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S O M E T I M E S I AC T C R A Z Y
a lot of emotional baggage, but it’s mostly carry-on. Dad worked hard. Mom was home with me and Julie. Julie was the apple of her eye, my mom’s pet. But that was okay. I really didn’t mind that much. My sister was beautiful. A lot changed when she got sick. She had some kind of lymphoma. She went through all sorts of damn treatments, which, of course, only made her sicker. Yet through it all, she kept this calm, angelic smile. I remember when Julie was dying, Mom was holding her in the hospital bed and I just stood there in the corner, afraid to get too close, afraid she would somehow infect me. She lay there, stroking my mom’s hair, telling her not to worry, she would be okay. The poor kid was suffering so, but there she was—spending her dying energies trying to comfort us. I guess that all affected me. I mean, I cried some, but I couldn’t come close to my mom’s wailing. I remember missing Julie and wishing she’d come back to play with me. But after a while I wasn’t bothered that much. I knew I should have felt bad, but I didn’t. After a while I just felt guilty because I didn’t feel bad. Mom drank a lot after she died, and I had to take care of her sometimes, especially when a hangover kept her in bed all day. She and Dad argued more, but then it was like they’d look at me and figure, Oh, God, we still have to take care of him! It was a pretty confusing time. Along with her booze, I became mother’s little helper. After she and Dad would fight, I was assigned to comfort her. They both expected it. Dad would storm out and knew that by the time he returned, I’d quiet her down. I would explain Dad’s argument to her a lot better than he did, and she became less hostile. Then I would sit Dad down and explain how he shouldn’t go running out like that, hurting Mom’s feelings and all. I remember him looking down as I talked, ashamed, like a chastised little boy. The worst part of it was that they used my sister as the final wound. Each would blame the other for doing something or not doing something that might have made Julie better. I hated them using her memory like that. But she remained a ghost in our house the whole time I was growing up. Their fights were really stupid, too. It was like, I was the parent, and they were the kids! I had to miss school a few times, since I’d been up all night with the two of them, negotiating a new peace settlement. In some ways I had to grow up too fast. But in other ways I didn’t get to grow up at all. I remember not going to the big dance in eighth grade because Dad, who was