Chapter 10
10
It is the middle of the night, and I am sleeping in the chair. You wake me up by whistling. Abe. Honey.
I’m up. I’m so glad.
You remember when the blaming started. You remember it wasn’t just Max. You remember the feeling—like we’d gone flat, distant, murky, like water left in a glass for too many nights in a row. Max was maybe four.
You remember thinking I’d grown out of the things you loved, and wishing I’d grown into them instead. When was it that I’d stopped smoking altogether? You’d started again. And when did I start chewing like that? And though by then I’d published the series, the poetry, and I’d been teaching graduates for a few years, I was still making most of our money from the business, which was taking longer to sell than I thought it would. Was always splitting my time. I took my writing for granted, you said. The benefit of being a man. The hubris. I could just do it. Or not do it.
You remember, after that, months of not yelling so much as everything felt as if it could shatter in an instant. You remember Max faulting you for the pasta, the shirt, the light, the dark. In the evenings, you and I ate without looking at each other or sharing. You had learned to give him so much space, you barely interacted. You and I went to sleep at different times. There were miles between us in bed. No sex for how long? And you couldn’t rest. You remember going back into your studio, closing the door at midnight. Locking it. It felt like water sealing overhead.
You remember, sometimes, trying to imagine what we would have done without my mother. She kept the house together. She and Max had secret handshakes. They laughed as she gave him a bath. Sometimes, often, it felt as if she was the only reason we were all still…
Your voice trails off.
You remember going to California to see my brother, staying with him, waking up early to have espresso together on his porch—and imagining staying. You remember that David still hadn’t told me, or my parents, about his sexuality. And how it felt like another stack against me. That David trusted you first. I was his brother, after all. And yet.
You remember it was the only time we really yelled. You remember when I told you that you loved your work first, me second, Max third, and maybe that was the problem. It also wasn’t true. Back then, I think I thought it was an uncomplicated choice and a simple hierarchy. Forgive me, Jane. I was so wrong.
This part is awful. Maybe unnecessary? It feels like a tangent, and yet.
You remember wanting me to stay at work longer, go away for a weekend, read in the other room even if it meant just you and Max. You remember I was already gone a lot.
You remember thinking that maybe too much had happened, then suddenly not enough. Does that make sense? You’re really asking now. I tell you that it does.
It is the middle of the night. We don’t have to do this. It is the opposite of letting go. It feels so long ago now, so insignificant.
It is a testament, you say. I tell you it’s a relic. I tell you that is a good thing. It feels as if it’s spoken in another language.
Alice. I can barely recall her. It all feels remote. Untranslated. Keep it so.
You fall asleep immediately.
Here I am. I am thinking about arc. This part, Alice, isn’t the twist and turn. The wrench or the climax, the part when the reader thinks they’ve got your number and you rehook them because you can.
This was just a moment. I never should have done it or brought it up. This is a love story. Joy doesn’t read flat on the page. I’ll take happiness, our happiness, even when it writes white.