Three Weeks With My Brother

In time, my dad began to act as if he despised me; if I asked if he needed help doing his budget, he accused me of trying to steal from him. If I cleaned up the house, he accused me of thinking he was not only helpless but a slob. If I dropped our cocker spaniel off at the house while I worked--something Cat and I had been doing since we got her--he accused me of taking advantage of him. When Cat and I visited, there were many evenings where he refused to talk to me at all; instead, he'd joke and laugh with my wife in the kitchen while I sat alone in the living room. This dynamic only grew worse over time.

I knew he didn't hate me, that he was hurting inside, struggling even more than we kids were. I knew that his anger and pain had to go somewhere, and that deep down he loved me despite the words he said and the way he'd begun to treat me. Yet even if I understood what was going on, I nonetheless sought comfort in Cathy's arms, wondering aloud what I'd done to deserve his hostility.

My brother and I did our best to continue our relationship with each other and our independent lives. Micah moved steadily forward in his real estate career; and my small business--I manufactured orthopedic wrist braces, primarily for carpal tunnel syndrome--was slowly getting off the ground. Like most young people, I thought I knew far more than I actually did about running a business, and soon accumulated credit card debts that greatly exceeded our combined annual income. Despite the fact that I had been working day and night for months, it was touch and go as to whether Cat and I could meet our obligations, and we wondered how we'd ever stay afloat. In our first year of marriage, we'd been tested in every way; Cat and I were lucky that it only served to bring us closer together.

In the hardest moments--when I wondered how I'd be able to pay the rent or put food on the table--I turned to Micah. He would treat me to pizza and beer, and we'd talk. In the end, we decided to sell the two rental houses we'd purchased earlier. The profit on both was enough for Cat and me to climb out of debt, and I gradually began to turn the corner in making my small company profitable. However, I still had to wait tables and my wife had to work as well, simply to make ends meet.

Micah, meanwhile, continued to make life seem easy. He dated, had fun on the weekends, and excelled at his job. When Cathy and I went out in the evenings with him, we would always wonder who he'd bring along this time. Most of the women barely knew him, yet they seemed as enamored of him as I was with Cathy. Yet, if he was doing well on the surface, he was struggling beneath the facade, weighed down by our dad. Dad was still having a hard time, and Micah had assumed the mantle of leadership in our family. Because dad talked to him more than to either Dana or me, Micah alone seemed to understand the depth of my father's grief. One evening in the summer of 1990, when Micah and I were out together, I couldn't help but notice that he seemed especially preoccupied.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"I'm worried about dad."

Though I was worried, too, I knew my reasons were different from his. With me, dad acted irrationally; with Micah, he seemed completely rational. Neither seemed normal.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because he's not getting over mom. It's been almost nine months, but he still cries himself to sleep at night. And he's been getting edgier, too."

I didn't know what to say.

"And then, you know he's still wearing black, but it's worse now. He got rid of his entire wardrobe and replaced it, so that everything he owns now is black. And he never leaves the house anymore, except to go to work. I know he misses mom, but we all do. And mom would want him to be happy, even without her. She'd want him to be strong."

"What do you think we should do?"

"I don't know."

"Do you want Cathy and me to try to talk to him?"

Though I knew he wouldn't listen to me, he was becoming more dependent on my wife's company.

"It won't do any good. I've tried. I've invited him over, but he never comes. And he doesn't want to go anywhere when I visit him. Does he ever go over to see you and Cat at your apartment?"

"No."

Micah shook his head. "He shouldn't close himself off from the world. That's only going to make it worse. It's only going to make him feel more alone."

"Do you tell him that?"

"All the time."

"What does he say?"

"He says he's doing fine."

As the anniversary of my mom's death approached, my dad slowly began emerging from the self-imposed shell he'd constructed around himself. Though he still wore black, Micah, Dana, and I had talked him into joining us in learning country dancing, and the evenings out seemed to revive him. Slowly but surely, he became more like his old self; even with me, he no longer seemed nearly as bitter.

Somehow, it seemed, we'd survived the first year without our mother.

Later that autumn, Cathy and I learned that she was pregnant, and like all anxious parents-to-be, we began making preparations for the baby while we awaited the moment we could first see our baby on the ultrasound.

Cathy threw herself into the pregnancy. She watched everything she ate, exercised, and learned to live with morning sickness before she went to work. Her skin began to take on the flushed glow of an expectant mother. We called our friends and family; everyone, including my dad, was thrilled with the news. In fact, dad was happier than we'd seen him in a long, long time.

When Cat was twelve weeks along, we visited the medical clinic for the ultrasound. In the room, I held Cat's hand as the technician applied the gel and ran the scope over my wife's belly.

"There it is," the technician said quickly, and both Cathy and I stared at the screen in wonder.

The image was tiny, of course, and looked nothing like a baby. A peanut, maybe, but not a baby. Still, it was our first glance, and Cathy squeezed my hand and smiled.

The nurse continued to move the scope, trying to get a better picture; within a few moments, both Cathy and I saw the technician frown.

"What is it?" Cathy asked.

"I'm not sure yet," the technician answered. She forced a smile. "Could you excuse me for a moment?" The technician got up and left the room.

We didn't know what to make of it; we had no idea whether this was normal or unexpected. A couple of minutes later, the doctor came in.

"Is anything wrong?" Cathy asked.

"Let me take a look," the doctor said. For a moment, as the technician began working the scope, we watched them both staring at the screen. The technician pointed and whispered something to the doctor. He whispered something back. Neither would answer our questions; in time, the technician rose and left the room. The doctor looked serious.

"Something's wrong, isn't it?" Cathy asked.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But we can't find a heartbeat."

Cat burst into tears; eventually, I led her from the office. Our baby had died, just as my mother had, for no apparent reason at all. A few days later, Cat had a D&C. In the wheelchair after the procedure, all she could do was wipe her tears; there was nothing I could say to ease her pain.

Later, in Micah's arms, I cried as well.

Cat and I spent the next few months worrying about the possibility of becoming parents. We didn't know how long it would take for her to get pregnant again, nor did we know whether she could carry a baby to term. We'd been told that miscarriages were common; everyone seemed to know someone who'd had one and tried to console us with the thought that everything would be fine in the long run. We knew they meant well, we knew what they were saying was true. But we also were well acquainted with the other kind of story, the kind where things didn't work out, and to Cat, the thought of never becoming a mother was unbearable. Another hard Christmas came and went, and on my birthday, when I turned twenty-five, my sister called to sing me "Happy Birthday." When she asked me what I wanted, I could think of only one thing to say.

Our prayers were answered again in late January 1991, but we kept the news to ourselves this time. We didn't want a repeat of what had happened before, but in April we learned the baby w

as developing normally and finally shared the good news. Cathy's belly grew over the summer, and she spent hours looking through baby-name books and reading What to Expect When You're Expecting.

Yet the stresses of life seemed to keep coming, one after the other, without relief. Despite working two jobs--three if you count Cat's job--we were still struggling financially, unable to get ahead. Cat had health insurance through her employer, one that covered maternity, but in early summer, while she was five months along, she was laid off. When our cocker spaniel puppy reached twenty pounds, we were evicted from our apartment and had to find a new place to live. Our one car broke down completely, and the only car we could afford as a replacement was thirteen years old and had a hundred thousand miles on the odometer. The IRS decided to audit both my business and my personal tax returns concerning the previous three years; though I would eventually be cleared completely, the stress of working two jobs while collecting the necessary documents--they wanted receipts for everything--added to an already difficult summer.