\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s about a<\/span> five-hour drive from Akron to South Bend. Things get a little tricky on the outskirts of Cleveland, but after that you just stick to I-80. I stopped for gas and a Subway sandwich and reached my brother\u2019s apartment around two in the afternoon. He lived in an old hotel, which had been dolled up and turned into residential units. This was part of a compromise with his wife, who didn\u2019t like the thought of their kids living downtown (in South Bend! that hub of degenerate America), so after they separated, he picked a supervised building to calm her down. But it meant he could only afford a two-bedroom; both girls had to sleep in one room. I had never been there before.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t see my brother often but whenever I\u2019m about to \u2026 I feel this onrush of eagerness. All day it came in waves, as the miles strung out behind me. The highway takes you north of the city, and I turned off and drove past Notre Dame, then nosed along, following my phone and staring out the window at every stoplight. South Bend is pretty wide open. The river is like another blue highway between roads. There are public gardens on street corners and low-rise banks and apartment blocks. It\u2019s funny to think, we grew up in the same house, but this is where he made his life.<\/p>\n The Hoffman is opposite a Burger King, where I left the car. Later I had to move it underground\u2014his apartment comes with visitor parking.<\/p>\n Eric\u2019s working day is unpredictable. Sometimes he\u2019s in the office, but he also spends a lot of time visiting schools, not just in South Bend but across St. Joseph County. When I spoke to him on the phone, he promised to leave a key with the super. It took me a while, but I found the super and got the key and let myself into his empty home, which was on the sixth floor and had a view of the river from the kitchenette. But the whole place still felt like a hotel, the carpeting, the furniture, the pillar holding up the living room, the windows that you couldn\u2019t open. At least the girls\u2019 room had toys on the floor and pictures on the wall\u2014kid pictures in crayon and watercolor, stuck on with Blu Tack. What was nice about the apartment was that you got the feeling he didn\u2019t care what it looked like to other adults, but that was also a little depressing.<\/p>\n I left my backpack on the floor and lay down for a minute in one of the bottom bunks. When I woke up, Eric was leaning over me. The curtains were closed; it was still sunny outside, and the glow of the afternoon came through in dusty lines.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t know if I should wake you. It\u2019s after five.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHey.\u201d Then I said, \u201cThat\u2019s all right. I didn\u2019t sleep much last night. It\u2019s nice to see you.\u201d<\/p>\n Eric and I<\/span> are six years apart, the same age gap as my children. Whether you want to or not, you end up reproducing the structure of your childhood. In Eric\u2019s case, that meant he didn\u2019t really remember our father, I mean, remember him as somebody who lived with us. The guy we spent two weeks in the summer with, in his house in Orange County, where he had another two kids, much younger, and a new wife, and basically didn\u2019t want us around \u2026 that guy, Eric knew well. But the other guy, on his first marriage, when Dad still thought, Maybe I can live a life where I haven\u2019t made any unforgivable mistakes, where whatever we\u2019re going through is just the normal headache\u2014he didn\u2019t remember him.<\/p>\n When Dad left, Eric started sleeping in Mom\u2019s bed. Because he kept waking up with nightmares, she said, but really because she didn\u2019t want to sleep alone. This was tricky, because Eric still wet the bed. Even at 7 years old; he had a bladder problem, and eventually my parents bought rubber sheets for him, so Mom didn\u2019t have to keep washing his bedclothes. But when he started sleeping with her, the same thing happened. I was old enough to help with the household chores, which included laundry. So sometimes I had to deal with their wet sheets. Every night she put him to sleep in his bed, and then, when she went up a few hours later, carried him to her room. They had a relationship from which I was basically excluded, not that I really wanted any part of it. Eric had to absorb a lot of her craziness and unspent love.<\/p>\n The truth about Dad was, he didn\u2019t like small kids. He just didn\u2019t like them, which made it ironic that when he started an affair with Lisa, who was 20 years younger and worked in the L.A. office, he eventually moved in with her and had two more kids. But he didn\u2019t mind teenagers, and that\u2019s what I was when he left. He taught me how to play cards, not just basic poker, but old-school games like casino and bridge. He had a funny way of laying down a winning card. He didn\u2019t say anything, but just set it down a little heavily, so you noticed. He could shuffle a deck in mid-air, which I spent hours practicing. Sometimes, on Saturday afternoons, he took me and Eric to Phillies games, but since Eric got carsick and generally made himself a pain in the neck, eventually he just took me. When he left, it was harder for me to say, the guy\u2019s a jerk. Not that this was Eric\u2019s point of view, but there wasn\u2019t a big gap in his life after Dad walked out, as there was in mine.<\/p>\n It probably sounds like I resented my kid brother, which wasn\u2019t the case. I felt sorry for him and guilty about him. He was one of those kids who always gets what he wants and isn\u2019t happy about it. For one thing, he was a very fat kid until he hit puberty. I mean, fat enough that it was an impediment to certain activities. If I tried to talk to Mom about it, she just got stressed out. It was one more thing going wrong in her life. And she couldn\u2019t say no to him, anyway, if he wanted soda for supper or another bowl of mint chocolate chip. Part of why I went to Pomona was to get the hell out of New Jersey; also, maybe, because I thought I might see more of my dad. But that didn\u2019t really happen. Even though the campus is less than an hour\u2019s drive from Newport Beach, maybe I saw him five or six times in the whole four years. But I didn\u2019t know that when I went.<\/p>\n I felt bad about Eric, though, I really did. Leaving him alone with our mother, when she was in that state.<\/p>\n But he turned himself around. He lost a lot<\/em> of weight. When I flew home the summer after freshman year, I almost didn\u2019t recognize him. He used adolescence as a chance to make certain decisions about himself, and who he wanted to become. So, no to all the cookies and Cokes, which my mother found hard to take\u2014it was like a rejection of her love. He never liked sports but started jogging in the mornings and lifting weights after school. Even as a fat kid, he\u2019d had a kind of social confidence, he didn\u2019t mind attracting attention, which he found ways of putting to good use. At some point I came home to a world in which my dumb kid brother was the star of the school play and reading Walker Percy on the pot, so you couldn\u2019t get him out of the bathroom.<\/p>\n All of this came at a price, and not just for Mom. Somehow he didn\u2019t seem comfortable with this new identity in front of me. For example, he\u2019d made Mom join a church, St. Hedwig on Brunswick Avenue, just to get her out of the house, he said, so she could meet new people. But I think he also liked the idea of having a mission and a community, neither of which I\u2019ve ever been a big fan of. So on Sunday mornings over the holidays I had to decide: Do I go along or not? Eric made it pretty clear, essentially saying to me, I don\u2019t expect you to follow this new direction our lives have taken, which was reasonable of him. But I think he also meant, Leave us alone. So I left them alone. On the whole I was grateful that he\u2019d found a way to turn his unhappy energy outward, even if it meant I didn\u2019t get to play big brother. That\u2019s fine, that\u2019s okay, I mean, for eight months a year he was on his own. He couldn\u2019t rely on his big brother very much.<\/p>\n Still, every time I was about to see him, I felt this rush of childish eagerness clutching my heart, which was replaced, when I did see him, with something more complicated. A feeling like, we both have to protect ourselves against this level of intimacy.<\/p>\n He wanted to know<\/span> how long I planned to stay, if I could stick around and see the girls, who came after school every Wednesday. But I told him, \u201cI\u2019m leaving tomorrow. I have to get to Denver.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor what?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo see Brian Palmetto. But that\u2019s a longer conversation; it can wait.\u201d<\/p>\n I sat in his living-room area, on one of the low couches. He made me a cup of Celestial Seasonings. \u201cWhat do you want to do?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n He took off his shoes and stood on the thick carpet in his socks. Because of all those years of acting, he had good physical balance; he moved like an athlete. He also looked too skinny, if you ask me.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know, show me your life.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe can drive around, I wouldn\u2019t mind seeing the city.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve been driving all day.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, you can drive.\u201d<\/p>\n So that\u2019s what we did, but first I had to move my car from the Burger King into one of the Hoffman\u2019s visitor parking spots. So we got in my car, then we got in his car. Eric drove an old Camry. It was basically his office, he spent a lot of time on the road. There were papers on the passenger seat, which he told me to throw in the back. \u201cYou see how I live,\u201d he said. But it pleased him, I think, to sit behind the wheel; it made the power relationship a bit easier.<\/p>\n We drove across the river to the girls\u2019 school, which took up several blocks behind a spear-topped iron fence. \u201cThat\u2019s where all my money goes,\u201d he said. You couldn\u2019t see much. There were trees in the way, and wide lawns, and vague collegiate-looking buildings in the distance. We parked for a minute on the other side of the street, in front of somebody\u2019s house. It was 6 o\u2019clock. People were coming home after a working day, and we watched a couple of cars pull out of the long school drive.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the girls are happy,\u201d he said. \u201cAt least at school.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs it a Catholic school?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMore or less. Officially nondenominational. It\u2019s where Terry went. They\u2019re basically having her childhood \u2026 without the father.\u201d He laughed; he had a sweet, unhappy laugh. Eric, unlike me, had lost most of his hair and cut what was left pretty short, so he looked like a monk or a long-distance runner. To me, he still looked like a kid, boyish and somewhat intense, but I realized that if I met him now I\u2019d think, a middle-aged man.<\/p>\n \u201cYou want to see the house?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSure. Won\u2019t that be a little weird?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe can just drive by.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe you could call and say their uncle\u2019s in town.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve learned it\u2019s better if you stick to the script.\u201d<\/p>\n Terry and the kids lived in Granger, about 20 minutes away, by the Michigan border. But first he took me past her parents\u2019 place, which isn\u2019t the house she grew up in but where they moved after retiring. It was on a cul-de-sac with a circular drive at the end, which was around a patch of green lawn with a flagpole sticking out of it and an American flag flapping around on the pole. \u201cCan you believe it?\u201d Eric said. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t make it up. Thirty years ago, none of this was here, this wasn\u2019t even a place.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are they like?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho? Terry\u2019s parents? I don\u2019t know. I can\u2019t describe them and sound like a sane person. We go to the same church.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t know you went to church anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes I take the girls.\u201d He was circling the flagpole. Eventually he said, \u201cThey still introduce me to people as their son-in-law.\u201d<\/p>\n In Granger, there were no other cars, the streets were wide and curbless. Most of the houses had extensive lawns, and sometimes at the end of a block, there was open grassland, dotted with trees, so you couldn\u2019t always tell where one yard began and another left off. \u201cThat\u2019s it,\u201d Eric said, slowing down. \u201cWith the Honda in the driveway.\u201d In fact, all you could see of their house was the gray metal door of the garage.<\/p>\n We turned a corner but the rest of it was screened by trees. I had a slightly creepy feeling of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t remember how long you lived there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThree years. First we had an apartment in Edgewater. Then we moved out here. I actually have a job offer in Chicago, but if I take it, I\u2019ll never see the girls. Except maybe like Dad, for two weeks in the summer. I don\u2019t know. We can park and get out, nobody will see us.\u201d<\/p>\n He pulled over by the side of the road, but we just sat there, under the trees. Eric turned off the engine.<\/p>\n \u201cI may have walked out on Amy,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou may?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAbout 10 years ago, she had an affair with a guy from \u2026 our synagogue. I told myself, when Miri leaves home, then I can go, too.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou waited 10 years?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt may have been more like 12.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow you\u2019re just showing off.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the downstairs lights in the house came on; dusk was setting in. Eric said, \u201cThat\u2019s the bathroom light.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI forgot to give them to you, but I bought a few things for the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s nice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMostly candy, but I got them a Frisbee, too. In case they didn\u2019t have one already. I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s nice.\u201d Then he said, \u201cTerry always drives them to her parents\u2019 house. It\u2019s a 10-minute walk but she always takes the car. She won\u2019t even let the girls bike over there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTraffic,\u201d he said. We sat in the dark car by the side of an empty street. \u201cShe lives in a world of fear. I couldn\u2019t take it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve done this before.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe apartment isn\u2019t really a place I want to be in the evening, if the girls aren\u2019t there. So I drive around.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cListen,\u201d I said. \u201cI need to cut loose a little. Is there somewhere we can get a beer?\u201d<\/p>\n So that\u2019s what we did. He turned on the engine and we drove into Edgewater, his old neighborhood. Nothing seemed very far away in South Bend, it\u2019s a shrinking city. We went to a place called Kelly\u2019s, where it was easy to park. Just a small windowless building on the corner of a large lot. I said to Eric as we walked in, \u201cCan you eat here?\u201d and he said, \u201cYou can eat.\u201d There was a pool table at the back, and a couple were playing pool. But other than that, it was fairly empty, it was Monday night. Just some people at the curved bar\u2014guys in trucker hats and women in shorts.<\/p>\n \u201cI come here because Terry never would,\u201d Eric said. \u201cThey had a big shooting outside a few years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs this where you take all your dates?\u201d<\/p>\n We sat down near the pool table; a waitress came over. I ordered a French-dip sandwich and an IPA with a stupid name. Eric went for the fish basket. We had a couple of pints before the food arrived. One of the things I forgot about my brother is that he giggles when he drinks, he gets happy pretty fast, until it turns into something else. We watched the people playing pool, the girl was better than the guy. He wore a Fincher Landscaping shirt, short-sleeved with a collar, and looked about 25. She was older, late 30s, early 40s, on the heavy side but well made-up, with straight dyed-black hair and bright-red lipstick. A little Goth-y, but, like, now she had a job.<\/p>\n Maybe they weren\u2019t a couple, but he kept trying to flirt with her. He said, \u201cPlay me again. I gotcha this time, I\u2019m just screwing around. Oh come on.\u201d He kept putting quarters on the table.<\/p>\n \u201cTerry says I have anger issues, but I think what I need to deal with is the stuff that makes me angry, that\u2019s what I need to deal with.\u201d Everything seemed funny to Eric. \u201cI don\u2019t know, I\u2019m working on regulating my moods. Regulating my moods<\/em>.\u201d He repeated himself, too.<\/p>\n \u201cTell me about this job in Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe company I work for has headquarters in Evanston. It\u2019s a step up the ladder, but it means not going into schools anymore. It\u2019s a lot more money.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s great, that\u2019s wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know. I need to do something different. But it\u2019s not, like, back in college, I dreamed of working for an educational charity<\/em>.\u201d That made him laugh, too.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody ends up doing what they wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDidn\u2019t I sell you a house on Carroll Street?\u201d It was the woman at the pool table; she was talking to me. \u201cCome on, help me out here,\u201d she said. Fincher Landscaping was looking over at us. He had soft brown hair like a loose shower cap, I don\u2019t know why this image occurred to me. He was about 6 foot 4. \u201cYou had a little girl,\u201d she went on. \u201cI didn\u2019t think the marriage would last.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cExcuse me?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just messing with you. How old is she now?\u201d She rested her cue against the wall, which was covered in seven-inch singles around a framed Milwaukee Brewers Robin Yount jersey.<\/p>\n \u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYour daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEighteen. I just dropped her off at college.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWow,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think you\u2019ve got me mixed up with someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHelp me out here,\u201d she said again. \u201cWant to shoot some pool?\u201d<\/p>\n So the three of us ended up playing cutthroat. I mean, my brother and me and this woman, Sharon Donnegan\u2014that\u2019s how she introduced herself. She worked for Wayman Realtors. Fincher tried to argue with her but she said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, I ran into some friends,\u201d and eventually he went over to the bar and watched us from there.<\/p>\n Eric never had much hand-eye coordination, that was one area of childhood he left to me. Even as a teenager, when he got in shape, he was a get-in-shape kind of kid and not really into sports. Sharon and I were roughly on the same level, but she won the first two games, which gave Eric a lot of joy. He was drunk enough that he said things like, Look at you, getting beat by a girl, which he wouldn\u2019t have said sober. But he also liked calling her a girl, I think he thought it sounded flattering or flirtatious. \u201cWhere\u2019d you learn to play like that?\u201d he said, and she said, \u201cMy dad was in the Air Force. Every base had a table.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow\u2019d you end up here?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI guess I\u2019m just lucky,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n I felt bad for Eric, I didn\u2019t think she was interested. When he missed a shot, he asked her what he was doing wrong. \u201cYour back stroke is all over the place,\u201d she said, and he said, \u201cShow me.\u201d<\/p>\n The waitress came and he ordered three more beers. I told him, somebody\u2019s got to drive us home, I don\u2019t mind drinking Coke. And Sharon wanted a hard seltzer.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry, I drink like a girl.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, she took over the order, because Eric was having trouble making himself understood. He wasn\u2019t that drunk but he was trying to manage too many interactions at once. So he had another IPA, and I had a Coke, and she had a Vizzy. It was about 10 o\u2019clock at night, I\u2019d been in the car all day, I wanted to go home\u2014or at least, to my kid brother\u2019s rented apartment, where I could sleep in my niece\u2019s bottom bunk. Eric said we need to play again, to maintain the honor of the Layward brothers.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you guys brothers? You don\u2019t look alike,\u201d Sharon said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a lot older than me, he let himself go.\u201d<\/p>\n I think Sharon liked me; it\u2019s awkward to write this, but she gave me that impression. And maybe that\u2019s why, when Eric said, \u201cShow me,\u201d she finally said, \u201cAll right, line one up,\u201d and stood behind him with her hips against his ass and her hand on his elbow and slowly guided his cue. While giving me a look, maybe she wanted to make me jealous, I don\u2019t know. Stir up some kind of fraternal rivalry for her attentions. I couldn\u2019t tell if Eric was having a good night, letting off steam, or just descending deeper into unhappiness. He kept wanting to use my phone.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere\u2019s yours?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t carry a phone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t carry<\/em> a phone? It\u2019s not like a gun.\u201d<\/p>\n But he borrowed mine and started taking pictures\u2014mostly of Sharon, bending down over the table. I won the third game. \u201cSo what are you doing here?\u201d she said, when Eric went to the bathroom.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing. Seeing my brother.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then what?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTomorrow I\u2019m driving to Denver.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s in Denver?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA guy I used to play basketball with.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAren\u2019t you an open book.\u201d<\/p>\n He was in the bathroom a long time. \u201cYou want another drink, or you want to go somewhere else?\u201d she said. For a second I wondered what it would be like. She had a pale face, which the lipstick made look even paler, and I could see, when I stood next to her, the soft white skin of her scalp between the grains of her hair. She was younger than Amy and obviously less attractive, but you got an energy from her, like she was still interested in what might happen next, which I didn\u2019t get from Amy anymore.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I should take my brother home.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou think<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n But that\u2019s what I suggested, when he came out of the bathroom. He looked pretty pale himself, he didn\u2019t look good. But he didn\u2019t want to go home. He said, \u201cWe can\u2019t abandon Sharon to the vicissitudes,\u201d in one of his theatrical voices. I don\u2019t know who he was channeling. Some English actor. \u201cYou\u2019ve got a pretty good accent,\u201d Sharon said. \u201cMy mother is actually Scottish, at least, that\u2019s where she was born.\u201d<\/p>\n He tried a Scottish accent, but it wasn\u2019t really coming.<\/p>\n \u201cWho is this guy?\u201d Sharon said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe used to work in Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo kidding.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCome on, Eric. Time to go home.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou go, I\u2019ll stick around with \u2026 Sharon. We\u2019re having a good time. Everybody knows how to have a good time except you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think she wants you to stick around.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe can say what she wants,\u201d Eric said.<\/p>\n She looked at him, she looked at me. It was a Monday night in Kelly\u2019s Bar, she probably had work in the morning. I don\u2019t know who goes out on Monday night, or why.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I should probably head out, too,\u201d she said. \u201cI just need to use \u2026\u201d and she did a little curtsy, \u201c\u2026 the ladies\u2019 room.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAre you all right to drive?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m fine, I\u2019m just around the corner.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe can wait for you,\u201d Eric said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s all right. You boys run along.\u201d<\/p>\n So we left.<\/p>\n In the parking lot, we had an argument about who should drive. I\u2019d had two or three beers, Eric probably had a couple more. They affected him more than they affected me, he was a very skinny, very nervy person. Eventually Eric gave me the keys but he wanted to wait until Sharon came out, to make sure she was okay.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t you feel a little creepy,\u201d I said, but we waited a minute and then drove home.<\/p>\n The drive was only five minutes, we probably should have walked. Maybe it would have sobered Eric up. As soon as we started, his mood fell off a cliff. He sat hugging himself against the seat belt and looking out the window. I didn\u2019t actually know the way, I kept saying, you have to tell me where to go. We crossed over the river and I tried to follow it into town. He said, \u201cYou didn\u2019t have to put her on the spot like that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody was having a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEric, I don\u2019t think she was into you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo why\u2019d she ask us to play?\u201d After a minute he said, \u201cYou always think women are hitting on you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCome on, Eric.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou were always like that, even when we were kids. You always thought, other people were embarrassed by us.\u201d<\/p>\n By us<\/em> I guess he meant him and Mom. \u201cThat\u2019s not true at all.\u201d But I don\u2019t know, maybe it was. He was 12 years old when I left for college, I didn\u2019t really know him as anything other than a fat little kid. He was always whining about something; I felt bad for him. He just wanted and wanted and didn\u2019t get, until Mom gave in. Sometimes I tried to redirect the conversation from their constant interplay. I tried to get Mom to teach him self-restraint. But he didn\u2019t change until I left.<\/p>\n All that was 35 years ago. At a certain point with these family dynamics, you\u2019d think the statute of limitations would run out.<\/p>\n We parked in the underground garage, which had an elevator. It was almost midnight, we were almost talked out. Back in his apartment, he said, \u201cDo you need me to change the sheets? They\u2019re pretty clean. Anyway, you already slept in them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, that\u2019s fine. Hey, it\u2019s nice to see you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry if I got it wrong tonight. I\u2019m getting a lot of things wrong right now.\u201d<\/p>\n We were in the girls\u2019 bedroom. He sat down on one of the small chairs.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t meet many women these days. I\u2019m spending a lot of time in my own head.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat about this job in Chicago?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow can I leave the kids?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ll be all right. We were all right.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was all right for you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou turned into a totally different person. You got your shit together. I can\u2019t tell you \u2026 how impressed I was, every time I came home. I thought, If he can do that to himself, he can \u2026 he\u2019ll be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n He looked at me with tears in his eyes. \u201cI just miss having a woman in my life. I miss having somebody to be nice to.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got the girls.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s pretty much my only function right now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. No.\u201d<\/p>\n But I didn\u2019t know what else to say. He let me use the bathroom first, and then I lay in bed with the lights off and listened to him moving around. Eric warned me he wasn\u2019t much of a sleeper, he watched a lot of TV.<\/p>\n Lying there, in the kids\u2019 bed, with the top bunk crowding down on me, I remembered something my dad once did. When I was about 12 years old, he took me out to Cadwalader Park to have a sex talk. We had just moved to Trenton, I thought he wanted to show me the neighborhood. But he explained about wet dreams, we talked about masturbation. Everything you think or want turns out to be normal, don\u2019t worry about that, he said. I was 12, none of these biological changes meant much to me. Look, this is just a stage you have to go through. I\u2019m sorry about it but there\u2019s nothing you can do. You just have to go through it. I tried to concentrate on my jump shot. If I missed, at least it gave me a minute to chase down the ball.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll give you some free advice, which you\u2019re not going to listen to, my dad said. But I listened. At some point you have to learn to control the sex urge, otherwise you let yourself get bossed around.<\/p>\n Who was he talking to? Me? Two years later, he ran off to California and started a second family with the woman from the L.A. office. Maybe he had already been having an affair.<\/p>\n He died in February 2020, just before everything shut down. Complications from diabetes; I don\u2019t really know what he died from. He had a stroke, then he went to the hospital and never came out. I always thought he looked after himself pretty well, for a man of his generation; his wife was somebody you could trust to be on top of things, medically. Despite the way he left us, he was basically a conservative person, always trying to protect himself against things going wrong. Walking out on Mom was the one big romantic gesture of his life.<\/p>\n Eric and I shared a hotel room, none of our wives or kids came to the funeral. We stayed at the Ramada, just off Route 55 and about 10 blocks from the beach.<\/p>\n It was a very alienating experience. Everybody else at the funeral\u2014he was cremated and half his ashes were scattered off a boat deck into the Pacific\u2014belonged to his California life, his second life. (Later they erected a gravestone in Pacific View Memorial Park, where Kobe Bryant is also buried, but that was after we left.) We had two half sisters we barely knew, who were now 30-something women and much closer to Dad than we ever were. The younger one, Sammy, wore a Philadelphia Eagles hard hat to the ceremony, the kind where you can strap a couple cans of beer or soda to the ear holes and drink them through a crazy straw without moving your head. It seemed inappropriate to me, Eric was very upset. It turned out Sammy had given Dad the hat for his birthday; he still rooted for Philadelphia sports teams and used to wear it in front of the TV on Sunday afternoons.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019d he drink?\u201d I asked her.<\/p>\n \u201cHe didn\u2019t really fill it up, it was just for shits and giggles.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t even know he was a football fan.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh he loved the Eagles, he watched every game.\u201d<\/p>\n She was the kind of person who is determined to have a good time at a funeral, because it\u2019s supposed to be a celebration of a happy life. Even if I had no personal connection to her, I don\u2019t think I would have liked her.<\/p>\n Because of jet lag, Eric and I woke up early after the funeral. Maybe we were both hungover. The heavy hotel curtains made it hard to tell the time of day. Eventually I got up (my bed was nearer the window) and pulled them back. So from about half past four we watched the California light slowly grade into morning. The traffic noise increased. We dozed a little, I looked at my phone. It was a long night. Eric said, \u201cFrom their point of view, I don\u2019t think we ever really existed.\u201d And I told him, which I probably shouldn\u2019t have, the story of those last few weeks before Dad walked out.<\/p>\n \u201cHe told me he was going,\u201d I said. \u201cHe wanted to tell you, but you were too little, he thought you might tell Mom.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut he knew you wouldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI guess he knew I wouldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat did you say?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know, I don\u2019t remember. But I\u2019ll tell you a terrible thing, I felt excited for him. He was very excited, that\u2019s why he told me. He couldn\u2019t keep it a secret anymore, from all of us. He had to tell someone. Maybe I was just excited because it was me. I was 14 years old. It just seemed like \u2026 one of those glimpses of adult life, which at that age \u2026 I wanted to know what was really going on. That\u2019s how it felt to me, but I also don\u2019t think \u2026 I didn\u2019t think he\u2019d actually do it. When he left I was so ashamed, I couldn\u2019t even look at Mom. She thought I was upset because of Dad but really I just felt guilty. Have I told you this before? I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve told anyone, except Jill.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, you didn\u2019t tell me. I\u2019m sorry,\u201d Eric said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are you sorry?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat you had to deal with all that, it wasn\u2019t fair.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not what I expected him to say. I thought he\u2019d be mad or jealous.<\/p>\n Later he said, \u201cWhy Jill?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know. It just seemed like one of those things you tell your college girlfriend.\u201d<\/p>\n We had different flights out\u2014I was going to JFK from LAX, he\u2019d flown into John Wayne. They had direct flights to Chicago, where he\u2019d left the car. After that it was just a two-hour drive to South Bend. We had breakfast together in the hotel restaurant, then got different cabs. That was the last time I\u2019d seen him, before now.<\/p>\n In the morning,<\/span> I could tell the atmosphere had shifted. Whatever window of communication had opened up between us had closed again. It was just another working day, he liked to leave the house by 8 o\u2019clock. I was still in boxer shorts when I walked in.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened to you?\u201d<\/p>\n He was making coffee in the kitchenette. The toaster popped.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know. It\u2019s just something that started happening.\u201d<\/p>\n I guessed he meant my face, which was swollen and leaking water through the eyes\u2014I had to squeeze them just to see.<\/p>\n \u201cHave you been to a doctor?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course I\u2019ve been.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019d he say?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe thought I might be middle-aged.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat was his diagnosis?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEventually. They ran a lot of tests. I don\u2019t want to talk about it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou need to do something.\u201d He felt happier, showing his concern.<\/p>\n \u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n I drank some of the coffee he\u2019d made and put another waffle in the toaster. There were a couple of stools under the kitchen counter. If you sat with your back against it, you could see the river. Funny how the eye is drawn to water\u2014it\u2019s just a very flat part of the view. But the surface shifts a little, slowly. Eric had disappeared into the bathroom. When he came out again, he looked like one of those people you meet whose job is to be friendly and helpful. With his pale, almost clean-shaven head, and his Adam\u2019s apple sticking out.<\/p>\n He stood in the living-room area, and I got up to hug him but stopped a little short\u2014he carried a messenger bag across his chest.<\/p>\n \u201cJust close the door behind you,\u201d he said. \u201cAre you coming back this way?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAfter Denver \u2026 presumably you\u2019ve got to get the car back to New York.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t really thought that far in advance.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, if you do, you know where I live.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s good to see you, Eric. I hate to \u2026 I don\u2019t know, I hate all the distances.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, this is America.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhere should I put the presents for the girls?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJust leave them in their room. If it\u2019s candy their mother won\u2019t like it, but that\u2019s her problem.\u201d<\/p>\n I wanted to say something else but didn\u2019t know what.<\/p>\n After he left, I loaded the breakfast things in the dishwasher and showered. There were rubber letters stuck to the side of the tub. Then I stripped the bed and packed my backpack and left.<\/p>\n Driving out, I followed my phone for a while, but then, outside Waterford, I stopped for gas and turned it off. The route was pretty much just a straight shot west. I was thinking about Eric but at some point realized that I was talking to Amy about him. The whole time I felt like I was in communication with her. She said, How\u2019s your brother, and I said, Not great. We went out to some bar and he got drunk. There was a pool table and we started playing pool with some woman. Eric got a little \u2026<\/em> he was very attentive, which I don\u2019t think was appreciated. I didn\u2019t like seeing that.<\/p>\n It\u2019s fine, right? He\u2019s single \u2026 he\u2019s allowed to try.<\/p>\n No, but it feeds into this whole dynamic we used to have, where I was \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n What? What were you? Did she want you<\/em> instead?<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know and I don\u2019t really care; she wasn\u2019t important. I\u2019m just worried about Eric.<\/p>\n You worry because it makes you feel better about yourself. You always have to be the responsible one.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not fair, that\u2019s not true. I mean \u2026<\/em> look at me now.<\/p>\n This article has been excerpted from Benjamin Markovits\u2019s new book, The Rest of Our Lives<\/em>. <\/p>\n The Rest of Our Lives: A Novel<\/p>\n By Benjamin Markovits<\/p>\n \u200bWhen you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s about a five-hour drive from Akron to South Bend. Things get a little tricky on the outskirts of Cleveland, but after that you just stick to I-80. I stopped for gas and a Subway sandwich and reached my brother\u2019s apartment around two in the afternoon. He lived in an old hotel, which had been<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[3967,5086,5335,21116,21115],"class_list":{"0":"post-38616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-ben","9":"tag-brothers","10":"tag-honor","11":"tag-layward","12":"tag-markovits"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}