Nuclear Family

by Susanna Fogel

  Oh, and there’s one more thing that’s just felt a little off to me about us. This may seem small to you, but it’s a big deal to me.

  I’m really into film—like, classic cinema.

  Whenever you’d use me to watch something shot in 35- or 70-millimeter anamorphic, I felt like I was helping you conduct this assault on the art form or something. Like, if Stanley Kubrick thought people would be watching his work on a two-by-three-inch screen, I sort of doubt he would have bothered making 2001. Not that that’s what we were watching. Maybe the director of The Back-up Plan doesn’t mind.

  Anyway, I think for both our sakes we should just move on. I know it’ll be hard, but the sooner you can accept that, the sooner you can get back out there to the Apple Store and find a phone that can give you everything you’re looking for.

  And hey, even though I know this is the right thing for both of us, I’ll always remember you and the memories we shared … like that amazing secret pic we took on the subway of that woman’s entirely exposed butt crack. What was she thinking? I’m glad you synched that to your computer.

  Take care, kiddo.

  iPhone 4S

  Your Dad Has Decided to Put You in the Middle

  Dear Julie,

  The next time you speak with your mother, please ask her to edit the settings on her e-mail account’s spam blocker. I reached out to her recently and did not receive a reply; given the content, my only reasonable conclusion is that the missive did not reach her due to a hyperactive spam filter.

  A common pitfall for those who stubbornly insist on maintaining an AOL address.

  To bring you up to speed, I had contacted her regarding a disturbing diagnosis I received during a routine physical last week. There is a small blemish on my liver that will need to be removed exigently to prevent further health complications. Needless to say, this is rather ironic for a man who always limited his drinking, even as an undergraduate. Which is not to say I didn’t have my fair share of youthful delusions about mortality—I just preferred more stimulating substances. If anything, I would have expected some delayed neurological damage from the LSD.

  In any case, the medical procedure for my condition is very costly and not entirely covered by insurance—despite the laudable efforts of President Obama.

  Unfortunately, my alimony payments to my ex-wife remain astronomical. In my letter to your mother, I suggested that I have more than compensated her for any heartbreak I may have caused her during the 1980s and 1990s and requested she forfeit all future payments so I can get my medical affairs in order. I then concluded my e-mail with an original haiku I composed specifically for her on the topic of bygone love.

  No response for a week. As I say, I have chosen to give her the benefit of the doubt and write this off as a technological glitch. That said, another possible scenario is that your mother received the letter but failed to understand the gravity of my medical situation because her education is limited to a PhD.

  Any help you could offer would be appreciated.

  How are things on the home front? Especially in light of this health scare, I can’t help but find myself wondering if I will live to meet my grandchildren.

  Love,

  Dad

  Your Sister Regrets Talking So Much Shit about Your Dad

  Jules,

  Tried to call u back but I think yr phone is dead. U need a new fuckin phone.

  Dude Im kinda freakin out. Dad has been emailing me a lot of random shit which is just freakin me out bc I am not used to hearing from him unless he is telling me I should go to college or sending me random haikus about adoption (I told u about that right?). Also in his last email he attached a pic of him and me when I was a baby and he took me to the beach in this weird bonnet that looks like its from olden times??? I didn’t know he kept pix of us …

  But no it made me feel bad b/c all I do is bag on him … Not saying I brought a curse on his head or anything but I was just thinking like what happens if the surgery gets fucked up? As u know, that man and I have had our difficulties but if he died now that wd be fucking sad.

  And what wd happen to his family? I wd kinda worry about Stuart! Like can that woman take care of a little kid by herself? Does she even have a drivers license?!!! Or would we have to like move in with her?

  Ugh mom would be so excited we were moving back to Boston she would shit herself. Hopefully this will not happen …

  xx

  Jane

  Your Grandma Rose Has Thoughts about Your Dad’s Negotiating

  Julie, I heard what your dad’s getting up to with your mom’s money. Even if he’s on his deathbed, she should not give him a dime. I know she played her part, but he was a perfectly rotten husband and now she’s too old to find anyone else decent. That’s just the fate of a woman. It’s a sadness. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned your dad and his new family can go live in a hut made out of cow crap.

  Your Dad, the Most Jewish Person You Know, Is Having a Come-to-Jesus Moment

  Dear Julie,

  My surgery is in two hours. Though I am optimistic that everything will run smoothly, I find myself compelled to reflect on my life and relationships with my loved ones. I hope you will forgive the cliché.

  I figured e-mail was the optimal mode of communication, so you will have an electronic document you can easily refer back to as needed throughout your life.

  It has been a treat to watch you grow from an irrepressible little girl with a vibrant imagination into a creative, independent woman. I am pleased to see you pursuing the career path that always seemed to be your destiny. I remember your earliest works as a writer, when as a preteen you would sneak out of bed and crouch at the top of the stairs with a notebook, feverishly recording every word the “grown-ups” were saying down in the kitchen and adding your own colorful dialogue and scenarios. You would then perform it for us in the kitchen the next day as part of a series of skits you called “The After-Bedtime Truth”! I still remember how funny those were. I hope I live to see your work as a writer pay dividends—it can be painful to watch you spend your days behind a desk at a job that only nominally involves creativity—but if I am not so lucky, just know I believe it will.

  (Unless, of course, you decide you are fulfilled by writing two-hundred-word blurbs on topics like Taylor Swift’s revolving door of suitors, in which case I will attempt to withhold judgment from beyond the grave.)

  As for companionship, I believe you will find that too—though if I may offer a suggestion, this may require you to be more open-minded about who Mr. Right might be. I speak from experience—I never thought the love of my life would be a woman who requires me to eat with chopsticks. It turns out the food is no less nourishing.

  Finally, I should clarify something: I know before I was properly diagnosed and medicated for my illness, I was an erratic and unstable presence in your life. The reason I don’t discuss this time often is not because I don’t remember it—quite the opposite. I think about it often and I am deeply ashamed that it took me so long to get my mental health under control. One event in particular haunts me: your tenth birthday party, when I acted with physical violence toward our family dog in front of your friends. I still think about that day and how you must have felt.

  I’ll see you on the other side. Whether I mean that literally or figuratively will depend on the competency of Dr. Khayatian.

  Love,

  Dad

  Your Sister Is Having an Emotional Experience in Target

  Jules,

  Just called u but it went to VM …

  That email u forwarded me from Dad is insane and at the same time I got a very similar letter … hes talking about all these memories from when I was really little and like the nicknames he called me when I was a baby … Like he said it looked like I had a receding hairline when I was born so he called me Salieri (???) after Mozarts enemy or something? Then he said to make sure Stuart keeps practicing the violin …

  Dude what if Dad knows he is about to di
e?! Maybe that’s why he is sending us these emails like his life is already over. Obviously that would be a fucked up lie for him to tell since he told us not to come home for the surgery but maybe he was just trying to make it easier on us???? Should we go home now or is it already too late …

  Ugh now Im like hyperventilating and no one around me is even noticing bc its fucking Arizona so im sure they all just think I am on meth …

  I just climbed in one of the tents in the camping section and I am not coming out til you call me back. Bye world …

  J

  Your Dad, Who Just Got a New Lease on Life, Has Another New Lease on Life

  Julie and Jane,

  Thank you for the floral delivery. Unfortunately, as flowers are not allowed in the intensive care unit, they were discarded by an attending nurse. That said, she mentioned the arrangement was impressively robust.

  You’ll be pleased to know that in addition to surviving the procedure, I have emerged with a new appreciation for what is truly most important in life, a philosophy that combines my core values system with the Eastern influence of my beloved.

  It’s called filial piety. I’ll give you both a moment to Google the term.

  As you can see, all it means is an emphasis on respect and devotion toward one’s elders and ancestors. Throughout Chinese history, the emperors invoked the concept often, wishing for their subjects to serve them with the loyalty and devotion they would show their own parents.

  To that end, I’d like to request that you prioritize visits and calls home in the coming years and do your best to attend to my needs when you’re a guest in my home. Don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions.

  Love,

  Dad

  Your Sister, on Your Dad’s New Lease on Life

  OMG DAD’S EMAIL WTF…???

  K well … the good news is Dad lived …

  But ughhhhhhh so much for him changing into a better person …

  He cannot expect us to spend our lives waiting on him hand and foot! If he wants Stuart to bring him tea and serenade him with his little fucking violin he is welcome to do that on his own time!!!

  Jane

  Your Mom Is Really Connecting with Her Lawyer as a Woman

  Dear Julie,

  I just wanted to let you know that I took your advice about Dad and have hired a lawyer to negotiate with his lawyer about his request regarding my alimony payments. Hopefully this will relieve some of the pressure you’ve felt to “mediate” between us.

  I also wanted to reassure you that I did a lot of research in choosing who would be best to represent me, asking my usual “tribe” of friends from temple who they might recommend. Many women in the Temple Emanuel community have ex-husbands who are doctors and academics, so I figured they would know who has a lot of experience dealing with narcissists. When they all unanimously recommended Susan Distenfeld, I knew I would be in good hands!

  What I didn’t know is that Susan would also become one of my best friends. From the moment I walked into her office, the two of us just “clicked.” We have so much in common—we both grew up in the Bronx with incredibly strong mother figures who worked in food service. We both attended women’s colleges, where we both found ourselves having complicated feelings toward a female roommate but eventually decided that despite the strong emotional connection, we preferred men sexually.

  Susan also shares my passion for talking to strangers. When we hit the town, watch out! Just yesterday at Whole Foods, we befriended a lovely cashier named Miguel who is trying to get his wife and young daughter up here from El Salvador. By the time we had checked out with our twelve items (he works in the express lane), Susan had taken on Miguel as a client and I had told him that his wife and daughter are welcome to move into my condo temporarily if they have any difficulty finding an apartment right away.

  Another thing Susan and I have in common is our strong bonds with our grown children. I’ve told her all about you, and she would love to meet you whenever you next come home. If there are any art exhibits you’d like to see at the Museum of Fine Arts, that might be a nice place for us to go. I’ve attached the museum calendar to this e-mail if you’d like to pick a weekend.

  I guess I should “fess up.” I have a hidden agenda: Susan has a son named Adam who works at the Museum of Fine Arts.

  I know the last time I tried to fix you up you said you didn’t think I understood what you found attractive, but I’m very confident that this time would be different. Adam is just adorable. Susan’s ex-husband was African American, so he has beautiful caramel-colored skin but light eyes that are still very gentle and soulful, like two turquoise lagoons. Adam also sounds like a very interesting person. He works at the museum café, selling various kinds of salads.

  Okay, honey, I should get going. I’m meeting Loni at Brookline Booksmith for a reading by a Bosnian poet who is in town teaching at Emerson. It’s very important to me that Loni knows she’s not being replaced by Susan. Of course, she hasn’t explicitly said she feels that way, but I’ve noticed she never laughs at Susan’s jokes, which are always hysterical.

  Of course, this could also just be a case of “lost in translation.” Susan’s humor is very brash, in a style common among many Jewish women. Although Loni can be fun loving in her own way, at the end of the day she’s still a Protestant woman from Indiana.

  Let me know which of these museum events interest you.

  Love,

  Mom

  PS—Did you see Elizabeth Warren’s interview on LATE NIGHT WITH RACHEL MADDOW?

  Your Dad Figured He Would Keep Putting You in the Middle

  Julie,

  I enjoyed your latest article on “Hollywood Hotties with Receding Hairlines.”

  Also, I finally heard back from your mother about our financial negotiations, though I was required to enlist legal counsel to get a response out of her. It turns out she has also enlisted the services of a lawyer, Susan Distenfeld.

  You’ve got to be kidding me. Check out this woman’s ratings on Yelp: one star out of five. Her office appears to be located above a Quiznos—and as a comedy writer, you will appreciate her reviews.

  I can only imagine what would happen if doctors were allowed to practice medicine with the same impairments your mother’s lawyer seems to have—you’d have a lot of patients showing up to the hospital with a sprained ankle and walking out with full-blown AIDS.

  It’s been a while since you’ve called me to chat. Any particular reason?

  Dad

  Your Mom’s New Best Friend Sucks

  Dear Julie and Jane,

  I wanted to let you girls know that I went through a trauma this week. I’m all right now and I don’t want you to worry, but I did want to send you this e-mail so I can help prevent the same thing that happened to me from happening to either of you.

  As you know, I’ve been getting very close to Susan, the lawyer who has been helping me handle my alimony case with your dad. As I said, we have so much in common: we’re both very involved in our congregations, we share many of the same philosophies about parenting, we have both seen every episode of Law & Order: SVU. And I think I told you girls we went to a couple of tango classes in Somerville together.

  So you can imagine how hurtful it was when I opened my mail earlier this week and found a bill from Susan charging me for every hour we had spent together.

  Of course, I would expect her to charge me for the time we spent in her office discussing the legal case itself. But Susan had also charged me for the tango class, the ninety minutes we spent at Panera Bread having lunch after one of those meetings (where we talked mostly about what it was like for her to grow up in a military family), and the two hours when we went to Coolidge Corner Theatre to see the new movie with Colin Firth, during which we didn’t talk at all. If I had known that movie ticket would cost me $350, I would have gone to see it alone. I’ve already seen it three times.

  Julie, I don’t know if you contacted Susan’s son Adam yet to try t
o meet up with him. If you have and you feel he’s someone you could fall in love with, I hope what I’ve just said won’t make you have second thoughts. The most important thing to me is that you girls are happy. But if you haven’t reached out to Adam, I wanted you to know about this because in my experience as a psychoanalyst, parents’ values (or lack thereof!) always affect the way their children interact with others, even subconsciously.

  And for both of you girls, I just wanted to tell you what happened so you can make sure to be careful about who you decide to let into your life. Of course, part of being an adult is getting to make new and exciting connections with people from very different backgrounds and upbringings, but as you’re getting to know someone, just make sure there is no “fine print.”

  If you don’t feel comfortable asking this up front, one thing you could do is just ask someone what they do for a living right away. That way at least you can decide how risky it is to spend time with them and if that’s a risk you’re willing to take.

  Luckily, there are plenty of people who are no risk at all. Just yesterday I met a new friend at the Zumba class at Healthworks. Her name is Divya and she was raised in Pakistan, where she was a nationally ranked badminton player! Obviously an athlete is not someone who could consider our time together a business transaction, so I asked her if she’d like to come with me to the Louisa May Alcott museum for their annual exhibit of the various teas and biscuits that were popular in that time period. We had a great time, and I can “rest easy” knowing that I’m not going to get an invoice in the mail! On the other hand, someone who is a lawyer, social worker, or mystic could try to do what Susan did. I think it will take longer for me to trust someone like that in the future.