Thank you, I pass down to Brady. Meg would make everyone miserable as a stay-at-home mom, herself included. Having an alcoholic mother from such a tender age left her craving structure. She needs an outlet for her competitive nature to avoid competing with Dan or, worse, Lucy. She’s capable of immense love, but only when she feels needed and secure. Work is her anchor. Family is her safety net.
At least my sister is settled before my view dissipates completely. It’s ironic though: the person I haven’t been helping is the first to find her way.
Eve
Rory joins me for the self-defense course my father mandated. Our first assignment is to share why we registered. I say, “My father made me,” and Rory says, “Her father made her.” Everyone cracks up, especially the instructor, Eddie, who blatantly eyes Rory’s left hand for a wedding ring.
Once we start doing drills it’s clear Rory is a pro. She expertly completes every exercise, comfortably handling the oversized safety pads and showing me side moves. At lunch, Eddie uses his observation skills—the number-one tool in self-defense—as an opening.
“Where did you train?” he asks, sitting at the picnic table as if we asked him to join us.
“I started when I was a kid and got my black belt in college.” She takes a huge bite of her turkey sandwich. A little mayo squirts out the other side onto her cheek. Eddie ignores it. I pass Rory a napkin.
“Which discipline?”
“Kung fu. Shaolin.”
“What?” I say. “Why the hell did you agree to do a beginner class with me?”
She ignores my language as usual. “Everyone can use a refresher, and I agree with your father that you should do this before you leave.”
“You’re her mother?”
“No,” Rory says. “We’re friends.” I smile. That’s how I’ve come to think of us too.
“That makes more sense. You’re way too young to be her mother.” I try to make eye contact with Rory about how obvious he’s being, but she seems into him. Their expressions go a little gaga. “Any chance we could have dinner one night this week?” he asks.
Rory agrees. “At least I know I’ll be safe,” she jokes when he’s gone. “That’s more than I can say for most dates I’ve been on.”
My dad pops to mind. He and Rory are about the same age. She’s so genuine. And funny. Of course, he’d probably be an ass at some point and then things would be weird between Rory and me. I dismiss the thought. Better to stay out of it.
When we get home, Rory and my dad have a little celebration to mark my completion of precalculus. I’m curious whose idea it was. Rory made a chocolate cake and Dad got fancy takeout from the city. We stand in a circle, glasses raised. “Stubborn, but smart,” my father toasts, clinking his glass to ours.
“Wonder where I get that from,” I reply. We’re so similar, my dad and me. I’m starting to realize that our problem was never not liking each other, it was that we are each other. And ours is a personality that needs watering down by a third party.
We chat for ten minutes or so, reliving events from the summer. When my tattoo becomes the topic of conversation I excuse myself to the restroom. I don’t intend to eavesdrop, but they’re talking about me when I come back, so I stop short of the doorframe. My father is trying to “square up” for the Sunday Rory stayed over and today’s self-defense class. “I don’t want any money for that,” Rory says, refilling her glass, “but thanks for offering.”
I catch a glimpse of my dad reaching his glass out for more too. “That’s crazy,” he says as he pours. “You’ve done so much for us this summer.”
“I appreciate that, but it wasn’t work. I’m not a saint. I took your money for tutoring because calculus was rough, and trust me, if I felt I was owed for more I wouldn’t be shy. But I haven’t been babysitting Eve. She’s been there for me too. I wouldn’t feel right being paid for my time.” Knowing I wasn’t intended to hear the compliment makes it that much more meaningful.
The truth is, if Dad were paying Rory he’d owe for more than today and his trip to D.C. I don’t think he realizes how much we’ve been together this past month. The day we went to Exeter, we were gone eight hours. She got my class schedule and a campus map and walked me to each building. When the doors were unlocked, we went all the way to the classroom. Most had desks arranged as open horseshoes, some with as few as ten chairs. I freaked at how small the class sizes were, but Rory calmed me down, saying the only students who need to worry about small classes are the ones who don’t do their work. Then she talked a janitor into letting us see my dorm so we could figure out how much space I had to work with. This week we went shopping. I wouldn’t have known to get cinder blocks to raise my bed for storage space or sandals to wear in the shower. Warts were never a concern at my house.
After dinner I walk Rory to her car. “Thank you for all your help this summer. Not just calculus, but everything. Really.”
“You have no idea how nice it is to have a young woman I can offer random advice to.”
“And you have no idea how nice it is to get it.”
She grins. “I’ll never take responsibility for the tattoo, though. Fifteen years from now, when you have an inquiring child and you’re trying to pin that decision on someone, I’ll still declare my innocence.” We laugh at her joke, but I’m more excited by the implication that our friendship won’t end when I leave.
I replay the conversation to Dr. Jahns the next day, but he says I shouldn’t count on the relationship continuing. “As you grow up, Eve, you’ll see that sometimes adults make commitments because they don’t want to let young people down. Rory might not realize she’s doing it, but in the fall, when school starts back up, it’ll be hard for her to keep in touch. I don’t want you to be devastated if that happens.”
I sit there and think about what it would take, now, to devastate me. After losing my mother, anything less than death is bearable.
This realization is still with me when I sneak in a journal entry before my dad gets home from work. I somehow pick one where my mom seems to be agreeing.
November 11, 2014
It’s midterms for the Wellesley girls this week, so the library is packed. Their pure panic brings their immaturity to the front stage. With all I know now it’s hard to believe the difference between an A and B ever seemed significant. I want to put a sign on the checkout desk that reads, “A year after you graduate, this will mean nothing to you.”
Real things will happen to these ladies. Great things. Atrocious things. They will be faced with tests of character bearing much higher stakes than tests of intelligence. They’ll look back at this finals-induced hysteria with perspective and have a good laugh at their own expense. Or the lucky ones will. The unlucky ones will never learn.
What I wish for my daughter more than anything is the gift of perspective at a young age. Perspective makes you asshole-proof. The two are mutually exclusive. And as long as you’re not an asshole, you can find people to love you, and as long as you’re loved, you can be happy.
Which means I should be happy. I need to get out of my current funk. I wish I could connect my sudden self-doubt to early menopause or thyroid changes, but I know my core is infected with regret. I am, right now, living the life I stole from my mother. The one I taught her to be ashamed of wanting.
Maybe I need to see a shrink.
I tear up at the idea of her hidden sadness. I was still catty and stuck-up at the time she wrote that, but I gained perspective with her death. It’s hard to be arrogant when your mom decides that a terrifying death is more appealing than returning home to finish raising you. I might’ve been a disappointment to her when she was alive, but I’ll do right by her wish now. I’ll be strong and open and kind and, above all, not an asshole.
Brady
Seven minutes short. I failed to qualify. I ran twenty-six-point-two goddamn miles to come up seven minutes short. I look around for a ledge or a curb, anything to sit on.
A lady standing next
to me flails a finger at a friend. “No. I’m telling you, your qualifying time is based on the age you’ll be at the Boston Marathon. You’re a September birthday, right?”
In my depleted state, it takes a second to process that I’ll also be a year older by then, which means three hours and twenty-seven minutes is good enough. I do a little fist pump that does not go unnoticed. “I’m glad I sat here,” I explain when the women look my way. “I didn’t think I’d made it.”
The runner smiles. “Me neither. And I would have been pissed.” Her words are more aggressive than you’d expect given her petite frame. “Pamela,” she says.
“Brady.” We exchange basic pleasantries as the crowd ebbs. It’s refreshing to converse with someone who assumes your life is normal. She owns her own commercial real-estate business in Boston. This was her first marathon. She’s a Patriots fan too.
I don’t know if it’s delirium from the run or if I’m just up for celebrating, but I ask Pamela to dinner. Her friend giggles and politely looks the other way, pretending to be distracted by someone in the crowd.
Pamela scowls at my wedding ring. “I don’t think so,” she says coldly, wiping a new layer of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “Your wife deserves a little more respect, don’t you think?”
I clam up, unable to respond, as though I’ve been justly busted. I look around for an exit strategy, but people are everywhere. Pamela continues her lecture. “I’ve been on the receiving end of a husband like you before. Worst decision I ever made.” She mutters something with the word asshole in it and turns back to her friend.
I look to the pavement, ashamed. Suddenly, the sounds of the city and crowd merge together into an unintelligible din that clouds my ability to think. As if there’s an earthquake, my footing becomes unstable. My heart pounds more than it did during the race. I can’t make sense of what’s happening, but this-this force that has taken me hostage shouts at Pamela’s back, “Maddy is gone. Dead. She died. And I wasn’t there to stop her.” My legs buckle beneath me and I fall to the ground. I look ridiculous, and I know it, but I’m not in control. All the tears I replaced with temper tantrums and expensive bourbon pour out now, a sprung leak.
Newly finished runners swarm me. Some are jovial, slapping my back, saying things like “It’s all over buddy!” or “You did it, man!” I lay there, blanketed in sweat, sobbing.
There’s a soft kick at my side. Pamela stands over me, arms extended. I reach for them and she pulls me up. “Where are you staying?” she asks. I point down the street to the Hyatt. “Okay, okay, I’ll get you there. Walk with me.”
She props her small frame under my shoulder, leading me through the maze of people. Her height is misleading; the woman is solid muscle. I lean on her in a complete haze, emotionally and physically spent.
She brings me all the way to my room. I collapse on the hotel comforter that Maddy always took off right away because you never knew what foul things had taken place on it, and fall asleep.
It’s dark when I wake. The humiliation of my finish line debacle wakes with me. A thick film covers my body like a wet suit. My eyes are swollen, my head is throbbing, but mostly, I’m thirsty. Savagely thirsty. Kill-a-man thirsty. I drink both of the four-dollar waters on the dresser, then hit the minibar for apple juice, orange juice, pineapple juice, and iced tea. When I finish, about forty dollars later, I enjoy the primal sense of survival. I stretch, smelling myself with disgust, and head to the bathroom for a shower.
The water has an almost spiritual quality. It’s roasting hot and I welcome the burn. I soap and then soap again, scrubbing away the memory of my mental breakdown. I can picture Dr. White correcting me at my next session: “Brady, what you’re describing is a breakthrough, not a breakdown. Your core is finally admitting the magnitude of its loss. That’s progress.”
I stand under the scalding water so long my body acclimates to it. Is it progress? I’m mortified by my lack of composure, but damn it, I do feel lighter having gotten that out. When I finally call it and turn off the shower, the steam is so thick it seeped underneath the bathroom door into the bedroom.
Refreshed and donning only a towel, I call Eve at the Cape. She picks up on the first ring, worried I hadn’t called sooner. As soon as I tell her my time qualified, she forgets her anxiety and cheers with genuine excitement. “I’m so proud of you, Dad. You worked so hard.” I might be the only man to ever hear those words from his seventeen-year-old daughter.
“Thanks, Bean. I’m sort of proud of me too. How’s the Cape?”
“Good. We miss you. Uncle Dan says there’s too much estrogen in the house, and if I ever come without you again, he’s staying home.”
“Tell him I can only imagine. I won’t let it happen twice.” I have no intention of sharing my “breakthrough,” so after I hear about their gorgeous beach day we say good night.
I’m starving.
The lobby bar is hopping with runners. I’m eager to blend in with the crowd and knock back a few celebratory drinks, until I see her. Apparently, escorting me to the Hyatt wasn’t out of Pamela’s way. I try to duck out, but she taps my shoulder as I turn to leave. “I was about to call and check on you. I’m glad you came down.”
I want to disappear. I’d banked on the fact that, statistically, I’d never see this woman again. Yet here we are, five hours later. I improvise, determined not to lose any more credibility. “Um, I’m actually getting room service. I’m here to snag a menu because there wasn’t one in my room.”
She smiles and I remember why I was initially attracted to her. “Well, I’m glad you seem to be feeling better. And congratulations on qualifying.”
“You too. Listen,” I start, but what can I say? Sorry I completely lost my shit earlier? I clear my throat. “About before, I don’t know what came over me.” I grab a menu off the bar with the intent to excuse myself.
“No, I’m sorry. I have a big, fat mouth and it gets me in trouble sometimes.”
“You couldn’t have known. I don’t know why I still wear the ring.”
Pamela adjusts the clasp on her necklace. “I only wish I could take back my reaction. It’s the last thing you needed.” A nice, simple response. I let it sink over me.
“It felt good to let it out, actually.” I tell myself to stop talking, to get upstairs, to jump off the bar mezzanine, anything to end the embarrassment of putting such raw vulnerability on display. But there’s nothing waiting for me in my room or anywhere else. And that smile.
“Let me buy you an appetizer,” I suggest, “as payment for your courier service. I’m not a light load.”
“Great. Anything without shellfish. I’m allergic.”
I flag down the bartender and order two martinis, chicken wings, and a nacho, then turn back to Pamela. “So where in Boston do you live?”
Three martinis later the crowd has faded and Pamela gets the courage to ask about Maddy. “Was it cancer?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I wish. God, that sounds terrible.” I slug back the rest of my drink. It’s none of her business, and yet I want to confess, to get it over with so she can plan her exit. “She took her own life.” I look her right in the eyes as I say it, shocked to find only compassion.
“I’m so sorry.”
The only reason she hasn’t bolted is because she doesn’t understand. “It was my…” I can’t say fault. I didn’t suggest it. I didn’t push her. “I was working too much, traveling all the time, and I think—I don’t know—I can be cold, distant.”
Pamela leans in and speaks softly. “For depression to take your wife to such an extreme, she had to be trapped inside her own thoughts to a point where she couldn’t perceive the ripple effect of her decision.” I look up. It’s the first time anyone has attempted to understand Maddy’s frame of mind. “Brady: she wasn’t leaving you; she was leaving her.”
My senses flood. Is it possible? I have a sudden compulsion to read Maddy’s last journal entry. If Pamela’s right, th
e answer will be there. I flag the bartender. “Put it all on my tab.” He nods.
“I’m sorry to leave like this, I am, but this day—”
“Go,” she says. “Think and cry and sleep. We’ll catch each other in Boston sometime.”
I bolt for the elevators Cinderella style, grateful for Pamela’s ability to read the situation so well. Once in the safety of my room, I retrieve the journal and flip to the last page. I’ve been a coward, putting it off for so long. It’s the equivalent of a suicide note. If Pamela is right, it’ll show in Maddy’s words.
April 13, 2015
Easter kind of gives me the creeps. Rising from the dead? The story allows the idea of the afterlife to function as a sort of insurance policy. It makes it too easy to never face fears or regrets. I don’t think the universe should hand out free passes. Combing through the weeds of my childhood with a therapist allowed me to find compassion for my mother, which freed the chip from my shoulder. I’m fortunate for the autonomy in my life. I was able to have a hiccup and get help without Eve and Brady even knowing.
I believe there’s a higher power. There has to be. Science can’t rationalize it all. To our understanding, there’s no such thing as nothing, which means there’s always been something, which means there is a divine force at work.
I’m excited for our family run on Easter Sunday so I can ask Brady and Eve what they think about these things. It is, hands down, my favorite of our family traditions. Meg says we’re a sacrilege, and maybe we are, but Easter doesn’t make any more spiritual sense to me than a long family jog where we all take the time to connect. I’m finally at an age where I no longer have an intense need to be understood. I just want to learn from the past and move on.
I read the entry thirty times, thrown. She saw a therapist about her mother, but she doesn’t sound caged by depression. Or angered by my flawed priorities. Or saddened by Eve’s independence. She wasn’t in love with someone else or drinking too much or tired by the banality of suburban life.
Why the hell did she leave us?
I Liked My Life Page 25
