One Favored, One Forgotten

For three years of marriage, Ruby has never asked Neil for a single favor. The one time she does, it is for her brother Toby, just out of high school, and Neil barely looks up from his laptop before telling him to report to the front desk. Toby rides a seventeen-hour overnight bus from their rural hometown, sits in the lobby all afternoon, and is mocked in a company chat while Neil spends the same afternoon smiling beside another young man, Oliver, the brother of his assistant Rachel.

That night Toby offers the sun-dried peaches he carried against his chest the whole way, the same peaches Neil once loved on the farm. Neil wrinkles his nose, shoves the bag aside, and knocks it to the floor without breaking stride. The next day Ruby finds Toby sweating in the Basement Level 2 archives, labeling shelves with tiny flowers, while upstairs Neil corrects Oliver's grip on a fork at an executive lunch.

Walking out of the lobby, Ruby runs into Rachel. The contrast between the two brothers has become impossible to ignore.