

“What are you going to do? You can’t just call him out in front of Kate.”

“I don’t know, Nikki. I’ll think about it on the drive over.”

“Please don’t be gone long. They take you away from me enough,” she drew me into a hug and put her head on my chest.

I put my arm around her, “I love you, so much. And our little man. He’ll be here so soon.”

“I hope you take half as good care of him as you do your brothers. He will be the luckiest little boy on the planet.”

“Of course I will.” I hoped. Brothers were different than kids. You could call your brothers out when they were being idiots, but you had to be a bit more tactful with your own kids.

I couldn’t blame Nikki. My first responsibility should be to her. We had a big family that could help Zac, but sometimes that could be the problem. It was really easy to disappear with everyone going in different directions – my parents with our younger siblings that still needed lots of help, and Taylor with his growing family. The family freaked when Natalie announced she was pregnant, but they seemed to be keeping it together. At least, he never told me otherwise. Taylor had always been very good at hiding things, even from me.

We all bought houses relatively close together, so I didn’t have far to drive. We lived outside of Tulsa to have more space and more privacy.

Kate’s car was in the driveway. I’d have to come up with something so she wouldn’t think I was overstepping. A few Christmases ago she got really territorial with Zac and insisted on making sure he got something to eat. I didn’t know what to do, so I drank myself into a stupor and apparently maked a complete idiot out of myself. What is that they say about men getting bored? When we don’t have something to do, we cause trouble. Something like that, anyway.

I still had a messenger bag and a guitar in my car. I could act like I was coming over to work on music or something. Zac had a small music room we could use.

“Oh, hi Ike,” Kate answered my knock. She looked upset and a t-shirt and sweatpants was for sure not her usual wardrobe choice.

“Hey Kate. Is Zac here? I just had an idea for a song we had been working on and wanted to swing by and let him hear it before I forgot.”

“Sure. I’ll let him know you’re here. Please come in.”

“I heard him. What do you want, Ike?” I hoped my face didn’t show my shock. Zac must have lost about 15 pounds and he looked pale. There were circles under his eyes like he hadn’t been sleeping well.

“Just wanted to see if I could talk to you about that ‘Blue Sky’ song we had been working on. I thought of a new riff and wanted to play it for you.”

“I’m a little busy right now and Sunday is supposed to be our off day. You can record it on your Mac and play it for us tomorrow.”

“Ok, I was just really excited about it and Nikki loves it, too. I guess I’m jumping the gun. Enjoy the rest of your off day.”

“Big brother guilt. Okay, I’ll give you half an hour.”

“Deal. Nikki doesn’t want me to be gone long anyway.”

“Next time you should listen to her.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Zac shut the door of his music room behind me and sat down on a small stool in front of a keyboard. I sat down across from him, but set my guitar on the floor, case unopened.

“Well? Are you going to sing me the riff?”

“Zac, I know you haven’t been eating. You’re too skinny.”

He looked down at his hand. “Well, you know we’ve been fasting a couple of times a week since we switched to the Orthodox Church. And I have been trying to lose a little weight before we start our photo shoots and videos for the new album.”

“Zac, you don’t need to lose any weight.”

“You’ve always been skinny, so that’s easy for you to say. You and Taylor, always complaining about how you couldn’t seem to gain weight, while I was the chubby child.”

“You just have a different body type than we do, that doesn’t mean you’re fat. You have to do what is best for your body and what is healthy for you. If that means you need to eat a hamburger, eat a damn hamburger.”

Zac turned away from me and started playing random notes on the keyboard. “Oh, just eat a hamburger? It isn’t that simple, Ike! Every time I even think about food I gain weight. And once we start promoting this new album, I’ll be criticized as the fat Hanson again. Do you know how that feels?”

“Actually, I do. I’ve been called the ugly Hanson and goat boy. But you have to realize that you are never going to please everyone. Someone is always going to criticize.”

Zac sighed. “In my head I know that. But it hurts so much when I put everything into our music, and people only want to talk about the way I look. Why should it matter? I should be able to weigh 300 pounds nobody say a word about it as long as I can still hit the high notes.”

“You know that our culture places more value on looks than on anything else. It’s wrong, but that’s the way it is. By all means, eat healthy. Fast if you believe it is the right thing to do, but don’t starve yourself just to please a bunch of people that won’t be pleased anyway.”

“Ok, I’ll try to do better.”

“Are you saying that to get me to leave or are you really going to try?”

Zac didn’t answer.

“Okay. The ball is in your court. You know how to reach me if you need me.”

Zac went back to playing a melody on the keyboard, so I picked up my guitar and left. I hoped what I said got through his hard headed brain. He wasn’t going to make any changes except through his own volition and I had a pregnant wife to get home to.

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