thicker than water

I KNEW OF COURSE that it was a mistake to attend my sister's funeral, but when you have done so many mistakes already, does another one on top of the pile make any difference? Besides, the dreaded truth was doomed to be unraveled sooner or later. If it was any consolation for everyone involved, it happened on a day that was already expected to end in disaster. In a way, funerals are meant to be like that—the sheer awkwardness after the last shovel of earth sealed the dead, the ominous goodbyes among the bereaved as they return to their own empty homes.

Ann, my sister, had thought of everything. The coffin, in all its environmentalist glory, was the last of her cruel jokes. Pre-ordered one month after she gave birth to the baby and two weeks before she willfully drove her car off a cliff and into a ravine, it was made entirely of wood and devoid of even iron nails. It was her way of saying to me—her only brother—that she was determined to rot under the ground and disappear entirely, now that her revenge was beautifully done.

The whole family was present. Mother insisted on coming, despite my protests that she should spare herself from the stress. She has after all survived my Father’s death ten years ago. But she insisted that her little girl gets to be buried only once in her life. She would of course later regret her decision to come because of what was to be finally revealed to her.

There were also our cousins, aunts, uncles, and distant unknown relatives who were there only because of the intrigue stirred by Ann’s tragic demise. They all bawled theatrically at my sister’s first inch of descent into the hole in the ground, but Paul and I did not shed a single tear.

Paul remained silent throughout the ceremony because he was truly the victim in all of it, and only the truly wronged are capable of quiet sadness. As for me, I was (and still am), plain and simple, guilty.

All throughout the tedious ceremony, Paul protectively held the baby in his arms. When everything was done, he reluctantly gave me the baby and drove us home. To the outsider eye, the three of us made the ideal, strange, dysfunctional family, bound by grief and guilt.

I am writing all this down to explain to myself why.

≈≈≈

I remember the day I met Paul for the first time. It was a dull, ordinary day; as if we were characters in some novel or movie, and that this was supposed to be the day we would look back to and realize that it had changed our lives.

It was just after the last day of high school for me and several things preoccupied me endlessly that summer: the prospect of going to the state university, my plans to grow a beard and some muscles, the new porn rag under my bed, and Father’s hint of a “graduation gift.”

Meanwhile, Ann was going to be a senior in the following enrolment and she was beginning to show signs of becoming the strange, cunning woman that she eventually became. She also was starting to feel jealous whenever I went out with my friends, because I “no longer could find time for her.” Once, she had expressly forbidden me to go on dates.

Then came that hot summer morning when she said she wanted to go for a dip. “I will die of this infernal heat, if you don’t go on a swim with me,” she threatened. She lay splayed on my bed, still in her pajamas, while I was sitting by the window, reading Dean Koontz.

“Tell me how we can possibly do that,” I retorted, without looking up from the book, thinking that it was just one of her many momentary whims that I could fend off or ignore.

“We can go to Paul’s.”

“We don’t know any Paul. If we do, does he own a beach resort, by any chance?” I was getting impatient because I had been absorbed with my reading, until her boredom told her to invent this impromptu excursion.

“No, but his dad could buy one if he likes. That’s how filthy rich they are. You know Paul. You must do: tall, pale boy with braces, chauffeured everyday to the school by a big car. He also graduated this year, so you should really know him.”

“What has he got to do with us?” I asked, finally remembering the quiet boy who was fawned over by the whole school faculty including the school head. (Years later, I would remember this stupid question because Paul would eventually have “everything to do with us.”)

“They have a pool. And Paul and I are new friends. He was inviting me to drop by at their house sometime this week anyway. Get up, get your clothes, we’re giving him a surprise,” she rattled incessantly, as she jumped from my bed and went out of my room to harass Mother so she could let us go. Accepting defeat, I got up, packed a small bag of clothes and towels, and gave Paul a surprise.

I should never have allowed Ann this one symptom of her insanity, but I guess it is useless now to regret choices in the past, because the things that happened at Paul’s house had happened, and the consequences are now beyond repair. Childish games and illicit love—they’re a lethal mix.

≈≈≈

Writing all this down tires me—the attempt to reconcile causes and effects and the effort to play down everything by telling everything with humor and nonchalance. I have always kept my sanity through understatements. But sometimes, something like melancholy seeps through the barrier and soon, I am flooded.

At Ann’s funeral, I wore ordinary clothes, while everyone else wore appropriate black and white, including Paul. I avoided profuse condolences and while the priest muttered his interminable verses, I went on small breaks to smoke a few respectful meters away from the small crowd. It was during one of these cigarette breaks, when Paul approached me.

“Adam, can’t you be at least decent just this one time? Just this one time, for a change,” he confronted me angrily. In his arms, the baby slept soundly.

“I’m smoking—bad for the baby,” I told him, while I lighted another stick. I looked away from him and noticed that the churchly ministrations to my sister’s mangled remains were done. Mother was approaching us, hobbling toward us with her trusty walking stick. She shouted weakly to us to come back inside the makeshift tent, her hand shielding her eyes from the vicious morning sun.

“Let’s go, Adam. Please,” Paul pleaded.

“Fine. Okay. Let me hold him for a while so you could rest.” I offered my arms so he could shift the baby to me, but he stepped back instinctively.

“No, he’s fine with me,” he said, without looking at me.

We were just in that awkward situation when Mother caught up with us: me offering my arms, Paul stepping back out of resentful mistrust. Embarrassed, I also looked away and continued smoking.

“We were already serving some refreshments,” Mother said, meaning the burial was done. When neither of us said anything, the old woman looked at the baby and tickled its chin. Then with all her ancient wisdom and maternal intuition, she said: “Look at him. The little one looks just like Ann. He even looks more like you, Adam, now that I think about it.”

Paul blushed in utter humiliation, but fixed his gaze on a far away tree. “Yes, he looks just like Ann and Adam,” he said, faking a little innocent laugh to forestall the unexpected turn of the conversation.

But the bitterness in his voice did not escape Mother, whose long years had given her the gift of reading into words and gestures, gleaning the truth from lies and pretenses. Then she caught my eye and I could not lie to her. “Yes, he looks just like me and Ann,” I said.

That sunny morning, with her beautiful daughter just buried, and in the company of her wayward son and quiet son-in-law, she broke into mournful tears, finally realizing the truth. She wept inconsolably, her weak frame wracked by her sobs.

Paul and I made no move to soothe her, or explain, or assure her that everything will be fine. We watched her crying alone under the sun while the both of us waged our own inside, private battles.

≈≈≈

I could have sworn that the day of the funeral was just like the day we went to Paul’s house for the first time. I would not even put it past my sister to have planned the funeral on the same month. She was smart, though not wise, beyond her years, and her plans never go awry.

When we finally arrived at Paul’s, I did not hide my astonishment at how big the “house” was, but Ann seemed to expect everything. We were taken care of by one of the uniformed maids and were told to wait in what appeared to be the living room. Paul greeted us with what I would later call his trademark shyness; though at that instant, his shyness was only due to the fact that his family’s undisguised wealth embarrassed him and not yet due to his attraction to me.

For Paul was drawn to me, from the very beginning. Ann knew this and she used the situation for her own purposes. In a way, Paul also took advantage of Ann’s schemes, because he was the only son of a rich couple, and his parents naturally expected grandchildren, upon which they could foist their money. But in the end, though, Paul only became involved in all the mess, because he decided that day that I am cute.

All throughout that day, when we finally attacked the pool, I would often catch Paul’s stolen stares at my skimpy trunks, and Ann, noticing, would smile in her own mischievous way. Over lunch (for Paul insisted that we spend the whole day with him), Ann announced to me suddenly that Paul was actually her new boyfriend. “He has been hitting on me for a very long time now and we were just looking for the prefect time to tell you, Adam,” she lied, taking Paul’s nervous hand and stroking it for show.

Panic was obviously on Paul’s face, but he did not say anything, preferring to wait for my reaction. Ann was also eagerly waiting for me to say something, and in her eyes, I realized that she wanted me to disapprove. She was challenging me with her little game, and she wanted me to be angry. I should have given her what she wanted, but I didn’t.

“I knew there’s something with all this. All this trouble of introducing me to your nice friend here,” I lied, smiling.

“Well, at least now you know,” she said neutrally and kissed Paul’s blushing cheeks.

Again I should have never let Ann have her way that day when Paul became her new “boyfriend.” Years later, I also should never have let Ann continue with her childish game and marry Paul eventually. I should never have let her marry anybody.

≈≈≈

Always I would look at the baby as the ultimate and unfortunate result of everything. Ann had named him Andrew for no particular reason other than the name starts with the same letter as both of ours do. I love Andrew more than anything in the world but I would also hate him as he grows up, quite unfair but he would forever be Ann’s reminder of my weakness and cowardice.

For better or worse, Ann has left me and Paul in joint custody of Andrew. It was her ultimate revenge that Paul and I would both care for the poor baby who would later grow to be a permanently sickly child.

I remember the day before Ann and Paul’s wedding. She stormed in my dingy apartment crying and begging me to tell her to back out from the marriage. She was already pregnant with Abby at that time and I was worried that something bad might happen to her and the baby. I told her to spend the night with me and phone Paul, which she did.

I tried to calm her by talking to her. I told her that it was too late and that it would be best for her to start a family with a decent guy like Paul whom he trusts completely.

“Me with a family, with Paul?” she asked me incredulously.

“You will soon have a baby and he needs a father and a mother.”

She silently stared at me with hate and disbelief. “Over my dead body, Adam.”

We were in my bedroom and the yellow lamplight made her face look tired. She smelled of mingled perfume and sweat. I remember that she said it with such fierceness of will, with such finality, and my greatest mistake perhaps was to assume that it was again just one of her passing unusual statements.

As always, it turned out, I was wrong. And Ann, my sweet girl, was right. ≈≈≈