I stomped and grumbled my way to the kitchen to make coffee for me and Ruth. When I returned with our beverages, I chucked a Capri-Sun pouch at my brother. “Best I could do.”
He held it by the corner and placed it on the coffee table like he might be contaminated by the label’s liberal use of primary colors.
I sat down next to Ruth so that she was situated between the two of us. “I really don’t appreciate you springing him on me,” I told her. “This is honestly more traitorous than the time you lied to me about the size of the numbing needle at the dentist’s office, and for the record, I finally saw that thing in my twenties and it’s big enough to be classified as a weapon. Or all those times Mr.Toad’s at Disneyland was always mysteriously out of order just because you didn’t like when Mr.Toad goes to hell or the times you told us that those rubber doorknob stops at the doctor’s office were nose cleaners just because you thought it was funny to watch us try to polish our noses.”
“Character building,” she said. “Anything else you’d like to add?”
“I’m good for now,” I said with a pout.
“Now,” Ruth said as she dug into her big leather purse. “I brought something that might help us out today.” She spread a familiar red shirt with neon yellow puff paint letters that readget alongacross the coffee table. The shirt was covered in handprints and all kinds of poorly executed doodles.
“You did not bring the Get Along shirt,” I said, nearly reaching for the artifact of our childhood that included a green cloud and the wordfaaaaaart.
“I didn’t even know you still had that thing,” Charlie mused.
The Get Along shirt was Ruth’s idea and a staple in our home for as long as we could fit inside it. With Mom and Dad so involved with Bundles of Joy, it was fair to say that we weren’t frequently disciplined until Ruth came along. I was younger than Charlie, probably five or six, and I was totally a leash kid.Wildwas an understatement, and Charlie was as stubborn as I was wild. Ruth brought the men’s big-and-tall shirt over one day and had us decorate it. Neither of us realized this craft project would turn into a crucial disciplinary tool of our childhood.
Any time Charlie and I would fight—which was often—Ruth would force us both to put on the T-shirt until we... well, got along. Or at least until we were able to convincingly pretend like we were.
“There’s no way the two of us can still fit in that thing,” I told her.
“It’s a symbolic gesture to inspire camaraderie,” she explained.
I slumped back against the sofa, reverting to my teenage self. “I’m not feeling very inspired.”
“Let’s just get this over with,” Charlie said, holding up a finger for each of his points. “You don’t care about the company. You don’t even participate in board meetings. Your seat is more of a formality than anything else. So why don’t you stop standing in the way of all that Mom and Dad worked so hard for?”
“Charlie,” Ruth warned. “We talked about gentle words.”
“Yeah, Charlie,” I said. “Those words weren’t very gentle of you. But I get why you’re upset. The most interesting thing about you is that you like to make money and that you once bought a blacklight poster from Spencer’s when you were in tenth grade. I would be grumpy if I was that boring too.”
His nostrils flared as he reached for the Capri-Sun and stabbed the pouch with the straw. “Yes, because being happily married with a perfectly lovely child and another on the way is so boring. Remind me how your personal life is going?”
I wanted to stab a Capri-Sun straw into his eyeball.
“Enough,” Ruth said, her voice just as firmly butt-clenching as I remembered. “Sunny, why don’t you explain to your brother why you don’t want to step down from the board? Use your nice words.”
I took a deep breath. This morning when I woke up, the universe decided that today I would be an emotional punching bag and it took every ounce of self-control not to shove my faceagainst a couch pillow and scream until everybody left except for Ruth and Mr.Tumnus.
After taking a sip of my coffee, I sat back and held Ruth’s hand as a reminder of who I was doing this for: her. “Charlie, I’ve been thinking about it over the last couple of weeks, and Bundles of Joy is just as much mine as it is yours. And I don’t think Mom or Dad would want to see the company go public. It’s as simple as that.” Well, and the fact that I would really need to step down if it did go public. I had no interest in being some sort of spectacle just because a bunch of uptight men in ugly suits were fine watching porn as long as their kinks didn’t bleed into their public lives. They were happy to consume sex work as long as they didn’t have to get their hands dirty with the reality of it sitting on their precious board, endangering their precious stocks.
But even though I felt like the emotional equivalent of a fast-food wrapper right now, one thing felt very clear. Formally stepping away from Bundles of Joy felt like losing my last evidence of Mom and Dad’s vision and the family we once were. It felt like losing a part of myself that I hadn’t been brave enough to show the world yet.
How could my brother not see what he was asking of me?
Charlie braced his hands on his knees, and I could see him trying to contain himself just like I had. Noticing all these little similarities between us made me hate myself a little. The way he chewed on the cuticle of his thumb, and how he talked in run-on sentences, and when he had a good idea and tapped the tip of his nose.
Finally, he spoke. “Sunny, you have no idea what Mom and Dad would want. If you’d attended a single board meeting in recent memory, you’d know that the company has exceeded what they even dreamed might be possible. Going public isthe next obvious step. I’m willing to compensate you and even supplement your income until you can access your inheritance.”
Of course. Because I was just another deal for him to negotiate. “So you want to buy me off?”
Ruth made a warning sound.
“We shouldn’t have come here,” Charlie said to her. “If there was any hope of Sunny and I resolving this, we would have done it already.”
I squeezed Ruth’s hand. “I actually have to agree with Charlie on this one. It’s not as simple as the Get Along shirt anymore. We’re not fighting overMario Kartor Pop-Tarts.”
Ruth scooted over and motioned for Charlie to sit on the other side of her. He obliged and she held his hand too. “If the both of you think I give a rat’s ass—”
