“So.” Raff finally comes up for air, chewing and then actually swallowing before he stuffs more food in his mouth. “What’s your deal?”
“What’s your brother’s deal is more like it.”
I say it playfully but this is the closest Raff and I have ever gotten to actually addressing my marital problems, and it makes my heart kick into gear. Vin hasn’t told him, and I haven’t told him, but hinting around is kind of telling him, sourgh!
“Trouble in paradise?” There’s a lightness in his tone that belies the anxiety behind it.
I decide to swerve this and get straight to the heart of the matter. “When you were kids…I mean, as someone who has known Vin for the longest…did he ever used to say one thing and do another?”
Raff pushes his lips out and considers. “Growing up, Vin used to saynothingand doeverything.”
“Right.” He was putting Raff to bed and getting him up for school and then taking him to school, going to school himself, going to work a part-time job, doing his homework, and thendoing the whole thing over again. All, apparently, without much discussion. “Wasn’t that…lonely for you?”
Raff’s eyes flick to mine. In the span of one sentence our entire year flashes between us. The accident, the pain, the recovery, the paperwork paperwork paperwork. Vin and I baby-birding Raff back to life. Not even discussing it. Just doing it. Just going, going, going. Saying nothing, doing everything.
My question hangs between us. It elongates and echoes, his eyebrows lift and without even saying anything back, it’s like he’s reflecting that question right back to me.
Isn’t that lonely for you?his eyes ask me.
Yes,my sad little shrug replies.
“Just tickle him,” Raff advises, and the tension disperses. “That’s what I do, when I’m sick of his strong-and-silent routine.”
I laugh, trying to picture that. “You really think it’s a routine?”
“No. I think he really is both. But nobody is just one way, you know? I used to worry about that, before he fell in love with you. When does Vin get to crumble? When does Vin get to turn into soup and have someone who loves him come around with a mop? These are things I’ve never been allowed to see, really. Vin in pieces. I assume he’s made of pieces like the rest of us. I have to assume that or else I’m really a failure.”
“Failure! What? You’re the first person in your family to go to college. Let alone get a master’s degree.”
“Oh, don’t remind me.” He waves me off. “I was talking about real stuff.”
I blink at him. “What real stuff? Marriage? Kids?”
“I can want that!” He’s indignant and wagging his spoon at me. He eats enchiladas with a spoon, by the way.
“Well, yeah!” I agree instantly. “I just didn’tknowyou wanted that. What about your threesomes in Brooklyn Heights?”
He grumbles and pushes his food around. “Those wouldn’t have to end just because I got married, you know. People live all sorts of ways.”
“They would if you got married to Marine.” This is a test of sorts. I’ve just poked a sore spot with a long stick. Hopefully a very long stick.
He props his forehead up on his palm. “I gave up on Marine. She updated her substack with this long essay about her new boyfriend and he seems like good people. I wasn’t right for her.”
I splat more enchilada on his plate. “She’s not right foryou! I mean, she’s wonderful. But she can’t handle your heat, Raff.”
He gets a little smile on his face. “My heat?” The smile falls away. “You mean my unintentionally wandering eye.”
“She was the only person you’ve ever dated who didn’t treat you like a trash bag. But there are nice people in the world. You just need to find one who…gets a kick out of your inclinations.”
“This is what I mean. It would be really nice to be a carbon copy of Vin. All I’d have to do is go to work and come home and fuck the one person on earth I want to fuck and also I’m married to her. See,that’slife.”
“That’s a fairy tale,” I admit.
“Exactly!” he agrees, totally missing my point.
I’m about to say more when his closet door creeeeeeeaks open behind me. I jump and turn just in time to see an Everest of laundry come tumbling out. “Ahh!”
“Oh, it does that.”
