“Greenland? The Arctic Circle? You?” he snorted. “You’ve never been out of Massachusetts.”
My voice got small. “I went on that trip to DC. In high school.”
“Oh, yes. DC. When you refused to get on the plane home? I had to leave work, drive down to pick you up, then drive you all the way back.”
I felt helpless and sad. What good did it do to tell him I’d been on a plane a few times since then—miserable and zonked out—but showing up for exactly one wedding and one funeral before scuttling back home like a hermit crab to its shell? No one had to remind me of my shortcomings, especially my father. I knew which twin had been the favorite, the most charismatic, charming, funny, brave.
But I was the one left alive.
“Dad, I’m just telling you what he said. Of course I can’t go. I’ve got school, and I’ve got…” I trailed off pitifully. What did I have? No husband, no children, just my father, and my rage-aholic ex, Matt. After our breakup and a few months of reveling in my conviction that I’d done the right thing, I’d begun to miss him and come frighteningly close to drunk dialing. But thanks to Facebook, a few taps of my wine-sodden fingers and there he was, hooked up with some hard-looking blonde with an endless forehead. Work was weird, too—a sabbatical freed me from upcoming fall and spring semesters to work on a project I had, over time, grown to care less and less about. Translating a series of books of Aramaic poetry had lit me up when I applied for the gig months before Andy’s death; now, the idea of spending six months dragging meaning from the texts—which tilted a bit heavy on love poems—felt tedious. I had a great sucking nothing keeping me here, except visits with my father, or coffees with Andy’s bereaved fiancée, Sasha, but I felt her pulling away too. Each time she saw me, she saw Andy, which only cut her to ribbons.
Dad sank deeper in his chair, his long-fingered hands forming a steeple against his forehead. “Something’s going on.”
“Yeah, well, clearly—”
“No, Val, listen to me.” His voice grew deep and gravelly. “Wyatt is up to something, and it has to do with your brother. I know it. I’m sure of it. He’s a wily son of a bitch.” He levered himself to his feet, his reedy length swaying back and forth until he grabbed his walker.
This resentment over Wyatt’s closeness with Andy was not a new theme with my dad. Sure, he’d been grateful when Andy’s prof had helped him navigate graduate school, keeping on him to finish assignments on time （Andy couldn’t have cared less what day it was）， relentlessly mentoring him until, one fine day, Andy earned a doctorate in climate science. Everyone in the restaurant at his graduation dinner could feel their affection for each other. Teacher and student acted like father and son.
Which was the problem.
“Come on.” My father’s face grew rigid with determination. “We’re going for a walk.”
Hunched over his walker, he clomped his boxy orthotic shoes down the brightly lit hallway, his sharp shoulder blades slicing at his thin summer shirt like the wings of an extinct bird. I grabbed my purse and followed. At the door, he turned to me and—even though I wanted to—I couldn’t look away. For just a moment, all the rage, grief, and despair I couldn’t bear to feel was etched into his once-handsome face. His son, his heart—the boy who melted him in ways I never could—had taken his own life, and only I was left.
I matched his halting pace out the double doors into the brutal heat, where we made our way along a manicured sidewalk under drooping elms, their slender leaves curled with thirst. Summer on the North Shore of Boston, unrelieved by any trace of rain or sea breeze.
“You know, Val, that I don’t believe your brother killed himself.”
“Yes, Dad. But what are you saying?”
The lines of his face drew tight with rage.
“Dad, it’s too hot for this—”
He banged his walker on the concrete, devolving into a coughing fit. “Your brother,” he said, pausing to catch his breath, “was not depressed. He was not the type—”
“How can you say that, Dad? Of course he was depressed. He’d been depressed for years. You didn’t know him—”
“I knew him!” he shouted, blinking, spitting droplets in the sizzling air. His eyes grew wet. The little girl visiting her grandma looked up in alarm. “Andy was my son, and I knew him, and I loved him.”
I rested my hand on his heartbreakingly thin forearm. “I know, Dad. I know.”