But are you happy?
I went to the hospital to see mom this evening, she’s heavily sedated with an amnesia like drug so a lot of what happens now is happening in abeyance, but I still think it is important to touch her and tell her I love her. My brother met me there and then followed me to her apartment to help water her plants and pick up her mail and newspapers.
We sat down and got caught up about a myriad of things and in particular some mysteries within the family structure that he wanted some clarity on. When I told him my version of the events – in ’05 my oldest niece got on her soapbox and raked me over the coals for having an affair, citing that it ‘could have been her’ (old Rachel didn’t respond to her because she felt bad for the fear her niece felt); later that same year, on a day when the dark clouds had momentarily lifted and I was enjoying an evening with my family, the same niece’s husband, Mark, under some delusion thought I was coming onto him because I squeezed his arm when I said goodbye (old Rachel didn’t want to tell him that there was a snowball’s chance in hell that I had even noticed him), then in ’06 when her younger sister, my other niece, Lara, had her baby my good friend had hers at the same time, both with the same name, and when I offered to be Aunt Rachel to my great niece and was met with indifference, my friend, meanwhile, needed a lot of help. Her daughter was born with a rare genetic disease, and this little one sadly lived only two years.
My brother said, “Yikes!” and I said, “So I was going through a lot and I never did go back and address any of this with Dana on the soapbox and Mark, the cretin, and I let the distance between me and Lara grow because of the pull towards my friend and her situation.”
He said, “Are you happy?”
And I said, “Thoroughly happy except for the obvious.”
He said, “Then fuck them.”