by Scott Brown
Around 2004, Ayla was playing in a high school softball game. We tried to go to all of our kids’ games. This one was at four in the afternoon, and since Gail worked the morning shift, we were planning on going together. The night before, I said, “Honey, why don’t we leave at two forty-five, have a relaxing drive, enjoy ourselves?” I got home at 1:30. The minutes ticked by. I was ready at 2:45, when I had told her we should leave. Three o’clock came and went, 3:15, 3:30. She wasn’t answering her phone. The game was at four, and I was freaking out. Finally, she came moseying up the driveway with all kinds of junk from a yard sale in the back of the car, and said, “Oh Scott, look what I got.” I was now ready to blow my top. “I asked you to be home—” “I know, but they had, such great deals.” And I came right back, saying, “I don’t care. I wanted to go see the game. I asked you to be home. You’re so inconsiderate.” Any guy reading this right now will know exactly what I’m talking about. And any woman knows exactly what I’m talking about too. She’s out shopping; I’m waiting. That’s what we fight about. So she said, “Fine, fine. You go. I’ll meet you there.” Gas cost about $4 a gallon; the game was an hour away. The answer was no. I told her, “Get changed, and we’ll go. Just leave the yard sale junk in the garage.” “Fine,” came her reply.
At this point in our lives, we lived in a cul-de-sac. There were trees in the front, and it was hard to see our house. About two minutes later, I was standing next to the car and Gail came out. Her clothes were under her arm and she was totally naked. And she said, “How’s this?” with a cocky, teasing smile on her face. And I said, “It’s pretty good.” She answered, “You want to stay home or do you want to go to the game?” And I calmly responded, “I’d like to go, but you can still get in the car.” So she did. She jumped into the car totally naked except for her silly grin and drove almost twenty minutes with me before she pulled on her dress. Just to prove a point. And she proved it. I’m driving down the highway and reevaluating whether I should have been so stuck on going to a high school softball game, even if my daughter was playing. To this day, when Gail’s running late and I’m getting annoyed waiting, she’ll look me right in the eye say, “You know what, you keep it up, and I’m going to get naked again.” And each time, we both end up laughing until it hurts.
I also think that as we’ve grown as adults, we’ve come to see a wider perspective, to understand that all families face trials and tribulations and that the most perfect of homes on the outside may contain silent suffering within. It was only when I was long grown that I learned that the Healys, the family I had longed to join when I was ten or eleven, had not been nearly as perfect as I imagined. Looking back, there were signs. There was the time in the pool when we were playing a game of water volleyball and my side was beating Mr. Healy’s, and he grabbed me after a play when I had spiked the ball on him and held me under for a little too long. When I came up for air, I saw a look of fury in his eyes that I knew all too well. Or the time in junior high when my team beat Jimmy’s during basketball league. Afterward, I was walking back to our apartment in a snowstorm, the fine, icy flakes falling fast and hard. I had my thumb out to hitch a ride. Mr. Healy’s car came down the road. He looked at me, hitchhiking, and accelerated the engine to drive past, leaving me in a cloud of ice because I had been on the team that had beaten his son. The Healy family would one day fracture; even the siblings would break apart. I no longer believed in a perfect home. I believed in a home that communicated and that never forgot to say, “You are my love.”
Most television reporters end up crisscrossing the country to navigate their careers. Gail was deeply fortunate to be able to stay within striking distance of our home. After Arianna was born, she took another job in Western Massachusetts, but the commute and the aftereffects of postpartum depression made it challenging for her. She started looking for something closer to home. She found some work on the Boston ABC affiliate, WCVB-TV, Channel Five, doing stories for its Chronicle Show and cohosting a show on Lifetime Television with Dr. Penelope Leach, called Your Baby and Child, after Leach’s famous childcare book of the same name. Then, in 1993, when Arianna was turning two, a full-time position opened up at WCVB-TV. For most of her time there, Gail had the morning shift, which meant she had to leave the house between 2 and 3 a.m. There were many mornings when it was tough on us both, but she had a great job, she was fulfilled, and we could pay our bills. The lack of sleep was particularly difficult for us, especially for Gail. Fortunately, I’ve been a light sleeper since high school, my battles with Larry, and my basic training days in the military. At the slightest sound from either of the girls, I would be awake.
It was now my responsibility to get the girls up, get them breakfast, get them dressed, get them to the sitter or to school. Many days I would make dinner, do the shopping, do the laundry. I always did my own ironing too. Gail has never needed to touch one of my shirts. All those skills that my grandmother had taught me came in extremely handy. In fact, Gram had taught me everything but how to dress two girls. Because she was older and able to get her clothes on, I let Ayla dress herself, and I let Arianna pick out her own clothes. They would choose anything in their room, stripes and solids, plaids and leopard prints, and put them together, sometimes all at once, among shirts, sweaters, pants, and socks. I also had a unique strategy for fixing their hair. I’d have each one bend over and then I’d grasp the hair in one hand and wrap a scrunchie around it with the other. When Ayla or Arianna stood up, most of her hair was centered in a ponytail-type contraption on top of her head; each girl bore a very strong resemblance to Pebbles in The Flintstones. In the afternoons, Gail would be home to pick Ayla up when she got off the bus and then to collect Arianna from preschool, and most days, the only words Gail could think to say when she first saw each of them would be, “Oh my God.” Ayla invariably looked like a tomboy ragamuffin. Arianna resembled a beautiful doll, albeit one dressed in a thousand different colors. Both girls, Ayla especially, still say that they are terrible dressers because of me.
But I loved all those mornings with my girls and the special relationship that we developed, just us. I cooked them breakfast and, at night, I would often get into the bath with them, me in my bathing suit, and them splashing and giggling. I washed their hair and gently pulled the tangles out with a comb. We sang songs and drew patterns on the tile with our wet hands. Today, they will still call me when they are sick or when they need something, and I have been blessed to be close with them in a way that many dads miss.
And Gail also allowed me to have that. She helped to give me the gift of that relationship. Gail has always believed in me, and I have believed in her. Together, we have built the family that we, as children and teenagers, could only envy and dream of.
Gail also did one more thing that perhaps she now regrets. In 1995, when Arianna was only a preschooler, Gail encouraged me to make my first run for public office. In fact, the whole thing was really her idea.
Chapter Fourteen
Running
I loved the law because of its crisp, cool logic, the way it demanded one look at a problem, understand its origins, and then find a possible solution. It is tangible and transparent. But for me, as a young lawyer in Boston, without family connections or old school ties, it was a constant challenge to build a practice. I had hooked myself up with a lawyer named John Brazilian, a good guy, a great teacher, and a tough boss. Much of his practice was real estate law; I would handle transactions for him and get a percentage of the fee, an 80–20 or 70–30 split. I also took cast-off cases from F. Lee Bailey’s office, the cases his office didn’t want. I handled landlord-tenant disputes, contracts, small-claims court cases, and divorces. I reasoned that this was like shooting all those endless hours on the basketball court: if I could prove myself, I could work my way up.
I built connections at the small-claims and housing courts. I could get cases handled quickly; I could get clients in and out. I learned the rent control laws and real e
state. Eventually, John was able to leave for several weeks at a time, and I could run the entire real estate practice. And I think underneath, I liked the idea of helping people settle on buildings for their businesses, or families settle into their homes.
The other area where I excelled was divorce work. I understood it, both the legal side and the personal side. In the beginning, I represented mostly women trying to leave their husbands. One of my first cases was a woman who had had four prior attorneys. Her estranged husband was abusive, not just to her, but to me. He threatened to report me to the bar, and he unleashed a torrent of excuses as to why he couldn’t show up in court—that he was sick, that he was dying. Finally, I had him brought in by ambulance to the courtroom and cross-examined him. Whatever he said, I came back with another question. I didn’t quit. When the hearing concluded, the judge granted her a divorce, and he was finally gone from her life.
I spent a lot of time on the cases where children were involved. The parents would sit at the glossy conference table, gaze at my wedding ring, sigh, and say to me, “Oh, you don’t understand.” And I would tell them, “You know, with all due respect, my parents were married and divorced four times and three times each. I do know. I was that kid. I was your kid. So let me tell you what he or she is going through right now.” I could say things to them that many other lawyers couldn’t say and they wouldn’t be offended, because I had lived it. I could write child support agreements so no college freshman would ever have to think of suing his father or mother for a basic allowance. I don’t think in all my parents’ divorces any of the lawyers gave more than a passing thought to the kids. But I did.
Divorce cases paid well, but they were inherently stressful. Sometimes the tensions were real, the pain of severing years or even much of a lifetime together, but some were simply stupid or driven by spite. During one of my last cases, I sat in the courtroom for five hours while the soon-to-be ex-husband and ex-wife argued over golf clubs, pots and pans, and scuba gear. The wife wouldn’t let him have any of the things from their garage, and he wanted to take them, instead of simply going out to buy new ones, which he could have easily afforded. The judge finally asked both counselors to approach the bench and she said, “Are you both here for five hours to talk about pots and pans, golf clubs, and scuba gear?” And I said, “Judge, I’ve tried every single thing I can do. I’ve done everything, and we can’t get past this.” That case soured me so much on the field that I walked away from divorces and concentrated on real estate.
Of course, lawyering was only one of my professions. I kept modeling, through law school, through taking the bar, through marrying Gail, through the births of Ayla and Arianna. There was always work around Boston, and clients liked me because I was knowledgeable, professional, and punctual. And I had the credentials of having been a successful model in New York City. That guaranteed me a place as a big fish in the far smaller Boston pond. I appeared in ads for local stores and businesses and kept my portfolio up to date. And I was still serving in the National Guard. For years, I kept my three plans in place. If the law ever dried up, I reasoned that I could join the military full-time. If both stopped, I had the modeling. I was always thinking of how I was going to support my family, what I would do to make sure I could continue to provide for them. And all my professions intersected as well. I got legal clients from some of the guys I served with in the military; models and photographers came to me to review their contracts or handle other legal matters.
Bit by bit, too, my parents rotated back into my life. We would never be a family of shared Sunday dinners, nor would we reminisce over the last pickings of a Thanksgiving turkey. But we did try to make peace with what we had. After the girls were born, we cemented a tradition of revolving Christmases. In the morning, Gail, Ayla, Arianna, and I would have breakfast and sit around the tree, opening presents. Then we would hit the road. We usually went to my dad’s first, because he was closer, had lunch, and then headed up into New Hampshire to see my mom. Many times, we ended back in Massachusetts, at dinner with some of Gail’s family. For a couple of years, we tried to get everyone together at our house, but it was simply too hard; like a mesh of tectonic plates, the fault lines were too ingrained and too raw. So we kept up our nomadic holidays, starting in either Massachusetts or New Hampshire and working our way along the highways, grateful for the chance to share a Christmas as an extended family, but grateful, too, when at last, late at night, we could turn the key and hear the familiar click and release of the lock in our own front door.
I still played basketball all the time, but the leagues were getting rougher. The guys who hadn’t stayed in shape were playing with their fists and elbows to win. In one matchup, I took an elbow to the eye. At first, I thought it was just a small cut, but my brow had split right down to the bone. It was possible to see the eye socket muscles and the veins. I needed thirty stitches, and as I lay on the ER table, I thought, “I’m playing to get in shape, not to get killed.” Not long after the eye healed, we took a family trip to the Bahamas, and I saw an ad for the Grand Bahamas 5000, a five-kilometer road race. I thought: Hey, I ran cross-country; I’m fast; this will be easy. I entered, ran the race in the hot sun, and finished in the top ten, second place in my age group. I even won the race’s raffle. When I got up the next morning, I could barely move, and I could hardly walk for the next three days. My legs were unbelievably stiff and sore—“sweet pain” I called it. Basketball wasn’t nearly as challenging as I had thought. When I got home, I started running. I trained for local road races. The girls would do the kids’ races and I would do the adult runs. I joined the Boston Running Club and trained after work, getting my time for a mile down to around four minutes and thirty seconds.
I was in one race, a New Year’s Day four-mile road race in Waltham—I think it was called the Hangover Classic—right behind Paul Powell, a state police trooper who happened to live in Wrentham. I spent the whole race drafting off him, banging and bumping, but never quite able to catch him and pass. He beat me by a few steps, and afterward we began talking and discovered that we had a lot in common, including the fact that we lived only one mile apart. I now had a running buddy; we started training and racing together. I’ve still never beaten him in a road race, but in triathlons, I’m proud to say that I can kick his very fast butt.
After I had been running in just road races, one of my buddies told me about duathlons, where competitors run and bike and then run again. I now had a new goal. I borrowed a bike and signed up for one. My first race was in Newburyport, a run-bike-run, two miles, ten miles, and two miles again. I won the run, but lots of guys passed me on the bike. I made up the ground on the second run. I won in my age group, and was one of the top five overall. I got two tickets to a local ski resort, and I won a TV in the race’s raffle. I started thinking that these duathlons were a pretty good deal. I saved up and bought a bike, a Trek 1200 with an aluminum frame, not as fancy as many of the other bikes I saw, but the best I could afford. I also got a stationary trainer. At night, when Gail and the girls were asleep, I’d set my bike up in the living room and ride.
After getting better, I started entering longer races, doing better and better, and then entered national duathlon contests, including the National Duathlon Championship in Louisiana. Gail and the girls came to watch me in the swampy heat, red ants biting their feet and leaving welts between the straps of their sandals. They were miserable; but riding and running with them there to cheer me on, I was in heaven. I raced, they applauded, and I did well enough to earn a spot on the national team. I was one of twelve duathletes selected to represent the United States at the world championships.
Once I mastered duathlons, another one of my friends said I really ought to enter a triathlon. I’ve never been a good swimmer, but I signed up for my first triathlon event in Hyannisport, Massachusetts. I didn’t have goggles for the swim, so I put on a full snorkeling mask and looked terribly out of place. Triathlons are always swim-bi
ke-run; but the distances vary depending on the type of race. There are four categories of races. The Sprint has a one-quarter- or one-half-mile swim; a 10- to 15-mile bike ride; and, to finish, a 3- to 5-mile run. The next level is the Olympic, where everything is measured in kilometers: a 1.5-km swim, a 40-km bike ride, and a 10-km run. Then there are the half and full Ironmans. A half Ironman is a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride, and a 13.1-mile run. A full Ironman doubles those numbers: a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile run, the same distance as a stand-alone marathon. Ever since a nasty bike accident, the most I can manage is a half Ironman, but I enjoy the Sprint and Olympic competitions the most.
That morning on Cape Cod, I made a huge mistake. I started in the front row for the swim, and quickly plunged into the chilly swells for the quarter-mile crawl. Immediately, I was getting kicked and shoved by all the faster and more experienced swimmers who had come in behind. I floundered, swallowed water, and started going under. I could look up and see swimmers above me. If I didn’t get control of this swim, I knew I was going to drown. I didn’t panic; instead, I quickly struggled to the top, pushed people away, flipped over on my back, and began backstroking, skimming through the water, but nearly blind as to where I was headed and banging into other swimmers left and right. Finishing that swim was one of the hardest physical things I’d ever done in my life up to that point. I came out of the swim close to dead last in my age group, but after the bike segment, I began to catch up, passing hundreds of people, and then had a strong run. I finished the race in the top group and third for my age group. When the event was over, I was left with a feeling of total exhaustion, but also a feeling of exhilaration like nothing I had ever known.
