by Lou Aronica
Lisa patted him on the shoulder.
“Children get that way sometimes.” She took him by the arm. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.”
Chapter Two
For essentially my entire life, bringing all of my siblings under one roof required an official “get-together.” My sister Darlene, who is twenty years older than I am, moved out of the house before I could walk. That fall, my brother Matty went off to college. By the time I could add two numbers, Denise was doing considerably more complex calculations at Dartmouth, where she prepared for her now-storied corporate career.
My mother used to refer to me as her “wonderful surprise,” since she became pregnant with me when she was in her early forties. Denise, twelve years my elder, would refer to me as “the accident” whenever she was forced to babysit me in her teens. There was no question that I was completely unplanned. And while my mother, who would have “gone pro” as a parent if such a thing were possible, tended to me with the pleasure of someone who had been offered a free second ride on a roller coaster, it was difficult for me not to feel like a bit of an appendage in the family. This became even truer when Darlene and Matty both got married and had children in close proximity, giving me a niece and a nephew much nearer to my age than any of my brothers or sisters. I was too young for one group and too old for the other. I was a man without a generation.
My most vivid recollection of family gatherings when I was young was the sound. Darlene telling colorful stories about life in “the real world.” Matty regaling us with profundities gleaned from whichever class was capturing his imagination at the moment. Denise suggesting that neither of them knew what was really going on, in tones much too cynical for someone her age. My father engaging each in debate with a voice that spoke of both authority and admiration. My mother calling down to the den from the kitchen on a regular basis to make sure that everyone had everything they needed. And all of this taking place at extreme volume.
I found the entire thing both entertaining and daunting. My image of that time always has me looking up at the family as though each member were a towering, pontificating mountain and I were standing at the foothills. I was enormously impressed with their ability to express themselves, to cajole one another, to generate so much spirit. I was envious of the attention my father gave the opinions of his older children, and the obvious joy he took in being able to converse with them in this way. It was easy to fade into the background when everyone was over at the house. I had nothing to say that was nearly as important as what they were all saying, and even if I did, I had no idea how to project my voice over the din. I was the little one. My thoughts came too slowly. By the time anything of even passing value entered my mind, the conversation had moved on. I suppose this is one of the reasons that I became a writer. It was a way for me to state my case without risking interruption.
Over the years, the number of get-togethers declined dramatically. Darlene’s husband Earl got a management position with a textile company in Orange County, California. Matty and his wife Laura moved to Pittsburgh for a while, and then to Chicago about ten years ago. Denise moved to various apartments on the Upper East Side before buying a condo overlooking the Hudson River. That put her about fifteen miles away from my parents’ house physically and several continents away emotionally. Denise had obviously taken my father’s oft-repeated advice that she needed to be her own person to mean that she should stand in virtual isolation from the rest of her family.
I’m not sure why things with Denise bugged me so much. I suppose it had something to do with the fact that we actually spent a fair amount of time together under the same roof and therefore I expected more from her than I did from Darlene or Matty. I knew Denise was brilliant, I knew her accomplishments were genuine, and I had seen their development closely enough to come to a true admiration for them. But when it became clear to me that my admiration not only went unheeded, but in fact unnoticed, my feelings for her became considerably less charitable. I didn’t want to acknowledge that she adored my father, only that she couldn’t be bothered to visit him when he needed her the most. I didn’t want to acknowledge that she had been extremely generous with my parents, only that she had always been stingy with her time. I didn’t understand how you could do this with people you genuinely cared for.
The last time all of us had been in one place was after Mom died. I remember sitting at the dinner table with them the night before they all left and feeling an uneasiness beyond anything associated with the funeral that had taken place earlier in the day. Through the haze of my grief, I felt that something else was out of skew. I ate with my eyes cast down toward my plate, but with my senses extended outward, as they almost always were when I was amongst these people. I couldn’t get a handle on what was wrong until I finally realized that it was quiet. There was virtually no conversation.
While we had begun to contemplate my father’s frailty, we were completely unprepared for my mother’s death. She had been hale up until the point when she experienced complications from a minor respiratory procedure. She spent a week in Intensive Care and, even though she ultimately returned home, she was never the same. Within two months, she was dead, and it was enough to shock everyone into silence. Her passing wasn’t supposed to happen this quickly. It wasn’t supposed to happen at all for at least another twenty years. I’m not sure what everyone else was thinking that night, but I thought that perhaps it was appropriate that this dinner feel and sound different from all others that had come before. Everything in the family would be changed from that point on.
Since then, we’d all made our attempts to convince my father to give up the house. He wasn’t moving well any more, he seemed tired and sullen, and we were all concerned that he was going to hurt himself if he tried to keep up with everything he needed to do to live in that space. He wasn’t interested in talking about it, though. My own conversations with him had been brief and perfunctory. To say he was dismissive with me would be to suggest that he considered what I was saying in the first place. I tried various techniques of provocation I’d picked up from his interactions with Darlene, Matty, and Denise, but they seemed different coming out of my mouth, sharper, filled more with sarcasm than persuasion. The others were quietly relentless, though, all trying to find a way to treat him gingerly and respectfully while still getting the point across.
After the Fried Egg Crisis, all bets were off. We knew that we simply had to get him out of there. As an indication of how seriously everyone was taking this, Darlene and Matty flew in, and Denise actually hosted the sibling conference in her apartment. Of course, she was a half-hour late and blew into the room crowing about an employee who would “simply not let her get out the door.” Still, she proceeded to enter the conversation as though she had been conducting it in her head the entire cab ride home. Even when I found her annoying, which was most of the time, I had to be impressed with the way she could make her presence felt immediately.
“I’m just saying that I think a nursing home might be too drastic a move,” Matty said in response to the suggestion Denise entered with. “It’s not like he has Alzheimer’s or needs a wheelchair or something. He’s old and slow, but he’s not three feet from his grave.”
“Nursing homes aren’t only for people who are about to die,” Denise said curtly.
Matty smirked. “Actually, I think that’s the exact dictionary definition.”
Denise shook her head and did that little thing with her teeth. It was like she was grinding them together, except the top level and the bottom never touched. It was code for “I can’t believe I’m wasting time trying to communicate with you.”
At that moment, Denise’s eight-year-old son Marcus entered the room with a book in his hand to ask his mother what she thought the snow symbolized in White Fang. Marcus is the kind of kid who gives precociousness a bad name. Without acknowledging the boy, Denise turned to her husband Brad and said, “I’m kinda into this right now.” Brad escorted Marcus from the room. I’m
sure he made some kind of notation of the task in his Blackberry before returning to the meeting however, so he could receive the proper quid pro quo later.
“We could hire him a full-time nurse,” Darlene suggested. “A nurse would make sure that Dad was safe and could offer companionship at the same time.”
“Feels like we’re getting him a substitute for Mom,” Matty responded. “And Dad’s not going to go for the nurse thing.” He altered his voice to my father’s rougher tone. “‘If I’m not sick, why do I need a nurse?’ You know how hung up he gets about any of us suggesting that he can’t do everything he used to.”
“What Dad needs is an assisted living community,” Laura suggested. Of the three siblings-in-law, Laura was the one closest to my father by far. It probably had something to do with my father’s being nothing at all like the man who had abandoned Laura, her mother, and her sister when Laura was eleven. “These places are like apartment buildings – some of them are really nice – and the people who live in them still retain a good level of independence. They just don’t have to worry about things like laundry or cleaning.” She smiled knowingly. “Or cooking.”
“Amen to that,” Denise said sarcastically.
“They’re popping up everywhere in Southern California,” Darlene said. “They’re like Starbucks. I’ll bet it’s the same in New Jersey.”
There were lots of heads shaking and discussions of procedure. How do we research the different facilities? How do we discuss it with Dad? Do we discuss it with Dad, or do we just tell him to start packing?
I got up from the sofa to get more coffee. I hadn’t said a word since the conversation had begun, which meant that I was right on my quota as far as sibling meetings were concerned. It certainly wasn’t that I didn’t have any opinions or that I was intimidated. I had simply fallen into the same pattern that I fell into whenever the group of us got together. I’ve often wondered what the others thought of my regular silence. Actually, what I’ve really wondered was whether or not they even noticed it.
Regardless, I had to stand up, because I needed a moment to gather my thoughts. I had something I wanted to say, something that seemed absolutely fitting to me and that none of them could possibly have anticipated. It required my walking a few steps and then returning to the room, as though I had just gotten there.
I hadn’t put any advance thought into this. Like everyone else in the room, I had given the evening’s agenda serious consideration. But it wasn’t until I was there with the rest of them listening to suggestions that ranged from serviceable to frightening – and all more than a little empty – that I realized there was something more to be done with this decision. Something that offered my father more than just a coda to a rich life.
“I want Dad to come to live with me,” I said before taking another sip of coffee and doing a quick scan of everyone in the room.
Denise adopted another of her annoyed expressions. Darlene simply appeared confused. Matty turned to face me head on.
“Right, great idea,” he said sharply.
“I’m serious.” I sipped some more coffee.
“No, you’re not, Jesse.”
“Yeah, I am. You can’t tell me that living with me isn’t going to be better for Dad than living in some elder care facility.”
He screwed up his face as though my suggestion came dissolved in a quart of lemon juice.
“Jess, it ain’t even close,” he said.
I could feel myself getting flustered, my frustrations looping between having no idea how to talk back to my siblings and how easily I lost my composure when challenged by them. I finished the coffee and muttered something like, “I really think it would be a good idea.”
“Babe,” Darlene said, “it’s great that you want to be involved and I’m sure Dad would appreciate the gesture. But I think this assisted living thing makes a lot more sense. You could be a huge help to us here if you scouted around for the best facility in Jersey. None of us can really do it long distance.”
I had been dismissed. I knew my face was red and I knew I wasn’t in any condition to continue the argument. I immediately wished I had thought about this ahead of time and e-mailed my justifications to them before we all gathered. I should have known better than to introduce an idea this provocative without a huge amount of preparation. As a result, I fell back on my traditional role. I simply said, “Sure, whatever,” and left it at that.
I spent much of the rest of the time I was there in my own personal funk. The others were moving forward with the plans. My father’s fate had been decided, my role as advance scout confirmed. If anyone had given any further thought to my pronouncement, they gave no indication of it. I certainly didn’t mention it again.
But I knew there was something right about this, and while I hadn’t even considered it before that sibling conference, my conviction grew exponentially in the days that followed.
~~~~~~~~
Marina understood. She usually did. Even before I kissed her for the first time, I valued the fact that she just got me. By the time all the stuff with my father and my siblings was happening, we’d been dating for nearly four months and had known each other for close to six. We spent three or four nights a week together and talked on the phone almost every day. We had stuff at each other’s places and we sometimes made plans months ahead. I had a great time with her, I thought she was stimulating company, our sex life was warm and fulfilling, and it felt great to hold her and be held by her. There was little question in my mind that Marina was a woman I should be with for a while.
But that was about as far as I was capable of taking our relationship in my mind. It wasn’t anything as simpleminded as an inability to make a commitment. When one is unable to make a commitment, it either means that one values one’s independence and individuality (code for the freedom to sleep with any other woman who shows an interest) over any vow of long-term fidelity, or it means that you don’t really feel the relationship is as good as what might be available around the corner. Neither scenario had anything to do with me. I had never once dated more than one woman at a time and wasn’t sure I would even know how to do it. I also had no need or desire to compare Marina to other women, real or imagined. She was one of the best people I’d ever met and I considered myself deeply fortunate to know her.
There was something far more insidious at play here and something far more intractable. In my mind, among the small handful of Absolute Truths that define humanity was one that specifically related to romance: love always dies.
My heart had developed a fair amount of scar tissue by the time I was twenty-five. I had fallen madly in love with a woman named Georgia in my freshman year of college. We were together nearly every day for two years. I wrote her poetry, I bought her flowers at least once a week, I learned how to cook earnest dishes for her using a skillet and a hot plate in my dorm room. She would leave me little presents in unexpected places, buy me cute little cards, sing to me as we lay in bed. We were always kissing, always expressing our affection for one another, always touching. I thought I’d been in love before – at least a half a dozen times in high school – but the extent of my desire for Georgia made all of these encounters trivial. When she told me that she’d decided to spend her junior year abroad in London because it would make a big difference in her future career opportunities, we both cried about it for hours. I didn’t think I could possibly survive that much time away from her. I focused hard on my education that year, writing with unprecedented fervor while I awaited her return. We corresponded three or four times a week and I mistakenly interpreted the distant tone of her letters as nothing more than losing something in the translation of her devotion to me from flesh and spirit to the written page. As the spring semester came to a close, I grew sleepless in anticipation of her return. I sometimes wrote her two or three times in a single day, while her letters became less frequent.
A week before she was due back, I bought her an engagement ring with the money I’d saved from t
he part-time job I took primarily to fill the hours she was not with me. I picked her up at the airport and planned to present it to her in an elaborate ceremony that very night. But the ring never made it out of the box. A half hour after she touched down, Georgia told me that she would be returning to London in less than a month. She’d decided to finish her education in England. And yes, there was this guy she’d met and, well, she hadn’t planned on anything happening, but it just did.
After getting over the initial shock of what Georgia had told me, I was at least equally astonished to realize that I could have been so utterly devoted to her while she was capable of being swayed by another man. It wasn’t the first time that a woman had left me. It wasn’t even the first time that a woman had left me for someone else. But it was without question the first time that a woman had left me when I was ready to give myself to her. I found it truly scary that I had no inkling that this was coming. Of course I could re-read her letters (as I did often) and find the tiniest of clues. But I couldn’t find any warning signals in my own heart. I was fully devoted to Georgia, but a trip to London had allowed her to move on.
I had never before felt as disconnected from my life as I did over the next few months. All of my plans, all of my thinking, revolved around my future with Georgia. It took until well into my senior year before I could adjust to the reality that I wasn’t part of a couple anymore. After dating a number of women who seemed very exciting for a short period, I met Karen and began to believe I could fall deeply in love again. Where my romance with Georgia was shot with a soft focus lens, my relationship with Karen was produced for an action movie. It was frenetically paced, filled with hairpin turns and pyrotechnics. I was more impulsive with Karen than I had ever been in my life. We’d get in a car and just drive somewhere, stopping on the side of the road to make love. We drank lustily and sated our lust while drinking. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was flouting convention. I said and did whatever came to my mind and didn’t care if others were uncomfortable with it. Georgia turned me into a lover, and Karen turned me into a rebel. It was about as close to Dionysian as my life had ever been.