6/1
I’m Nessa, and I’m an alcoholic. I’ve been sober six years, four months, and thirteen days.
It’s not so much that I don’t want Isabeau to know I have an older brother as it is thinking about him hurts. I miss my brother. He and I went through a lot of harrowing, hilarious shit together. He really is the one responsible for my obsession with music in virtually all its forms. The concerts we saw. He started me on a steady diet of excellent, weird, wonderful music from the time I made it out to LA.
He would be so envious to know I have this show. He’s the one who should have it. Everything I know I learned from him. It’s only fair.
I’ve kept up with him and my mom via the Internet, been able to watch them from afar. Brandon’s on Facebook, without any privacy settings, so I get to stalk his newsfeed all the time. He looks a lot different, but so do I. He’s puffier, more sickly looking. I wonder if the cancer has come back.
I often daydream about reuniting with him after Mom passes away, laughing together over the greatest goof of all time. He’s always been a very forgiving person—-how else could he still be living with Mom at the age of twenty--eight? I would blame his type 1 diabetes and all the shit the whole family went through because of that, but there are plenty of successful diabetics out there who aren’t completely dependent on their moms.
But Joyce convinced him of two things very early on: that he can’t live without her, and that he owes his very life to her. In a way, he does. Credit where credit’s due. Maybe it would have been different if my dad hadn’t traded us all in for newer models, a younger, better family, and moved on. Mom always said that Brandon was half her and half our dad. Brown hair from Mom, height from Dad. One blue eye from Mom, one brown eye from Dad. Good from Mom. Bad from Dad.
She said I was all Dad. No surprise there.
Brandon was all good because his biggest goal in life was always to please Joyce. Make sure she didn’t get mad, make sure he was always telling her how pretty she was, talented, etc.
Judging from his Facebook feed, he’s still that way. Always posting memes like If you have the greatest mother in the world, hit Like! Share this if your mom is Your Whole World! Crap like that. It makes my skin crawl.
Brandon never stopped being desperate for Mom’s approval. By the time we were teenagers, I held him in contempt. When we were fighting, I’d call him pussy, mama’s boy, tell him he was going to grow breasts if he didn’t break up with her.
After Dad left, when Mom was between boyfriends, she’d treat Brandon like he was her surrogate husband. I remember one time she wanted him to paint her toenails the way Kevin Costner did Susan Sarandon’s in Bull Durham. Creepy as hell. Of course, I didn’t understand this at the time, when I was young. I just knew something wasn’t quite right in our house.
Which is why I’ve done everything I can to make Daltrey’s home as freak--show free as possible, but John fucked all that up. And I hate myself because I still love him, even though I hate him for what he’s done, for how he’s destroyed our family. Because it’s stirred up my abandonment issues like a stick beating a hornet’s nest.
NESSA’S EYES DRIFTED to the clock on her laptop, and she realized that she only had twenty minutes to get ready before Daltrey’s pediatrician appointment. Crap. She drained her coffee cup, put it in the dishwasher, and went upstairs to shower.
Forty--five minutes later, Daltrey sat on the floor of the examining room and played with a wire, string, and bead contraption while Nessa flipped through a magazine without really seeing it.
After a quick knock, Dr. Blatter rushed in and washed her hands.
“Hello, Mrs. Donati,” she said as she dried off with paper towels. “And how are you, Daltrey?”
He touched his thumb to his chest, fingers extended. ASL for “fine.”
Dr. Blatter looked at the file folder the nurse had left for her and said, “What are we seeing you about today?”
“Well, I thought we could do a lead poisoning test,” Nessa said, embarrassed but determined. This was her latest pathetic attempt at turning the blame away from herself for Daltrey’s muteness.
“How long have you been in the house?” Dr. Blatter said.
“Nine months.”
“We can do that, but I really don’t think that’s what’s—-”
“And another hearing test, if you don’t mind,” Nessa said.
“I doubt his hearing has changed since the last one—-when was it? Three months ago?”
“I know, but—-”
“There’s nothing wrong with his hearing, and I really doubt he has lead poisoning. Didn’t you say the inspector tested for lead in the house and it was clean?”
“Yes, but—-”
Dr. Blatter sat down on her rolling stool. “Mrs. Donati, Einstein didn’t speak until he was five. He was too busy thinking to talk.”
“That’s a myth,” Nessa said. Today the folksy country doctor bit was irritating the shit out of her.