While it is emotionally very strong, and the word choices seem to be pretty good, I found the dialogue confusing, which left me unable to completely understand the plot references. I always have trouble with the unidentified parts in a piece like this.

The writing and emotions are strong, but you need to make character identification easy for the reader. Names like ‘tom’, ‘jen’, etc. are nice because they’re short. Also, why italics?

and i get the feeling that the better brother is a dick. maybe that was intentional, i can’t tell.

A difficult scenario. The “loser” brother who loves the girl more than his “better” older brother, her husband. Now that she’s gone, the loser has lost all motivation to strive and it’s almost as if the other brother doesn’t feel anything about his loss. The line about all three of them knowing she married the wrong brother paints a picture in my mind where she may have love the loser more than the other one but knew that the other brother would do a better job of supporting her (and their family?) financially. It’s very angry and sad but a good read.

I actually thought he might have been referencing their mother who had passed until the end of the story. Overall good emotional piece and I agree that the identification might help.