Three weeks with my brother - Nicholas Sparks [87]
My brother and I did our best to continue our relationship with each other and our independent lives. Micah moved steadily forward in his real estate career; and my small business—I manufactured orthopedic wrist braces, primarily for carpal tunnel syndrome—was slowly getting off the ground. Like most young people, I thought I knew far more than I actually did about running a business, and soon accumulated credit card debts that greatly exceeded our combined annual income. Despite the fact that I had been working day and night for months, it was touch and go as to whether Cat and I could meet our obligations, and we wondered how we’d ever stay afloat. In our first year of marriage, we’d been tested in every way; Cat and I were lucky that it only served to bring us closer together.
In the hardest moments—when I wondered how I’d be able to pay the rent or put food on the table—I turned to Micah. He would treat me to pizza and beer, and we’d talk. In the end, we decided to sell the two rental houses we’d purchased earlier. The profit on both was enough for Cat and me to climb out of debt, and I gradually began to turn the corner in making my small company profitable. However, I still had to wait tables and my wife had to work as well, simply to make ends meet.
Micah, meanwhile, continued to make life seem easy. He dated, had fun on the weekends, and excelled at his job. When Cathy and I went out in the evenings with him, we would always wonder who he’d bring along this time. Most of the women barely knew him, yet they seemed as enamored of him as I was with Cathy. Yet, if he was doing well on the surface, he was struggling beneath the facade, weighed down by our dad. Dad was still having a hard time, and Micah had assumed the mantle of leadership in our family. Because dad talked to him more than to either Dana or me, Micah alone seemed to understand the depth of my father’s grief. One evening in the summer of 1990, when Micah and I were out together, I couldn’t help but notice that he seemed especially preoccupied.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I’m worried about dad.”
Though I was worried, too, I knew my reasons were different from his. With me, dad acted irrationally; with Micah, he seemed completely rational. Neither seemed normal.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because he’s not getting over mom. It’s been almost nine months, but he still cries himself to sleep at night. And he’s been getting edgier, too.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“And then, you know he’s still wearing black, but it’s worse now. He got rid of his entire wardrobe and replaced it, so that everything he owns now is black. And he never leaves the house anymore, except to go to work. I know he misses mom, but we all do. And mom would want him to be happy, even without her. She’d want him to be strong.”
“What do you think we should do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want Cathy and me to try to talk to him?”
Though I knew he wouldn’t listen to me, he was becoming more dependent on my wife’s company.
“It won’t do any good. I’ve tried. I’ve invited him over, but he never comes. And he doesn’t want to go anywhere when I visit him. Does he ever go over to see you and Cat at your apartment?”
“No.”
Micah shook his head. “He shouldn’t close himself off from the world. That’s only going to make it worse. It’s only going to make him feel more alone.”
“Do you tell him that?”
“All the time.”
“What does he say?”
“He says he’s doing fine.”
As the anniversary of my mom’s death approached, my dad slowly began emerging from the self-imposed shell he’d constructed around himself. Though he still wore black, Micah, Dana, and I had talked him into joining us in learning country dancing, and the evenings out seemed to revive him. Slowly but surely, he became more