“We fall, we die,” I said.
“Incentive not to fall,” Coyle said.
And with that, Coyle took Maddy’s hand and started out onto the pier. Fergus and I followed, inching our way out over the wet, icy surface, with the churning, ice-filled water on either side. I will remember the walk over that pier for the rest of my life. I’ll remember that we were out there in the first place because for the only time in our adolescence I’d given in to Coyle. And I’ll remember, in the end, the way we clung to one another, imagining that would protect us if a wave rose up and swept across. I’ll remember the frigid water rocking and sloshing on either side of us as we went out. I’ll remember that feeling of relief and exhilaration as we made it past the halfway point and were protected by the rocks piled up at the end of the pier. Coyle anchored himself on the pole with the red light and we anchored ourselves to him. From that vantage point I could see lights from the large houses that lined the shore. Mansions, all of them, set back from the water, wedged in trees. We let out cries as the waves smashed into the barrier rocks and sent water up in glittering sheets that were blown back and pattered on our jackets, whooping and hollering as the glittering water blew past us. Coyle never talked about the rejections. He never complained. He just walked out on the ice-covered pier to prove that he could do it. And we all did it with him.
Two days later I arrived home and saw that Coyle had gotten envelopes from Brown and Cornell and the University of Illinois. I thought a few of the envelopes were thicker than the ones before, but it was hard to tell. If he got rejected from Illinois he would likely not get in anywhere else. Mom and Dad knew this, too. It was the moment of truth for them. They had bet their whole lives, years of drudgery, on the idea that living in Seneca would increase our chances of moving up in the world. Dad believed intrinsically that his plans had worked, that we were “superior human beings.” But if Coyle didn’t get into college it would be a clear indication that his methods had been flawed.
Over the next few hours Maddy and I lingered in the living room, waiting for Coyle to get back. Even Fergus, who was watching TV in the den, seemed to understand that something big was going to happen, either good or bad. We were not, in general, a very tactful family, but during that time no one talked about what was happening. Everyone knew that Coyle’s fate, and in some way our own, would be decided that night.
Coyle had a baseball game and Dad was working late so it was just me and Mom and Fergus and Maddy at the dinner table. We ate without mentioning the envelopes that were waiting but I knew we were all thinking about them. Finally, at nine o’clock, a car pulled up in front and Coyle got out in his baseball uniform with tan dirt on the knees and his mitt hanging off his bat. He walked in, holding his muddy cleats in one hand, his bat in the other. He saw the three envelopes on the newel post. He leaned his bat against the wall and set his cleats down. I heard Fergus in the den turn down the sound on the basketball game.
Coyle opened the first envelope from Illinois. He glanced at it. He paged through a few sheets of paper. He tossed them onto the table.
“Hey,” he said offhandedly. “I got into U of I.”
Mom came into the doorway, wiping her hands.
“Congratulations. I thought you would.”
She hugged him.
“I know it’s not your first choice. But congratulations. What about the others?”
Coyle opened the next letter from Brown and let out a little huff.
“Got into Brown. No scholarship. But I got in.”
“Oh, congratulations.”
She started crying.
“Not like we can afford it,” Coyle said.
“We’ll apply for aid.”
“We better get a lot,” Coyle said. “It’s really expensive.”
“Oh, Coyle, I am so proud of you.”
He opened the last envelope. He held it up.
“Triple crown. I’m in at Cornell.”
Mom let out a little shriek.
“Oh my God, I’m so proud.” She just kept saying this. “I am so proud. Oh, Coyle. Oh, Coyle. I’m so proud.”
And she was wringing her hands and crying and wanting to hug him but she’d already done that and so she was stepping from foot to foot and wrapping a dish towel around her hands. Fergus walked in and held his hand up.
“So you’re getting out of this place. Congratulations.”
Coyle slapped his hand and went on to the freezer for ice cream, leaving the letters on the entranceway table for us all to see.
When Dad came home an hour later Mom couldn’t wait for him to get in to give him the news. She walked out to the driveway and told him what happened and Dad let out a whoop that could probably have been heard three blocks away. It was ten at night. I saw a light go on in our neighbor’s house. A dog down the block started barking. That’s how loud he yelled.
“Yes!” he shouted, holding a fist up, standing in the driveway in his paint-spattered clothing. “Yes! My son’s in two Ivy League schools! Yes!”
A minute later Dad burst in carrying the white bucket with the scrapers and paintbrushes and cleaning supplies. He sat at the kitchen table and read each letter about four times and then paraded around the house with them in his fist. “Illinois, Cornell, and Brown! You see, kids. This is what happens. You work hard, you get rewarded. You’re all going to be able to do whatever you want. Yes!”
Coyle acted like he didn’t care.
“Doesn’t really mean anything until I get aid.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Dad said. “We’ll find a way to pay for it.”
“How?”
“I’ll get another job,” Dad said.
Fergus laughed loudly.
“It will work out,” Mom said, and started crying again.
A day later Coyle was waitlisted at Stanford. Then the day after that he got an acceptance and full-ride offer from the University of Virginia. The baseball coach actually called Coyle, explaining he was being offered an academic scholarship, but he wanted him to play baseball. And that was it for Coyle. He accepted the Virginia offer on the spot. The coach said that he needed to talk to his parents, but Coyle already knew.
That night Dad tried to convince Coyle to wait to see if he could get aid from Brown or to hold out for Stanford, but Coyle said, “I don’t want to go to those suckass rich-kid schools. Virginia gave me a full ride. And I can play ball.”
“School is more important than baseball.”
“But UVA’s a good school. And I got a full ride. You won’t have to pay at all. It’s my decision. It’s over.” He held a fist up. “Go Cavs!”
I never knew whether Coyle accepted Virginia’s offer because he really didn’t want to go to an Ivy League school, or because he wanted to play baseball, or because it was cheaper and was the right thing for the family. Regardless, Coyle accepted UVA’s offer. For a few days Dad grumbled about it. I think he’d been blinded by the idea of saying his son was going to the Ivy League. But after a few days the sense of it sunk in and he swung the other way entirely.
“In at UVA! Full ride! Yes!”
For the next three months whenever anyone asked where Coyle was going to college, Dad got this silly, annoying grin on his face, and said. “My son got into University of Virginia. Academic scholarship. Full ride!”
He always had to add that at the end: “Full ride!”
I found all this unspeakably irksome and I think now what happened in those last months before Coyle left for school was at least partially because of my father’s gloating. Coyle had won, and Dad wouldn’t let anyone forget it, and it got under my skin.
Then, one night at the dinner table Mom held her hand up and said, “I need to make an announcement. Coyle is leaving at the end of the summer and on the night before he leaves we are all going to be here and we’re going to have a g
oodbye dinner. We’re going to exchange gifts. And we’ll celebrate Coyle’s achievement.”
“That’s like six months from now,” Fergus said.
“It’s three months away.”
“Whatever. It’s not next week. Why are you telling us now?”
“I’m bringing this up now, far in advance, because I want you to know that we are establishing a family tradition. When one of us leaves the house for the first time you are all required to be at the last dinner and to exchange gifts. This is a family obligation. We will be together one more time. And then part amicably.”
“I think ‘eagerly’ is the word you’re looking for,” Fergus said.
“Amicably. Regretfully. Those are the words I mean,” Mom said.
She had a quaver in her voice just thinking about it, which I found ridiculous. Despite her steely manner, Mom was sentimental when it came to the family.
“Coyle has worked very hard,” she said. “We will send him off in a fitting manner. On that night Coyle will have his choice of food.”
“Tacos,” Coyle said. “I’m telling you right now. I want tacos.”
“Tacos it is,” Mom said. “At that dinner each of you will give Coyle a present. And Coyle will give a present in return.”
“How much do we need to spend?” Maddy asked.
“It’s the thought that counts,” Mom said. “It does not even have to be something bought. It could be something personal. A letter or a poem.”
“I’m definitely writing Coyle a poem,” Fergus said.
“I’m sure your brother would appreciate it,” Mom said. “I want you all to understand, you are all going to be here on that last night, and with a present. Got it?”
So Coyle was also getting some overblown goodbye party. It was irritating.
That night I lay in bed, not sleeping, hating the idea of that party. It was overkill. It was like we were trying to pretend we were a mushy, loving family, which I thought was a total lie. I decided I wasn’t going to get a present. I would go to the dinner. I would sit there at the table and listen to everyone go on about how sad they were that Coyle was leaving and how great he was and all that. But I wasn’t going to pretend his departure was anything other than a relief to me. And I wasn’t going to get a present. That was just beyond everything. I kept this to myself for a few days, mulling it over. Then I was passing Coyle in the stairway and I said, “I’ve been thinking about that last supper that Mom’s going so crazy about. I don’t want to exchange presents. It’s stupid. I’m not doing it. And you don’t need to get me a present, either.”
“I don’t care. Whatever,” he said. “Fine with me.”
And that was that. Neither of us mentioned it again.
* * *
—
By the time I was sixteen I felt I was comfortable with myself and my role in the world. I wasn’t winning any awards but I was ok with that. In school I was pretty much known as a helper. I would always give a ride or clean up after a party. I volunteered to make floats or set up for homecoming. But at home I resisted all work and I held a grudge against Coyle and all the family if I was forced to do anything for them. And this was strange, because, by all measures, conditions in the family had gotten better. Dad had finally saved the money for the down payment and bought the house we’d been renting. He’d gotten his teaching certificate and found a job for the fall, which would be an enormous relief for us, as it would allow our father to quit most of his other jobs. Dad’s temper wasn’t as bad as it had been. And it was clear that for all Dad’s quirks, his methods had more or less worked. Coyle was going to college on a scholarship and we were living in the fancy North Shore. We’d moved up in the world. And more than anything else, Coyle and I had actually started to get along.
I could have acknowledged the improvement, but I didn’t want to. Part of it was just that Coyle had won so completely. He’d gotten his “full ride.” But it wasn’t only envy. In some deep part of myself I was accustomed to resenting my family, and I think I felt I’d lose myself entirely if I let go of that dark impulse.
As spring slipped into summer Coyle’s departure loomed enormously in my mind. I told everyone who would listen that I was looking forward to his leaving. I said it was going to be the best day of my life. I told stories about our father’s explosive temper and Coyle lashing out and our epic battles. Chaos and violence and mismanagement were the pillars of those stories. I reveled in anything that highlighted the ridiculous, abject circumstances in the house, but particularly anything bad about Coyle. As everyone else leaned into the whitewashed version of our upbringing, I went the other way entirely. And I was absolutely determined not to get Coyle a present.
* * *
—
A few weeks before Coyle was supposed to leave Fergus came into the bedroom with a shopping bag from a sports store. I was at the desk. Maddy was on her bed. Fergus reached into the bag and tossed a new White Sox baseball cap at me, the tags still on it.
“What’s that for?” I said.
“Present.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Not for you, idiot. For the farewell dinner.”
I tossed it back to him.
“I’m not getting him a present. And he’s not getting me one.”
“He’s not getting you one because you said you weren’t getting him one. Surprise him, Willie. Just give him something.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“It’s stupid.”
Fergus was not someone who cared at all about sentimentality, but he understood the present wasn’t a sentimental thing. Our parents would freak if I didn’t get a present, and it would cause trouble. He was trying to avoid a last blowout.
“Be smart for once.”
He tossed the hat to me. I tossed it back to him.
“Do you know what’s going to happen at the dinner when Mom and Dad find out you decided not to get Coyle a present?” he said.
“They’ll see I’m the only honest one in the family?”
“That’s not going to be the reaction.”
“I don’t care.”
“You’re going to care when you’re at the dinner and you don’t have a present. It doesn’t matter to me, but you’re being an idiot.”
“I want to be an idiot.”
“Good,” Fergus said. “Mission accomplished.”
Maddy, who’d been listening to all of this, made an impatient sound, shut her book with a snap, and shouted, “Willie!”
“What?”
“Fergus is right. Just take the present. Be nice.”
“Exactly,” Fergus said. “What does it cost you?”
“I just don’t want to do it,” I said. “I’m glad he’s leaving. It’s like a lie.”
“Who cares if it’s a lie?” Maddy said. “You’ll get in trouble if you don’t do it.”
“I’m not giving a present,” I said. “And if that causes trouble…good.”
Fergus knew me well enough not to try to push it. He just snickered in that way he did when one of us was doing something stupid.
“Your funeral,” he said.
He put the hat on himself and walked out of the room.
Maddy went back to her book. They both thought I was being ridiculous. I didn’t care what they thought. I said I wasn’t getting a present. I was determined not to do it.
* * *
—
Faint swirls in the flat, gray water. Fog over the water. It was a very still, cool afternoon in mid-summer, the day before the farewell dinner. Jimmy and I had brought his canoe out to Lake Michigan and we were paddling away from shore through the dense, shifting veils of fog.
“It’s just so annoying,” I was saying. “They’re all acting like they’re so sad that Coyle’s leaving, but it’s
obvious that it’s going to be better for everyone when he’s gone. All we do is fight. The house is too small. And we never liked each other anyway.”
Jimmy had heard about the party all summer. It was practically the only thing I talked about. He just listened, as I talked, and we paddled into a gray, seamless world, the silvery shimmering sheet of water all around us. There was the occasional slap of water on the side of the canoe, but that was the only sound.
“I’ll get my own room,” I was saying. “I won’t have him judging me all the time. I won’t be compared to him. Coyle leaving will be the best day of my life.”
“You could still give him a present,” Jimmy said.
“But I don’t want to get him a present,” I said. “That’s the whole point. I want to show what I really think. They can’t make me do it,” I said. “And Coyle doesn’t care.”
Jimmy had lived next door to me since I was born. He knew how brutal our fights had been on both sides. But he also knew Coyle, and I could tell he didn’t believe that Coyle didn’t care about the gift giving. Coyle could be brutal, but he could also be sentimental. And there had undeniably been a thawing between us since the fight with the gun. In the last weeks I’d felt Coyle lingering, wanting to clear the air, and it was me who’d resisted it. I see now that I’d purposefully stretched out our feud, wanting it to last until he left. I hated the idea of giving him a last-minute reprieve. So I’d avoided him on purpose and planned to stick it to him. And it wasn’t true he didn’t care. He did care, and that’s why I didn’t want to do it. It was a last blow in our struggle against each other.
Jimmy stopped paddling. I set my paddle down and I lay in the bottom of the canoe looking up into the fog. The canoe drifted to a stop and was absolutely still on the smooth, placid, foggy lake. I knew there was no way they could make me give in. I was thinking with pleasure of my steely resolve, when suddenly Jimmy sat up.
“Which way’s shore?” he said.
I sat up. I looked one way and then the other. I pointed off into the fog.
The Brother Years Page 20