More Happy Than Not

Mom appears from her room, but stays silent.

“What’s that?” Eric asks.

“Something I need to do for myself.”

“That’s not a surprise—” He stops himself and takes a deep breath. “I’m going to shut up and be a good brother and not talk to you until I’m sure you won’t remember.”

Low blow. “Fuck you. Say it now and don’t hide behind my amnesia. You owe me that.”

“Okay. I’m game,” Eric says, his grip on my arm tightening, his eyes ablaze. “You’re selfish, Aaron. You used a cheat code to make life easier without thinking about how it would affect us. We’ve had to watch you walk around like a zombie. You did this to yourself, okay?”

I stare back at him. “Maybe I wouldn’t have raced to forget myself if you made me feel more comfortable with who I am instead of giving me shit for choosing girl characters in video games.”

“I never gave a flying fuck about any of that. They were just jokes. I thought you were tough enough to handle them. I’m sorry!” His words, his apology, take us all back, himself included. The last time I saw him this red was when we told him what happened to our father. So it’s no surprise he adds: “You stopped being your own man to please someone who abandoned us.”

“He committed suicide because of me. Not you.”

“Baby, he didn’t kill himself because of you,” Mom finally jumps in. “Your father had it rough and—”

“Stop it! When he was arrested, I thought we were finally safe from him. And then he came home and . . .” I’m crying, but I’m happy that I can remember when the tears started falling: it was when I admitted his absence was a good thing.

That shuts them up.

Shuts me up too because I now understand why they threw away all his stuff. They always knew better.

“You messed up,” Eric says. But his voice softens, and there’s something different in his eyes. It’s sympathy. He turns to Mom, rapping his knuckles against the wall with his free hand, his other hand still gripping me. Our father rapped his knuckles against the wall like that once when he was pissed we wouldn’t go downstairs to get him a slice of pizza from Yolanda’s. Then he punched a hole in it. I feel something like hope, just because of the fact I remembered. “You should’ve never signed off on that procedure,” he says to Mom.

Mom looks back and forth between us, like she’s just been outed for a crime. “I was trying to save your brother—”

“No,” Eric snaps. “This is about you and losing control of your family. You treated Aaron like he would’ve been helpless without this procedure and look where that’s landed him!”

I wrench myself free of Eric’s grasp. Maybe he has cracked. Maybe he had some things he wanted to forget too. Maybe he wasn’t quite right in the head either after our father committed suicide in the same bathtub where he bathed us.

In this moment, I know Eric is not going to grow up to be like our father. He loves us. He should’ve been paid the same attention from not only our mom, but from me, too. I never asked him how he was doing.

Mom catches herself in the grimy hallway mirror. Maybe she’s really seeing herself now. She’s lost so much weight these past few months, maybe twenty or thirty pounds. Eric leans back against the wall and slides down, “This isn’t about me being jealous of you, Aaron. Maybe I am a little bit. But I agree that we’re better off without him.”

I’m tempted to reach down and take his hand, but I don’t.

He looks up at me.

“Remember when we had trouble beating the last few levels of Zelda? We pooled our allowances and bought the walk-through guide to help us out.” He softly adds, “You should’ve asked for help before cheating.”

Sometimes pain is so unmanageable that the idea of spending another day with it seems impossible. Other times pain acts as a compass to help you get through the messier tunnels of growing up. But the pain can only help you find happiness if you can remember it.

“Do we still have anything that belonged to Dad?” I ask. And then the box is in my hand. It’s not even half full, just a couple of old sweaters and track sneakers. Eric opens the door for me without a fight, and he and Mom both follow me to the garbage chute down the hall. I cling to every detail. This will make for a memory. And despite everything, I can’t help but hesitate when I think back to the days where my father wasn’t a monster. Then I turn the box over and everything thumps down the chute until it’s quiet.

In school I once read about gypsies and how they grieved for loved ones by covering all the mirrors in their caravan for as long as they needed. Sometimes days, sometimes weeks, sometimes months, and in rare cases, years. As of now, we’re done covering the mirrors. Together we’ve searched the apartment for any last scrap of him we don’t want.

Eric puts on his sneakers after we get back inside the apartment. Without looking at me, he says, “If it’s worth anything to you, I’m sorry for everything I ever said.” I want to thank him for swallowing his pride, but he quickly adds, “So where are we going?”

“What?”

“You said you have shit to do, right? Mom’s not going to let you go alone.”

I don’t remember saying that, but I do have shit to do. I have four people to see, four goodbyes to make. I keep my head low and let my brother follow me out so I can strike names off this bucket list of mine.

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