Chapter 16

Younger Brother and I have never had much in common, so much so that we fell entirely out of contact as soon as I moved out of our parents’ home, even though there was no deliberate intention of doing so.  I was living with Older Brother at the time, and he also had little to no contact with Younger Brother.  When Younger Brother got engaged, he decided he wanted to reconnect, but not in a typical way.  He invited Older Brother and I to stand by his side at the wedding.  It was a gesture that stunned both of us, and both of us accepted in hopes of a closer relationship.

I first met Younger Brother’s fiancé at his dorm room.  Older Brother, Diana (his wife at the time), and I made the drive from Sacramento to the University of San Francisco specifically to meet her, but it was awkward from beginning to end.  She was barely willing to engage in the pleasantries of “Nice to meet you,” and spent the rest of the time lounging awkwardly in a chair looking put out and mostly staring at the wall.  I honestly do not remember if she said anything else the entire time we were there, and us three siblings spent the time catching up and discussing our expected roles in the marriage.

Older Brother was named as Best Man, but Younger Brother said he intended to handle most of the traditional Best Man tasks himself.  The main thing he needed from Older Brother was a place to stay the night before the wedding, so he would not have to spend money on a hotel.  They were going to have the wedding at his fiancé’s family’s church in Vacaville, which was a relatively short jaunt from our apartment in Sacramento.  We all agreed to the arrangement.  It was the least we could do.

Other than that, I would need to buy the dress and shoes that the bride chose for the maids, and Older Brother and I would be expected to attend the engagement party and bachelor/bachelorette party.  I was also told that my hair should be a “normal” color for the wedding, because the bride did not want candy colored hair in her wedding photos.  It seemed a reasonable request, so I promised.

The engagement party was no less awkward than meeting the bride to be.  It happened at her family’s home in Vacaville, and a sizeable number of people attended, mostly friends of the bride’s family and her relatives.  I was introduced to her immediate family, but otherwise left to sort things out for myself.  Younger brother spent the party showboating to his fiancé’s relatives.  Older Brother, Diana, and I spent the party standing around awkwardly unincluded, and feeling out of place and unwanted.

The bride’s two sisters were her bridesmaids, and the way they looked at and interacted with me reminded me of being the weird kid in school, with the popular girls feigning obsequious politeness because adults were watching.  The three of us left the engagement party feeling unwelcome and beginning to wonder why we had been invited into the wedding party at all.

Things steadily broke down from there.

The bachelor/bachelorette party was, again, an awkward affair.  Instead of having separate parties, the bride and groom held a single party at my parent’s home in Santa Rosa.  Aside from the respective siblings, all the people present were personal friends of either the bride or the groom or both, so except for the three of us, everyone knew everyone else.  Music was on the stereo, and alcohol was available to be had, but no entertainment or games that I remember.  Mostly, activities consisted of various small groups chatting.  It did not feel like a party.  For me it had the atmosphere of attending a random gathering of someone else’s friends where I was very likely intruding simply by being present.

Honestly, the party was boring enough I do not remember the majority of it in any detail.  I do not even remember what genre of music was playing, because it was neither good enough nor bad enough to make an impression.  I am pretty sure the bride and her sisters completely ignored my presence as well, because I do not remember a repeat of the interactions we had at the engagement party.  Most of the other people were polite and seemed nice, but I do not recall having any stimulating conversations.  The only person I recall making a real effort to include us was the third person to stand on the groom’s side, Younger Brother’s fabulously gay older friend, who was a delightfully outgoing and friendly soul.

The highlight of the party was the bride being chastised by the groom for doing something while drunk.  I did not see exactly what happened, but Younger Brother took her outside, embarrassed, and apologizing to everyone for her behavior.  All the people who had been nearby looked either very uncomfortable or highly amused.  While the bride and groom were out, one of the other people at the party leaned in and informed me that the only reason they had the joint party was that the bride “gets really friendly when drunk”, so the groom did not trust her to have a party without him present.  Classy.

Older Brother, Diana, and I left the party feeling a bit appalled at all of it.  On the way home we discussed why we felt excluded and unwelcome in the wedding party, and our confusion that a wedding was happening at all if there was so little trust between the bride and groom.  It boggles my mind that anyone would commit themselves to a long-term relationship with someone they do not trust completely, because you cannot hope to have a solid, healthy, and loving relationship if you are always watching over your shoulder or viewing your partner with suspicion.  That is not a healthy kind of friendship, let alone partnership or marriage.

All the awkwardness would have been ignorable if we were simply guests, and not in the wedding party, but supposedly the groom (and by extension the bride) wanted us to be central in their celebration.  However, it was becoming clear that the bride and her sisters did not like us or want us there, and Younger Brother was ignoring it all with this smile on his face that was somehow disturbingly bucolic and smarmy at the same time.

It bothered me deeply, but I tried to be forgiving of all of it.  The bride was not the one who asked us to be in the wedding, and Younger Brother was very busy.  Weddings are stressful.  It was not good, but it probably was not as bad as it seemed.  Still, every interaction I had with the bride and/or groom from there out was increasingly negative.

We were specifically excluded from all other events and gatherings leading up to the wedding except the rehearsal dinner.  Younger Brother brushed it off saying that we lived too far to worry about being involved, but we were barely further than most of the rest of the wedding party.

Older Brother and I were both extremely perplexed about him being named Best Man, when his help was refused at every turn.  Younger Brother’s fabulous gay friend and groomsman was doing most of that work, so we wondered why he had not been named Best Man.  If Younger Brother’s motivation was to build bridges, the result was feeling more like a boobytrapped bridge ready to collapse or blow up at any moment.

The last week before the wedding was a complete fiasco.  It got so bad I could no longer lie to myself and excuse it as unintentional oversites and bad interactions caused by the stress of throwing a wedding.

The majority of my interactions with the bride involved her badgering me about my appearance, and insisting I promise anew that I would have normal looking hair.  It happened every time I interacted with her, and usually was the only interaction we had.  I was dressing in punk fashion most of the time, so it also turned into her wanting repeated verbal assurance that I would not wear anything remotely punky to the wedding.  I repeatedly assured her that it was her wedding, and I would respect what she wanted it to look like, but every time she badgered me about it, I regretted that promise more and more.  Even though I had never done anything to her except exist in her presence, she clearly believed I was a liar, she did not like me, and she especially did not respect me in any capacity, so I did not feel any respect for her in return.

Diana freshly cut and colored my hair a week before the wedding.  Plum was a very popular hair color that year, even in office settings, and it was likely to cover the current spectrum of candy colors, so that was what we used.  To our surprised, it turned out genuinely purple (stunningly vibrant purple at that!).  For a hot second I thought about leaving it, but I was not going to prove the bride right for believing me a liar, so we covered it with a warm brown and arrived at something close to the plum we had intended.

The icing on the cake happened shortly before the rehearsal dinner.  Someone let it slip in front of me that the bride, the bridesmaids, and the mothers were all going out to get their hair and nails done before the wedding.  The bride very sternly informed me that I was specifically NOT welcome to join them, even though I was in the wedding party.

I was livid.  It did not matter that she did not like me.  If the bride wanted a specific appearance to the wedding, as she insisted, I should have been invited.  If she had had even a modicum of respect for the groom’s choice in people to stand at his side, I should have been invited.  If you have someone in your wedding party, it makes sense to invite them and for everyone to be polite, even if some of the individuals involved do not get along.  It is a never-ending trope in romantic comedies for good reason, however painful it might be to watch.  If you do not actually want someone there, the way to avoid that kind of juvenile drama is to not invite someone to be in the wedding party to begin with, or do not be juvenile about it!  Frankly, it would have been less rude to kick me out of the wedding party altogether, preferably before I wasted any of my money buying the horrible dress the bride picked out.

I immediately regretted having overdyed my hair with brown, promise or no.

The bride had been just as rude to Diana as me and Older Brother, so although I was at a complete loss, Diana knew exactly what she wanted to do.  I was specifically excluded from the outing that would have allowed me to match the women in the wedding party?  Well, that meant that my appearance beyond the dress and shoes was entirely up to Diana and me.  We could not have mimicked their looks if we wanted to, since we did not know what they were intending to do.  I was not allowed to express myself in my normal ways?  Then Diana said we should try to make me look like a classic movie star and outshine the bride, despite the hideous groomsmaid dress.

We went to the beauty store, bought an acrylic nail kit, and got to work.  She gave me a full set of acrylic nails and polished them classic bright red.  My hair was cut into a shingle bob, very short in the back and long in the front, so she got to work with a curling iron and made it look like I was a 40’s movie star with a short haircut.  We went for bold red lipstick, and she helped me with 40’s style makeup all around.  When we got to the wedding, everyone else was in a too-tight tacky updo with too sparse ringlet curls, a cliché trend that was already becoming tired and dated when the wedding happened.  They all had poorly executed French tip acrylic manicures with very square ends that made their nails look more like shovels than elegant fingertips.  I do not think I could have looked more different from them if I had known beforehand what they would look like.

In the few weeks before the wedding, Older Brother was too angry to help at all, so I was the one on the phone with Younger Brother working out the details for him to stay with us the night before the wedding.  I had given my word, and unlike Older Brother, I was not going to break it no matter how awful the situation was becoming.

A couple days before the wedding, Younger Brother called and informed me that he would not need to stay with us after all.  He had decided to get a hotel in Vacaville with his friends so he would be closer to the wedding church.  I was surprised, but it made sense since we did not have enough space in our apartment to offer accommodations to anyone besides him.  His change of plans was also a relief, since by that time our participation in the wedding was purely out of obligation, and not out of any desire to actually be there.

Since we were in the wedding party, we had to be at the church rather early in the morning.  It was a very cool morning and we were mostly outside, so I was wearing my leather biker jacket between photos and other obligations.  At the time I did not own any warm jackets that were not at least punk light, and none of the guests were there yet, so I did not see it as a violation of my promise.  Still, the bride made a point of angrily reminding me of my promise, and I assured her it would be put away in the car before any guests arrived, which is exactly what I did.  In my mind, any friends and family helping to put on the wedding did not qualify as guests, and she had fostered so much animosity that I was not going to be cold because she insisted on being perpetually hostile for some unknown arbitrary personal reason.

I am sure that just about every wedding involves a lot of people moving here or there and doing this or that to pose for the photographer and/or videographer, and this wedding was no exception.  The main thing we did before guests started arriving was take photos.  The bride and groom had decided it would be best to get most of the photography done first, so less would need to be done between the ceremony and the reception.

It is very normal for bridesmaid dresses to be ugly and unflattering, but these were something extra special.  They were made out of a very dark green satin, so no problem there.  The top of the dress was cut very square and awkward above the breasts, with tiny spaghetti straps, leaving the impression that the designer was not sure if they wanted to make a gown or an apron.  The bodice was semi-fitted in a way that highlighted how much it did not actually fit.  The skirt was floor length and very full, and yet also featured a slit on the left leg that went nearly all the way up to the bend of the thigh.

At the time I was in the habit of wearing very low cut tops, extremely short skirts, and frequently exposed my midriff, so I was by no means a prude or demure, but I found those dresses disgusting.  The photographer was more than happy to demonstrate why I felt that way.

To say that the photographer gave off a serious creeper vibe would be a gross understatement.  One of the pre-wedding photography sessions took place in one of the church multipurpose rooms, and it featured the bride and all the maids.  Most of the photos were completely normal, but at one point the photographer grinned really big and said, “Now, let’s have some fun with this!”  After that I was not sure if I was in a wedding photoshoot, or an amateur burlesque photoshoot being conducted by one of those predatory photographers burlesque and negligée models warn each other to stay clear of.

The photographer coaxed the other women to strike flirty poses, working his way up to his pièce de résistance.  I felt very uncomfortable about the fact that he was leering and licking his lips.  I also felt his requests were incredibly inappropriate for a wedding that was so conservative, but the bride and her sisters were delighted about all of it, so I went along with it as best I could tolerate.

I drew the line when he licked his lips again and told all of us to put our legs out of the slits in the dresses and “pose like showgirls”.  I was not going to do that, not at a conservative wedding, not for that man’s pleasure.  The other women thought it was the best idea ever, but I refused.  They spit frustration and disgust at me, and tried to bully me into going along with it, but I did not budge.   The photographer finally suggested they take that photo without me.  I happily agreed, and they got their inappropriate “flirty joke” photo taken by Creeper Boy.  Honestly, I am sure the bride was happier not to have me in the photo anyway, and it would not surprise me if it is one of her favorites from that day.

The wedding ceremony itself was uneventful, and after that all the guests headed for the reception so we could take group photos in front of the altar.  Since Diana was not in the wedding party, she was specifically told she had to leave, even though both Older Brother and I were obligated to remain for the photos.  The three of us came in one car, so she had to arrange a last-minute ride to the reception from someone else so Older Brother and I would have a way to also get to the reception.

Again, Creeper Boy photographer started out normal enough, with various arrangements of people standing for the “nice” photos, but then he wanted to “have fun” again.  All of the photos involving parents and other close relatives had been taken, and it was the just the wedding party by the altar.

“Let’s have two of the bridesmaids kiss the groom on either cheek!” he declared happily.  “You and you!”  He pointed at one of the sisters, and right at me, since I was the only woman on the groom’s side.

My jaw literally dropped in visceral repulsion.  “Ew!  That’s disgusting!  He’s my brother!”

He literally replied with, “That doesn’t matter.  It’s just for a photo.”

I do not know about you, dear reader, but even now, thinking back on implying I might want to have sex with my brother, even just for a photo, makes me more than a little queasy.  I honestly have no idea what kind of a person you would have to be to want a wedding photo that implies you might have an incestuous relationship with your own sister, but Younger Brother said it sounded fun and gave me that revolting bucolic and obsequious smile.  He was totally fine with it, and so was his wife.

I knew Younger Brother was trashy from growing up with him.  In the preceding months I had learned that his wife was trashier, in all the worst ways, like the most petty high school popularity drama queen you could hope to not meet.  I had no idea they were completely revolting garbage people.  And apparently, so were most of their close friends and family members in the room, because I was the spoilsport for refusing to imply incest with my brother.

Creeper photography boy gave me that look.  You know, the one misogynists give to women they have decided are frigid prudes.  Then he asked if anyone else would want to do it, since I was refusing to give the bride and groom the photos they wanted.  The bride’s sisters both giddily hopped forward and posed to kiss him on either cheek.  Younger Brother grinned like the fucking Cheshire cat.  Older Brother did not say a word.

An entirely different kind of fiasco waited for us at the reception.  Older Brother and I were both seated at the head table with Younger Brother, which was expected and normal.  What we did not expect was that instead of seating Diana (Older Brother’s wife) with the groom’s family, she was put at the “date” table way off to the side, and forced to eat dinner with the bro-tastic chuckleheads who were currently dating the bride’s sisters.

One of Younger Brother’s friends was a DJ, so his wedding present was to DJ the reception.  I happen to like dance music, but after the first dance, when people were free to wander around the room, he started blasting particularly tacky dance music at what would have been a high volume for a crowded night club.  It was so loud that you had to lean into the ear of the person you were talking to and yell, or they could not hear what you said.  Rather than tell his friend to turn down the volume, Younger Brother wandered the reception basking in the attention with that bucolic smarmy smile plastered on his face.

I did not take note of what the bride was doing, but clearly it did not involve telling the DJ to turn it down to a conversational volume.  As the Best Man, Older Brother theoretically could have requested a volume change, but he was busy getting his drink on, and disinclined to be involved any more than the bare minimum.  Months earlier it had been made very clear that “Best Man” was a meaningless title anyway.

By the time the wedding day happened, the only thing I was looking forward to was having a chance to visit with one of my aunts, Mother’s Sister.  I have always loved her and enjoyed her company, but she has always lived a great distance away, so visits were extremely infrequent.  She came down for the wedding, and I figured I would have a chance to talk to her at the reception.  Older Brother and I were also looking forward to introducing her to Diana.

The volume of the music made conversation impossible.  We tried for a while, but our ears were ringing, our heads pounding, and frustration growing.  Finally, my aunt suggested the four of us go downstairs to the bar where we could hear each other talk, and the three of us gratefully agreed.

The time we spent at the bar was lovely.  None of us intended to stay down there long, but it was such a relief to be away from the pounding music we could still faintly hear through the ceiling, and the four of us happily engaged in conversation.

At some point we realized that we had probably been in the bar too long, and we could no longer hear the DJ music through the ceiling, so we headed back upstairs to see if they were ready to cut the cake yet.  We figured we could go back to the bar after the cake cutting if the music was still too loud.  Instead, we were angrily greeted by the groom, who wanted to know where we had disappeared to.  They had tried to find us, but finally gave up and cut the cake without us, and that had been some time earlier.  The room was in large part empty.  The bride and groom planned to close out their party, so a lot of the guests had left after the cake cutting, probably at least in part because of the extremely unpleasant music volume.

The music was now playing at a reasonable volume, so we stayed in the reception room, danced a bit, and chatted a little more with my aunt before gratefully heading home.

I thought that would be the end of it, but this was the hell wedding that would not die, and my trashy brother and his trashy wife were nowhere near done creating drama around it so they could play the victims in their own trashy stories.

Shortly after the wedding, Mother called because she wanted to give us a piece of her mind.  This was right around the year 2000, so although cell phones were a thing, we also still had a land line in our apartment.  I answered the land line phone, and Mother said she wanted to talk to Older Brother about Younger Brother’s sleeping arrangements the night before the wedding.  I told her that I had actually been the one to handle those arrangements.  She did not believe me and still wanted to talk to Older Brother about it, but was also willing to vent to anyone who would listen, so I got an earful about the arrangement from her perspective.

My immediate family has a creative relationship with the truth, and any appearance of lying was always explained away as a “misunderstanding”.  Calling someone out on lying was treated as a more grievous crime than lying, despite, or maybe because of, the lip service given to the value of honesty.  Calling out any lies meant you were somehow at fault for the “misunderstanding” and were refusing to be “reasonable”.  It is gaslighting 101, and my family is more than proficient at it.

Mother explained that she was very upset Older Brother had cancelled on Younger Brother the day before the wedding, telling Younger Brother that he could not stay with us after all.  This put her in the position of having to find and pay for a hotel room with no advance notice, and she was hurt and disappointed that we would do that to them.

I informed her that that was not what happened.  Older Brother had not even spoken to Younger Brother about it.  I had been the one coordinating the stay at our apartment, and Younger Brother had called me a couple days before the wedding to cancel on us.  He had told me that he had decided to get a hotel instead.  It was his decision, not mine, and not Older Brother’s.

Mother flipped her shit.  If Younger Brother told her we cancelled on him, we must have cancelled on him.  He would not lie.  That was ridiculous.

I asked her if she thought I was lying, and she said no.  It must be a misunderstanding of some sort.

I told her there was no way to misunderstand something like that.  Either he called me to cancel, or I called him to cancel.  There is fundamentally no way that it could be both ways, so one of us was lying, and I knew it was not me, so it had to be him.

I had just committed the worst cardinal sin in my family.  I did not agree with her excuses.  I did not placate her.  I did not let it be brushed under the rug as a “misunderstanding”.  I did not let her gaslight me.  I did not let her blame me or Older Brother so her favorite child could remain tarnish-free.

A lot of what appealed to me in the punk movement was the idea that you could have principles and stand your ground, no matter what the world was telling you.  Honesty was the hill I was willing to die on, and on that day I found the courage to stand my ground with every fiber of my being.  I was sick of being jerked around by my family my entire life.  I was sick of being jerked around by Younger Brother on the false pretense of “mending our relationship”.  I was sick to death of the entire wedding debacle, and every single little petty and ridiculous thing the bride and groom did to set up Older Brother, Diana, and I to look like the jackasses trying to ruin their perfect little day.  I was not going to be the one left holding the bag for everyone to point at and say, “It’s her fault.”

If I thought Mother had flipped her shit at the beginning of the conversation, now she was absolutely hysterical.  I do not recall exactly what she was screaming into the phone at the top of her lungs, as though volume might prove her right, might somehow validate Younger Brother’s lie.  It did not matter what her words were.  I did not care.  I knew it was a farcical defense of the indefensible.  I knew it was so much hot air and indignation.  I would not play her game.

I held the phone out from my ear, at first because she was screaming so loud it genuinely hurt my ear to have the receiver closer.  I remember staring at it for a minute while this beautiful calm washed over me and her words continued to blare out as though the land line phone was in speaker mode.

I knew I was telling the truth.

I knew she would never, to her last dying breath, be willing to accept that.

I knew that she was not going to let me get a word in unless it was to agree with her.

I could not change her, but I could refuse to engage.

I hung up the phone.

I looked up from the phone, over to Diana, who had previously been rolling her eyes at the conversation.  Now she was showing a mixture of shock and joy.

The phone rang.

I hit the answer button, and the screaming tirade immediately resumed, only now it was focused on the fact that I had hung up on her.

I knew that she was not going to let me get a word in edgewise.

I hung up the phone again.

The phone rang again.

Holding the handset at arm’s length, I hit the answer button, heard more screaming, and quickly hung it up again.

I had the option to not be abused, and I took it.

She did not call back.

I do not think words are adequate to describe how free I felt.  Of course it is rude to hang up on someone, and that social contract is what she was counting on to be able to continue abusing me and berating me into submission.  If a little rudeness would make the abuse stop, damn straight I was willing to do it, especially since she was rude first by insisting on a lie and screaming at me over the phone.  I was no longer going to avoid “rudeness” just so someone could abuse me, no matter who they were.

It felt so good.

To say that things were strained between my parents and I after that would be an understatement.  I avoided them quite a bit, but I was not emotionally ready to cut all ties with them yet.

I thought establishing that boundary had given me the tools I needed to be able to have a worthwhile relationship with them, on my terms, not theirs.

When I was invited, I went over to my parents’ home to watch the finished wedding video.  Younger Brother was in college studying film in hopes of becoming a director, so he did most of his own wedding videography, and personally edited it.

For the most part it was a typical, painfully boring wedding video edited in a glaringly amateurish way, and yet somehow I still ended up the bad guy.

My crime?

Wearing that black leather jacket before any of the guests arrived.

When he was not occupied by something official, for the most part Younger Brother spent the entire wedding, from setup to breakdown, with a video camera in his hand.  So, naturally, he ended up with some footage of me standing around in the cold of the courtyard wearing my jacket before we even got around to taking official photos.

When he edited the video, Younger Brother included about a two or three second clip of me standing there, wearing the jacket.  There was absolutely nothing else going on.  It was literally just me filmed from behind, standing there, but he insisted that he could not avoid including it.  He tried.  His wife was right to mistrust me.  I broke my word to her and wore the jacket in such a way that it indelibly became a part of their wedding experience.  See!  There it was, in glorious color, in the wedding video.  Clearly, he would not have included something like that if it was avoidable, since it meant so much to his wife that I avoid even a hint of punk rock aesthetic at her big day.

I did not know I could be even more angry with them about the wedding.  I immediately regretted making even the smallest attempt to keep my promises to his wife.  They did not deserve that kind of courtesy. They did not have the honor or the integrity to warrant any concessions.

Looking back, the video may have been payback for calling him out for lying about the sleeping arrangements, or maybe for refusing to feign incest for the photographer.  Sad thing is, he really is petty enough to put “unflattering” things in his own wedding video just so he can point out to strangers how someone else tried to ruin his wedding, like some sort of personal American Lampoon moment.  At the time, though, I was angry at being set up yet again, and baffled as to why he would “ruin” his own wedding memorabilia just to make me look the ass to his wife’s conservative family.

I was done with him, completely and totally.

Younger Brother and his wife were talking to Mother and Father out front of their house the next time I visited.  They took one look at me pulling up in my car, practically ran to their car, and left before I could even park.  I do not care what reason they had contrived for avoiding me, as long as I did not have to interact with them.

It was a great many years before I talked to Younger Brother again.  Now and again Mother insisted on giving news about how he was doing, so I heard about him going to UCLA for a Master’s degree in film, in hopes of becoming a movie director.  The second part of that endeavor was less flattering, so I never specifically heard the details about him dropping out, but I do know he did not finish his degree.

Older Brother left Diana, and since my parents never liked her, of course they had a hand in making that shitty situation even worse.  That was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I stopped talking to them almost entirely for several years.  Even if I had not stopped talking to them over that, it probably would have been something else.  After hanging up on Mother, I had more respect for myself and my boundaries, and I was trying not to let them push me around.  Mother and Father were too accustomed to gaslighting and abusing me to stop entirely just because of one unsuccessful incident.  They were too invested in an abusive dynamic to entirely stop for any reason, ever.

Years later, when I acquiesced to Mother and started talking to my parents again on a more frequent basis, it was with the knowledge that if they violated my boundaries, I would stop talking to them again, probably for good.  Mother and Father had moved up to Oregon, and Younger Brother and his wife were now living up there too.  They had a couple children, and he was working on his MBA remotely at the University of Portland.

It pained Mother to no end that none of her children were talking to each other.  She is pretty good at manipulating people, so for a long time she did not make a big deal out of it or insist I talk to him.  Instead, she would just mention her heartbreak every chance she had, play the pity card, and tell me how wonderful my niece and nephew were.  Eventually, she told me Younger Brother was going to be graduating, and he very much wanted me there to celebrate that milestone in his life.

Mother wore me down.  It had been several years, so the anger was no longer fresh.  Mostly I was just disgusted about how the whole wedding fiasco went down.  I also hoped he might have matured a bit, and maybe was no longer such a petty, juvenile jerk.  What could the harm be?

I agreed to talk to him.  It would get her off my back about it, and if he was still a petty jerk, I could just stop talking to him again.

Mother facilitated the exchange of phone numbers, and one evening we talked on the phone.

There is no denying that both of us tried.  His demeanor was friendly, and I believe mine was as well.  He had been studying film before moving to Oregon, and I am an artist, so I tried to talk to him about art and film.  He did not know anything about art, even art film, and the only thing he wanted to talk about involving film was sitcoms, a genre I usually find tedious at best.  We floundered around trying different subjects each of us was interested in, and finally landed on talking about the weather.

The only common ground I could find with Younger Brother was the weather.  Literally.

Having nothing in common with family might mean you rarely interact, but it is not a good reason to avoid contact altogether.  That seems petty to me.  So, we agreed to stay in contact.

Mother and Father were willing to pay for the trip to attend Younger Brother’s graduation, so I agreed to come.  Younger Brother made a point to confirm with me whether or not it would be a problem if Older Brother also came, since I was no longer on speaking terms with him over gross betrayal and pet murder.  I took the same attitude about it that I did with the wedding.  The event was about Younger Brother’s graduation, not my issues with Older Brother, so if both of us were there I would keep it polite and civil.  He just should not expect me to be friendly, and should probably confirm with Older Brother if he was also capable of being civil.

In the end, Older Brother attended a graduation party that was held before I arrived, and I attended the graduation itself.  It was no skin off my hide, but I could not help but wonder exactly why Younger Brother arrived at that arrangement.  The official reason was vaguely to ensure that nothing happened to mar his Big Day, which I do not doubt, but that is also definitely not the whole story.  Did Older Brother say he could not be civil?  I doubt that.  Older Brother is almost as averse to confrontation as Father, so I doubt very greatly he would have promised a conflict.  Did Younger Brother and his wife look at the situation and decide that if they were in my shoes, they would not be able to resist the urge to do something petty and dramatic, no matter what promises were made?  Considering their history of petty, juvenile, vengeful drama, it would not at all surprise me if that was the case.

The graduation was pleasant and uneventful, and we made further sporadic attempts to connect, but I do not recall any specific communication between Younger Brother and I in the years since.  For a time, I received the obligatory annual Christian Family Holiday Card around Christmas, with paragraph summaries of the accomplishments of Younger Brother, his wife, and their two children, but that was all.  We simply had no common ground upon which to base a relationship, and I have been too chronically ill, disabled, and poor to be able to travel the very significant distance to visit for the sakes of my niblings.

Looking back, I cannot help but notice that the only two times in his adult life that Younger Brother has reached out to me were occasions when he would be the center of attention.  He was always far more outgoing than Older Brother or I, and he loved it when he was the center of attention.

Growing up, Younger Brother was also what I like to refer to as a “sore winner”.  He was never inclined to physical sports, but he did enjoy competitions, and tended to create a competitive atmosphere even in non-competitive interactions.  However, he only did this when he could be relatively certain of winning, because he was an even sorer loser.  This manifested in a fondness for games like chess and checkers.  If he won, he would boast and gloat about his success, and mock the loser for at least a couple days.  He would not even acknowledge this obnoxious behavior, and insisted he was just enjoying his win like any normal person.  At one point I remember him bemoaning the fact that no one in the family would play with him anymore, but he did not make any effort to find a chess club or other group where he could play, probably because he would not have been assured a win.

As far as I know, Younger Brother never actually sought to be the best, never put himself in a genuinely competitive position.  His goal was to win and to be praised, not to challenge himself.  Inviting us to be in his wedding party was not about connecting, it was about us being at his disposal.  Inviting me to his graduation was not about family, it was about praising him for being the first person in our immediate family to earn a Master’s degree.

Younger Brother is like a more self-centered, outgoing version of Father.  He internalized all of Father’s worst traits and added a pile more terrible traits on top of that.  He learned from our parents how to put forward the image of a compassionate, caring, loving person, while his motivations are selfish and often petty.  I know full well how horrible it is to grow up in a family that parrots caring behavior while gaslighting constantly to hide toxic levels of selfishness, and I would not be surprised if Younger Brother continued the tradition on his kids.

I fear for his children, but I also know there is absolutely nothing I can do for them due to my illness and physical distance.  Maybe someday, when they are grown, I might be able to connect with them independently of their parents, but only time will tell.  I hope they are happy and turn out well despite the abusive patterns of our family.  There is no guarantee, but I hope.