HOME ALONE 2

[UPDATED WITH AN ENDING...scroll down...]

Tucked away in my parents’ attic, and in the corners of their garage are boxes full of me. All sorts of foolishness with which I cant bear to part. Things that are essential, but that don’t belong in my every day grown up space.

They’re about all I have left that resemble home.

I don’t even ask my mother about her new house anymore. I’m too preoccupied with the disarray of the old one. The only one I ever lived in until I went away to college. The address that my family has owned for longer than I’ve been alive.

It takes me an hour and a few bucks on Air.tran to get home, yet I hadn’t been home for six months. Cuz it’s not really home anymore…

So you know I got two older brothers. Twins. There’s Boss of Me aka C-Boy. And there’s Anger Management. This kid is insane. And I love him to death. To this day people think he and I are the twins. We share our father’s forehead and our grandfather’s imposing eyes. He’s the one person in my family that I know would never ever judge me. He’s the one I call when I need someone on my side.

One day, a few weeks prior to Miami (bday trip. catch up!), he calls me. Needing someone on his side.

“Yo, I’m getting a divorce,” he says, always with the slightest awkward silent pause before knocking the wind out of me. His approach to bad news is a lot gentler than his twin’s, I notice.

“Oh.” I find that remaining neutral when someone is expecting a reaction is the cleaner, quicker way to uncovering their reaction.

“You took it a lot better than Mommy,” he says. My poor mother. The thought of her awake at night, alone in that big house, finds its way to the forefront of my mind, until I quickly sweep it away. Unequipped.

He goes on to tell me about how he actually left his house and has been staying with my mother. It only took all of a week for him to become indignant at the idea of him not living in the house for which he pays mortgage.

“Does Spider care?” I ask, of my 12-year old niece.

“I call her everyday and she says she wants to come stay with me wherever I go.” She’s a daddy’s girl and all, but what the hell do you expect her to say? She’s caught between two parents she adores and can easily con.

I should be more shocked, but I’m not. His relationship with his wife of almost ten years has always been complex. Not unlike our parents’ union. Our parents, who were married for 30+ years. I took for granted that there may not be a trickle down effect. I thought staying together forever even if you’re miserable was a part of the deal, part of our DNA. They say parents don’t have favorites, but in our fam we all know Anger Management gets top billing. So if anyone, I expected him to stick it out.

“It’s really bad, Gum. That’s why I can’t wait til Miami. I need to get the fuck away.”

“I feel you.” There’s a sadness and the hint of desperation in his voice. He could care less about being judged, but I’m the one he calls when he needs someone on his side. He’s my “twin.” No matter what, my home is his home.

“Well if you ever need to get away you know you can come hide out down here,” I say. “I keep a six-pack on deck.” This time there’s no signature pause. In fact, he barely skips a beat.

“Can I bring a friend?”

*

“This is the last time we’re going to discuss this,” I answered, and with it I expunged the image of my brother and some loose jump off bitch bunned up in my crib.

“I can’t bring a friend?” he asks again, this time a bit incredulous, but mostly full of mischievous. This annoys me to no end. First of all, he has never known me to indulge in mess. I don’t do it. And particularly not a family member’s mess. Anytime something goes down I revert to being the youngest child, banishing myself from the scene of grown folks’ talk. I am the family “Bennett.”

But it also pisses me off because he’s asking me to be ok with being uncomfortable, and that type of selfishness is only underneath the surface of his personality. He’s generally genuinely thoughtful and unintrusive.

“I’m out. I’ll talk to you in Miami,” I say, and hang up. Miami, though the scene of celebration for MY birthday, will be a respite of sorts for everyone but me.

“Gum, I want you to meet my friend.”

“No thank you.”

“Why not?”

“Because her being here is inappropriate, and I will tell her so.”

“Please don’t.”

“As a grown woman, she knows right from wrong. I expect this from you, but not from another grown woman.”

“I’m asking you to please say hello. That’s it. Her and her homegirl were planning to be here anyway so they decided to meet us.”

We lie to each other. That’s what siblings do. It’s not like friendships where honesty is mandatory. We thrive on being who the other knows us to be, not necessarily who we really are. The irony of course is that we know the absolute best and the painful worst of who we are and where we’ve been. Our essence. And maybe that’s why it’s a pain like no other.

But he could’ve lied better than this shit. At least show me some fucking respect and give me something elaborate, where I can at the very least commend you on the effort if not credibility. But this ngga is treating me like it’s my 13^th birthday and not my 31^ST.

I look her in the eye and shake her hand politely, then turn back to my drink and my friends. My friends, to whom I confided about the situation just minutes prior as I saw my brothers walking into the spot.

I won’t go into details about how within minutes of meeting me Jump Off Bitch was in my face about what time we were leaving for the Jay/Mary concert. About how little effort it took to I give her the most vacant blank stare I could muster in response. About how she sat in the row in front of me at the show, next to my brother, who seemed more calm and at peace than I’ve ever seen him. How she rode on the back of the motor bike with him. How there was no other homegirl. How we ended up in a cab together when I wasn’t nearly drunk enough. How I took covert pics of her to send to my sister.

“Are you serious? Wow,” she says. Technically she’s my sister in law – Boss of Me’s wife – but she and I are family. I called her the next day to vent, and she was blown away by the entire scenario. “I know they having problems but he aint outta the house yet, and they’re still married. I’m sorry you gotta deal with that, Wise.”

I sigh. She listens intently as I give her a rundown of the entire weekend. I tell her about how I had the first conversation with her husband, my brother, about his cancer. It was just after the concert and we were waiting on our rides, and he and I held hands and walked down the street alone, huddled together just talking.

“He’s going through something,” she says slightly subdued. “And I can’t reach him.”

“Well, that’s to be expected right?” I answer. “I mean, faced with your own mortality how are you supposed to act? I don’t know how I would.”

“I told him to move out.”

Tucked away in my parents’ attic, and in the corners of their garage are boxes full of me. They’re large and take up lots of space, but no amount of neat folding or concise packing would make room for my memories. Fond and foolish. It is where I grew up. Where I dreamed of leaving. It’s been a constant for me. The place I could always come back to no matter how far away my dreams took me. The place with the walls and voices and laughter and faces that would always feel familiar.

Those memories are about all I have left that resemble home.