The Good One

I rarely talk about my brother here on the blog. He's a good guy, but we've drifted apart. We're so very different.

When we were growing up, my brother was always the good one.

He was the one who never got in trouble, whose room was always clean, and who helped around the house. He was an Eagle Scout, dressed conservatively, and barely dated. I was in trouble all the time, I had to clear a path in my room just to get to my bed, and I had to be threatened to complete chores. I played sports, dressed to attract boys, and slept with those boys whenever I got the chance.

He studied hard and got good grades. I barely studied at all and got good grades.

He chose a college near our hometown so he could live at home. I got the hell out of dodge as soon as possible.

He married a local girl from a good family and bought a house in our home town. I married a military guy from a crazy family and moved 3,000 miles away.

For a brief time, when I had my daughter, I was the good one, because I had provided a grandchild. But days after she was born, my brother called to say that his wife was pregnant. With twins. How could I compete with that? (Not that I ever wanted to.)

But over the next few years, things shifted.

My parents discovered that my brother had married a bit of a control freak. (Which is my way of trying to avoid using the B word.) And he would let her be absolutely awful to my family. His twins turned out to be brats. And by the time they had their third kid, they were using my parents for childcare and totally taking them for granted.

So for about five years, I've been the good one. I may be keeping my kids way too far away from "home", but we've made sure that they've developed a very strong bond to their grandparents.

Being the good one was a novel feeling.

But then...well, first I made some friends over the Internet. And those friends were mostly male. Shocking!

Then we invited one of these friends to stay in our summer house. (Actually, my husband issued that invite, but they seem to have ignored that fact.) The summer house that my parents had been expecting to make a lot of use of. But they couldn't just come and go with that kid staying there. (Umm, that kid is a thirty-five-year-old man, but okay.) And then they found out that kid was G-A-Y! More shocking still!

But the topper happened over the holidays.

They came to visit and assured me that they would only stay for a few days. But since the kids were very ill, and they weren't able to spoil the hell out of them...Excuse me. I meant to say, spend quality time with them. They decided they wanted to stay longer.

When I told them that I was heading to New York for New Years, well...

Now my husband is the good one. He hasn't pissed them off or disappointed them. They call and talk to him and never even ask for me.

And you know what? I'm fine with it. Because after twenty some-odd-years of being the bad one, it's a more comfortable place for me to be.

Besides, my parents need me to keep them on their toes. If it wasn't for me, they'd never learn anything new.

*****

My mother called me last night to tell me that a good friend of my brother's had died unexpectedly in his sleep. They had gone to high school and college together and had worked for the same company for over 13 years.

My brother is 36-years-old.

I know that this should make me feel something.

I should feel like I've wasted years feeling apathetic about my brother and his life. I should feel a strong need to call him and reconnect. I should feel a sense of shock and loss and grief, not for a man I hardly knew, but for my brother's sake. I should feel that life is precious and short.

I don't feel anything.

Have I spent so many years building up my defenses against the good one, that I feel nothing for him anymore?

I am a good, caring, loving person. In fact, I have been told by people I love and trust that I am the most caring person they have ever known.

So why don't I care about my brother?