67
Griff
Tonight’s insomnia is served on a bed of steamed guilt with a side of pan-fried anxiety. I’ve spent the past week battling
my thoughts, flipping them over and over.
“What am I supposed to do, Beau?” I whisper into the darkness.
Turning on the bedside lamp, I remove his briefcase from the cupboard, sifting through the old work cassettes. I need to hear
his voice.
One tape catches my eye—a faded label, smudged ink. I hold it to the light, my breath catching. The writing’s almost gone,
but I can make out a faint scribble in Beau’s handwriting:
Griff e^(iπ) + 1 = 0
No clue what it means. I google it: Euler’s formula. The most beautiful, elegant formula in mathematics. My name, next to
perfection. It undoes me.
With shaky hands I pop it into the Dictaphone and press play, greeted with the signature corny joke from a lesson. “Did you
hear about the mathematician who was afraid of negative numbers? He’d stop at nothing to avoid them! Pause for laughter.”
Then, silence—the kind that makes grief even louder. I leave it on for half a minute, hoping the static noise will drown out
my thoughts.
As I reach for the stop button, Beau’s voice crackles back to life. “Hi, Griff, it’s me, handsome. I hope you’ll find this.”
My body stills. I’ve never heard this before.
“If you’re listening, it means I’m not beside you in our yellow kitchen where we somehow managed to fit our whole life.
“We found out a few weeks ago that I’m in the early stages of dementia, so I want to tell you all the things I need to say
before I forget them. Lately it’s like I’m walking through fog,” he whispers. “I can see shapes, but nothing’s sharp. Nothing
holds still. So here we are. Firstly, I love you. I love you so very much, Griff. If”—his voice cracks—“when I’m not able to tell you that any longer, please remember that I do.”
I press my shaking palm to my chest, as if I can anchor the sound of his voice there.
“This illness will make me lie, Griff. My lips will tell you I don’t know your name. My failing mind will deny you were ever
mine. Don’t believe them. In those moments, hold on to the truth: That you are written into my soul, and nothing, not even
this, can ever erase you. And I wanted to say I’m sorry that you’ll have to walk this path without me—this treacherous, horrible
path. I wish you didn’t have to witness this. I know we promised for better or worse, but if things get worse, much worse,
my love, I give you my blessing to let go. I’ll end up in a nursing home eventually, and if that’s when you need to say goodbye . . .
I understand.”
There’s a rustle of papers. “Sorry, I’ve lost my place . . . I wrote this down so I’d get it right.
“Griff, you were never the man people thought you were when they looked at you. They got the sharp edges, the precision, the
armor you wore everywhere outside our door. I got the man whose shoulders loosened the moment he stepped inside, the man who
stopped performing and simply was. You never realized how rare that is, to become your truest self with just one person. That
was my greatest fortune.
“I loved all our ordinary things, your funny latte art on my morning coffee, our Monday picnics, regardless of the weather,
the movies you pretended not to care about yet cued up for me every Sunday night. Those were my treasures. Our life was never
polished: it was honest, unfiltered, ours. You gave me a home in that honesty.”
His voice dips. “I need you to hear this, Griff. The part of you that softened with me, the part you thought was a flaw, that’s the part the world needs.
It’s the part Lisa needs. I know you don’t think much of yourself outside the kitchen, that there’s nothing in you worth believing in.
But that’s Brent’s lie, not the truth. Your history with Lisa is messy and painful, and I know how hard you’ve worked to stay locked in a room you built out of loyalty to your mum.
Those four walls were meant to keep Lisa safe, but they have also kept her out.
Break them down, give her a piece of yourself.
Let her see the man I saw—the one with the steady hands and a far bigger heart than he ever gave himself credit for.
She’s all you’ve got now. Be kind to her, look past the chaos and see the extraordinary woman beneath it.
Let her lean on you and lean back. It’s the only way you’ll both survive this. Let it be your parting gift to me.
“You’re a good man, Griffith Barlow. Better than you’ll ever believe. And when I’m not here to remind you, I hope someone
else will.
“I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to play my viola, so I wrote this for you. It’s how I see you . . . you are in
every note I ever played.”
I hit pause, bracing for a moment before I can go on, knowing how much it’s going to hurt.
His viola begins with bold, fiery strokes that demand attention, before slipping into a raw, mournful melody. When the weight
of it feels almost unbearable, the music lifts, transforming into a soaring, joyful conclusion full of promise and light.
“My life may be short, but know I loved every moment of it. The only thing I loved more than living was loving you. Love you
forever, handsome. Until we meet again.” Beau’s voice cracks; there’s a soft sniff, and then silence.
I pull the comforter over my head, sobs ripping through me as the weight of everything crashes down, each mistake and selfish
choice laid bare. What the hell have I done?
Lisa has been a ringing in my ears I longed to silence. But now that it’s quiet, I realize how much I’ve come to rely on it.
I pull out the Polaroid photo with trembling hands. I remember the day I took it.
Lisa looks happy, so sure of her place in the world, so sure of me.
I gently run my thumb over the image. The edges are soft and worn, like they’ve been handled more times than I’d like to admit.
I always told myself I kept it out of guilt. But now I know the truth.
I miss her. That tiny girl. The one who used to follow me around the house, who thought I could fix anything. I miss being
someone she trusted. Someone she loved, despite me keeping her at arm’s length.
And now she might die.
I can finally see what I’ve wanted all along but buried under pride and pain: a relationship with her. Not out of guilt or
duty. Because I love her and want to be the kind of brother who deserves her.
I long for the friendship she had with Beau—the ease, the laughter. I want to go back, reach into the past, and be kind to
the baby, the girl I pushed away, the woman I left. I want to live up to the name she once gave me: “Griff the Great.”
I must donate. But how?
Can I come clean? Can this fake priest—the one she’s unknowingly confessed to for months—finally make a confession of his
own? Is what we had mendable? For a few reckless hours, I imagine it. Telling her everything. Explaining why I did it. Owning
the damage. And then offering my kidney.
But the image buckles under the weight of reality. If I confess, to her, to the world, it will only hurt her more. It’s not
the public fallout that troubles me now. Let them scrub my name off the wall, dump my cookbooks in the bin, slice me from
the TV archives like I was never there. I’ve already lost the one thing worth keeping.
What matters is Lisa, and the truth would break her, maybe irrevocably. Knowing I faked it, that I let her suffer while I
played at being absent . . . she’d grieve all over again. Relive every hurt twice, pouring salt on wounds she’s just begun
to close. She may not accept my kidney. Even if she did, she should never have to feel like she owes me gratitude or forgiveness—I
don’t deserve either.
So I’ll stay quiet. Not for me anymore. For Lisa.
What matters now is giving her my kidney, but I have to do it while sparing her the awful truth.
Maybe there’s a way to donate anonymously.
Or maybe I’ll have to revisit The Death Menu—a final gesture, done quietly.
Either way, I can’t be the reason she suffers again. Rewinding the tape, I listen to Beau’s
voice message once more. He recorded it before he knew what I’d done. He asked me to be kind.
Mum taught me that kindness isn’t always truth, showing me how to carry things in silence, for Lisa’s sake. This is just one
more thing I can hold, so my little sister doesn’t have to. If this is the only way I can love her now, the only piece of
myself I can give, then let it be enough.
“I’ll do it, Beau,” I whisper. “I’ll be there for her.” Medically, at least. This way, she gets to live. Not as someone’s
burden or someone’s punishment, but as someone worth saving. Worth seeing.
Even if I’m never seen again.