Response to Blankets: Phil's Story

So we follow Craig around in Blankets, but his brother is around for a good majority of it too. As I'm sure everyone who read it is aware, there were some parts during the reading of this that had me concerned for Phil. There were two parts and/or ideas I wanted to discuss surrounding his character. First off, I hope that most people were as disturbed by the assumption made around what their babysitter did to him at first, and then shown some more graphic images later on to only confirm those feelings. This idea seemed to plague Craig over the idea that he didn't protect his little brother in that instance along with the part when Phil had to sleep in the dreaded cubby hole. Now I will return to this idea later as the second part plays into it. After we follow Craig some more into his later years, we seem to only see Phil in memories of when they were kids. At least for me, I thought he had either died or committed suicide up until the part that Craig actually talks to Phil upon his return from Raina's house. Now I know what some of you may think, "He talked about him to Raina earlier in the book," but he didn't seem like he talked about him in such high spirits that he was still alive (in my opinion). It seemed like he was just not telling her about his brother's death and wanted to only bring up good memories to not be a downer with all the problems that were already on Raina's plate. Now after they talk, they seem to slowly rekindle their relationship and begin to act like they did in the beginning, but older and more mature (to a point). Let's return to the first idea brought up in this post. One would think that having been subjected to only what is imaginable to someone like Phil would have on his personality or well-being, hence the reason I thought something might have happened to him over the years. They don't really seem to talk about it much after the retelling of the event earlier on in the book. Are we to assume the parents found out and fired the babysitter along with called the police? It leaves us to decide what might have happened, but as for me, I would of liked to have been told directly as we don't get a clear answer on the question of how it effected him as a person. He ends up with a wife while Craig still is alone. That is my discussion I hope it was informative and thought provoking. How do you feel about this topic?