What I didn’t…couldn’ttell Noah earlier was that while his younger brother may not be the innovator of the two, he was definitely the feeler. He had a greater emotional intelligence than most adults I knew. He possessed a true empathy and emotional maturity that is so uncommon in boys his age. Though Noah had the accolades, I somehow knew Ethan would also do well in life. You can’t be that aware of the world and the workings of interpersonal relationships at age twelve and not do something good for mankind.
Ethan put his hand on my shoulder. “Love you,” he said.
“I love you too.”
He smiled. “Want me to make you a grilled cheese?”
“No thanks, buddy. You know, you remind me so much your uncle when you smile like that?”
“I wish I could have met him,” he said.
“Yeah, me too,” I replied, as the tears welled up again.
Ethan looks and acts just like Ben, my younger brother, who died at nineteen in a car accident. Ethan has Ben’s crooked smile that was almost always a smirk, and eyes the exact color of a perfectly cloudless sky. Ethan is beautiful, cherubic, but his baby face is fading fast, being replaced by sharp edges and peach fuzz. He’s growing up, but not out—yet—but when he does, I’m going to have to pry girls off of him. Ben was the same.
I was twenty-four years old when Ben died. It was six months after I had met Alex. Only a short time into our relationship, Alex and I were forced together by the seriousness of life. I hadn’t thought about that fact in a long time. What if Ben hadn’t died? Or what if he had died before I met Alex? Would Alex and I have been glued together so tightly from the beginning? I doubt it. “Enduring hardships side by side,” or is it “overcoming adversity”? Maybe it’s “experiencing tragedy”…whatever that saying is, it’s not true. Alex and I have had it all and we couldn’t be further apart.
I was still thinking about Ben as I stared at Ethan. Ben was a bright light, lit from within by some otherworldly source…something off-limits to the rest of us. He was an easy son and good brother to me. My goofy baby brother for so long and then it was as though he hit sixteen and instantly became a man, wise beyond his years, but somehow still seraphic. He skipped the awkward phase overnight and…at nineteen, Ben became who he would always ever be. Perfectly frozen in time.
I wonder if that’s how it works…if the brevity or expansiveness of our lives is predetermined and we grow emotionally at arelative rate. I stared at Ethan with this thought in mind.That can’t be how it works. I won’t allow it.
Ben died alone, driving to meet one of his college professors. He was killed instantly, hit head-on by a drunk driver who walked away from the accident. Ben never had a girlfriend. I wondered sometimes if he had even kissed a girl. He was quiet about that side of his life. These things, experiences that seemed to be delayed for him, didn’t have any effect on his emotional literacy. He was brilliant and well-rounded. I know he would have been the kind of person who waited for the exact right partner, and then made it all the way to the end with them. I obviously wasn’t that kind of person. I didn’t. We, Alex and I, didn’t make it.
When Ben died, it was the most tragic event in all of our lives, and would forever be…I hope. I think about him daily and miss him desperately. I miss who he was, but I also miss the idea of him…the idea of having someone to walk beside me in life whose love is unquestionably unconditional. Not having anyone to share my childhood memories with makes them feel obscure and fictive. Losing Ben made me feel utterly alone. I’ve had a sense of vague loneliness looming over me since he died.
I could feel myself weakening again at the reminder of him. It had already been a rough day, but I needed to write the email to Alex. I needed to say what I had wanted to say in mediation.
Finally snapping out of my trance, I noticed Ethan was trying to read my script. “You need to go eat, babe,” I said to him. “Will you make sure you clean up your mess down there? I’ll be down in a bit.”
“Sure, Mom.”
Once Ethan left the room, I opened a new email and began typing.
7
you struck first
Alexander
When I started my own practice fifteen years ago, I was committed to making it successful. I had the full support of my wife, her encouragement to stay late and put the time in, which I did. But the funny thing is, back then, when my business needed my attention in order to grow, all I wanted to do was get back home to Dani. Our nightly dinners, our alone time, playing house, falling deeper and deeper in love. Now I do everything I can to avoid our house, stay late at work, create new projects that have nothing to do with my practice.
When you build a life with someone, there are reminders everywhere. Even at work: vacation photos, picture mugs, homemade elementary school paperweights, the couch in the corner where Dani and I would sit, eat lunch…make out like teenagers. She hadn’t come to my work during a lunch break in years. She’d pop into the office now and then to drop something off, but our relationship had long since been reduced to an arrangement.
The office was empty and dark. The other physical therapist, supervisor, and front office staff had all gone home for the day. I sat at my desk trying to dream up some reason to avoid going home even though I was exhausted. It had already been a long and grueling day after the mediation debacle, holding up the line at the boys’ school, and listening to Dani sob in her closet.
Glancing at the clock, I made a deal with myself to suck it up and head home in ten minutes. That would put me at the house around 8p.m.Hopefully, everyone would be settling in and I wouldn’t have to face Dani or the boys.
From my office window, I looked out at the glowing red lights spreading out on the 5 freeway. The traffic was letting up, finally. My office was a mere three miles from our home in Los Feliz, but if traffic was bad enough, it could take me forty-five minutes to get across the 5 freeway from Glendale. Dani was well aware of the Los Angeles traffic norms, which meant she knew that unless there was an accident, getting home at eight meant I had been in the office for at least two hours after the clinic had closed.
I don’t think she ever suspected an affair, and she would be right not to, but there was no doubt that Dani knew I avoided her.
When my email dinged, I smiled, excited at the prospect of possibly having work to do, a client to respond to, or a colleague checking in that would force me to stay in the office longer. But that wasn’t the case. As soon as I saw Dani’s name on the email, my stomach dropped.What now?
Alex,
The vitriol, anger, and constant arguing is spilling over into every aspect of our lives. We always talked about avoiding divorce to protect the children, now it’s about completing thedivorce to protect the children. I never thought this would be us, Alex! But it is, despite the dreams we both had about family and growing old together. They were idealistic dreams, but we were both in it, weren’t we? Maybe that relationship hubris came back to bite us in the ass. We thought we were so much better than everyone else and now we’re a cliché.
It was supposed to be you and me, my friend, growing old and gray, and older, and older until the end.
