––––––––
At noon, I got out of my car and walked around to open the passenger door for Jeremy. Upon seeing him, Buster and Angel descended, barking and wiggling, Angel with the tennis ball crammed in tight jaws, pushing her nose to help me open the door wider.
“Hey, guys, down, back off.” I pushed them with my weight, but they wedged between my legs and the car door to give Jeremy a big welcome home. He’d only been gone five days, but surely they smelled the hospital on him. Their eyes showed worry. No doubt those smells reminded them of the vet, and those associated odors triggered memories of pain and fear. Jeremy weaseled his way to standing alongside the car and gave each dog a hearty pat on the head.
“Hey, I missed you too,” he reassured them with his voice.
I watched him try to bend down to their level, but pain halted his efforts. He straightened with a grimace and gave me his hand the way an elderly person might when needing assistance crossing the street. The doctor had preferred Jeremy stay another day in the hospital, but didn’t voice much objection when my husband told her he’d had enough poking and prodding and needles. With some cautionary advice about limiting his movements and taking his painkillers, she released him into my care.
When I had stood with him at the elevator, my hands on his wheelchair, he had given me a curious glance. Maybe he thought I could handle one short flight down before falling apart. Maybe he chalked up my stepping into the elevator as a demonstration of my loyalty and willingness to sacrifice for him. I knew he studied my face as we exited the elevator, but he said nothing. He had spent ten years accommodating my refusal to ride in any elevator, regardless how pressed for time we might have been on various occasions. He viewed it as a kind of handicap and never chided me for it. Surely my sudden willingness to ride in that elevator with him must have startled him. Someday, I told myself, I would tell him my memories of that locked closet. I would tell him everything I had been doing—all the strange discoveries about my parents and their marriage and my father’s affair.
But not now. Now, all I wanted was to create some new memories, ones that would knit us together in a strong enough weave so we could survive the weeks ahead. We had big decisions to make in a short amount of time. I was anxious to talk to Jeremy and start making plans. Start figuring out how to salvage this train wreck and find a place—if there was one—where we could both heal, physically and emotionally. The first step, though, was getting Jeremy into the house and comfortable on the couch. Then, when he felt ready, move him up the stairs and into our bed.
I led him to the front door, holding his arm as he worked his legs up the two steps to the stoop. I swung open the door and ushered him inside while pushing back the dogs. They got the hint and went off wandering the property. I saw Jeremy look over at the counter where the insurance papers were spread out.
“That the paperwork for the truck?” he asked.
I turned him toward the living room. “I’ve taken care of it. Just have to mail off some forms.”
I could see Jeremy’s mind turning. How it was his fault the truck was totaled. How we couldn’t afford right now to buy another, but he could use my old work truck. Wondering when he’d feel well enough to return to work. Wondering if things were okay at the store, or if the world had disintegrated while he had been lying in the hospital bed with tubes attached to his body.
As I led him to the couch and arranged pillows and blankets for him, I watched him look around the room. A lump grew in my throat, knowing he was mulling over our home and what it meant to us.
“Jer,” I said, easing him down onto blankets. “Let’s just concentrate on getting you well. Do you want something to eat? I made some soup—”
He gripped my wrist and stopped me. I met his eyes. “When do we have to be out?”
I fidgeted in his grip, then relaxed. I could feel an electric tension in his hand, feel something building. “I’m sure we can take whatever time we need. Even the law requires weeks once an eviction notice is served and—”
“I don’t want to drag this into some legal wrangling. Look, I spent days thinking this over in the hospital. We need to make a fast, clean break away from here. I don’t want to speak to your mother or her business manager—nothing.”
I sat beside him and nodded. “So, what are you thinking? Do you want to move away—I mean, far away, like out of state? I’ll go wherever you want, Jer. If I never see my mother again, that’s fine with me.”
Jeremy scrutinized my face. I hoped he could read the honesty there. “I thought about that—leaving town, getting as far away as possible. But then I realized that’s just what your mother would want us to do. Give up, run away, declare her the winner.” His eyes bore down on mine. “Your mother wants a continuous war, but I’m not going to give her that satisfaction. I remember someone once said, ‘the opposite of love is not hate, it’s apathy.’ I think the best way to deal with your mother and her . . . behavior is just to walk away from her and ignore her. We can’t let her feel she’s destroyed us. Because she hasn’t, Lis.” He let go of my wrist and stroked my face. “All this is about stuff. Things, property, houses, money. Nothing tangible, nothing that matters. You see that, don’t you?”
My eyes grew misty. I wanted to say something, but the lump in my throat grew so massive I had trouble breathing. I finally forced some words out as Jeremy stroked my face, moving hair behind my ear. His gentle gestures felt huge to me.
“So . . . what are you thinking? We look for a place to rent. You keep the store, and I do my landscaping jobs? Will that work?”
“I think so. I can ask around, ask some of my customers. They have ranches, farms. If we can’t find anything around here—”
“I don’t want to stay here—in Petaluma,” I blurted. “I mean, I don’t want to have to drive by our place and see someone else . . .” The lump returned with renewed hardness. I tried to swallow.
“So, Sonoma, Santa Rosa. Maybe somewhere north?”
I thought back to when we had first looked for property. How we had fantasized buying acreage in the Wine Country, growing a small vineyard and making our own wine. The cost for such land was prohibitive, but what struck me was the fresh sense of adventure and excitement we had then—newly married and our lives a blank slate before us. Now we had a full blackboard covered in writing, our hands poised with erasers, about to rub it all away. I keenly felt older than my years.
“Sure,” I said. “I guess we’ll need to start looking at ads in the paper—get the classifieds for those areas.” I sighed, wondering if I was up to this monumental task.
“We’ll find something, Lis. I know you’re worried about your animals.”
“I can find homes for them, I’m sure. It might take some time, but it’s doable.”
“Let’s see what’s out there, what we can afford. Maybe we won’t have to go down that road.”
Jeremy was working hard at sounding positive, but I could see much rippling under the surface of his features. He, too, was Humpty Dumpty, shattered in pieces, feeling around the ground to find bits of himself, unable to see clearly but hoping his efforts would result in some semblance of wholeness. But once you’re broken, you know better than to climb back up on that high wall searching for balance. You will always be broken; the cracks can’t be hidden even when they’re expertly glued together. I knew that from that moment on I would always see Jeremy like that—patched together.
I stood and walked toward the kitchen. “I’ll get you some soup. Do you want to watch a movie?”
The phone jangled as I stepped into the kitchen. My heart clenched, and I thought of my mother. Was I going to react like that to every telephone call for the rest of my life?
I ignored the ringing and got the pot of soup out of the fridge. As I set it on the stove and turned on the burner, I heard Julie Hutchinson’s voice.
“Hi, Lisa, it’s me, Julie, again. I’m sorry I’ve left so many messages. You haven’t called me back, and I’m worried that maybe I said something that offended you. I hope not. I really need to see you. I apologize for all this melodrama, but it’s very important. I know you’ll want to hear me out—it’s more about your father. Here’s my number . . .”
“Who’s that?” Jeremy called out from the living room. I could hear the TV playing low as I poured the hot soup into a bowl. “Aren’t you going to answer it?”
I brought Jeremy his soup as the message ended and the machine gave a final beep. A baseball game aired on the screen with the sound low. I looked at Jeremy’s pale coloring, listened to his labored breathing.
“Do you need to take your meds with some food? You look a little sweaty.”
“Yeah, I probably should. But I don’t want anything to put me to sleep. Just painkillers.”
“Okay.” I walked over to the chair where I’d set my purse and rummaged through to find the right plastic bottle. “You’re supposed to take these twice a day. Did you already take some this morning?”
Jeremy shook his head. I dropped two capsules in his hand. “So, who was that?” he said. “She sounded . . . upset or something.”
I plopped down in the armchair. “Her name is Julie. Her dad, Ed Hutchinson, was my father’s boss thirty years ago at Penwell Corporation. I visited them last week in Mountain View.”
Jeremy’s face registered surprise. “So, did they tell you much about your dad—anything to help you learn more about his death?” He seemed interested—perhaps eager to grab at any conversation to take his mind off our circumstances.
I let out a long breath and started in on my visit to Ed, the pictures of my father, and the RTGs he helped design. Then I told him about my talk with Julie and how she informed me of the affair between my father and her mother. Jeremy’s reaction was similar to what mine had been.
“So, what’s the big deal about it? Some short affair before your father died. She obviously is holding back. What do you think’s going on?”
“I’ve been trying to guess. Maybe she has something of my father’s. Something valuable. Maybe he gave Shirley Hutchinson something before he died—that belongs to us kids. Although, I’m hoping for something more personal—like letters, love letters, maybe. What if my dad said something in the letters that explained his death wish, or his volunteering for that experiment?”
“Wouldn’t she have shown you those letters when she met with you? I can’t imagine what could be so serious or revealing that she’d be afraid to tell you. I mean, it’s been nearly thirty years, and you say her mother died three years ago, so what does any of it matter?”
“Well, none of it matters now.” I leaned over and put my chin in my hands. Jeremy turned off the TV and watched me instead. “The whole reason I tried to find the truth about my dad was so I could help Raff. Bring my family closer together.” I snorted in anger. “Fat lot of good that did.”
“Lis, you’re not at fault here.” He gestured loosely to our home, meaning our situation. “You didn’t do anything wrong—”
“You weren’t there when I threw the name Shirley Hutchinson at my mother. When I accused her ‘happy’ marriage of being a sham, that I had a letter from my father that revealed how miserable he was with her. No one makes Ruth Sitteroff look bad—no one.” My words rattled in my throat as they came out. I felt as small as a worm.
Jeremy shook his head and opened his arms to me. “Come here.”
I slid from my chair to the couch and eased against his chest, careful not to put any pressure on his ribs. Through my tears, I asked, “Is this okay; am I hurting you?”
Jeremy pressed his face into my hair and mumbled. “It’s more than okay. It’s perfect.”
As crazy and paradoxical as it seemed to my logical mind, Jeremy was right. Sitting with him, injured and hurting, about to lose our house, my family turned against me, it felt exactly that—perfect.
At Jeremy’s urging, I called Julie back and invited her to visit us. Without hesitation, she asked for directions and said she was on her way. I relayed this to Jeremy and his eyebrows raised. I doubted he was up to having company, but his curiosity was piqued, and he probed me about the radioactive generators Ed Hutchinson had mentioned.
“There’s nothing here,” he said, flipping closed the magazine Ed had given me—the one with the photo of my father standing by the SNAP generator. “At least nothing that tells how the thing is built, and how it really works—other than generate low levels of radiation through radioactive decay.” He set the magazine on the coffee table and studied me. “Is it weird—seeing a photo of your father, looking happy and . . . accomplished? Just what did this Ed guy say about your dad? Did he confirm the depression, the death wish?” Jeremy spoke the last words in a mocking tone, and I knew he was implying the whole death-wish theory was my mother’s cover-up. I still wasn’t sure.
“I’m thinking the library should have more information. Maybe something in the encyclopedia, right? Or some science journals?” I searched my brain, trying to remember what else Ed had said about the RTGs. All I could come up with was plutonium with a half-life of eighty-seven years, and that you couldn’t get sick from just looking at one—you had to inhale or ingest the radioactive material to get sick. But thinking about Ed’s manner made me wonder whether he had told me the truth—or had he purposely omitted telling me something about these generators? It seemed too coincidental that my father died of leukemia—something often caused by radiation exposure—while he was working on a project involving radiation. I suddenly wished I hadn’t told Julie to come over. My feet were ready to run out the door and tackle the card catalog at the downtown library once more.
“I think I’ll go research this tomorrow,” I said. “See what else I can find out. If that’s okay with you.” I chided myself for pursuing this apparent dead end. I had more important things to focus on—finding a place to rent, organizing our bills, and assessing our financial situation. Helping Jeremy recover. Yet, this whole scenario compelled me, pulled me into its larger scope. A realization crept over me, like an invading march of ants across my skin. This wasn’t just about how my father died and determining if he’d suffered depression. This was all about perception and defining truth.
Until now, perhaps like most people, I had thought truth a constant—something that would exist even if the universe disappeared. Universals. Facts. But, in the midst of this noble search, my own perception of truth had shattered—regarding the constancy and loyalty of family. If that intrinsic truth could not stand up to disturbance, then what could?
What if you dig to the root of a matter, to get to that rock-bottom truth, only to find you’re standing in a deep, empty hole? Always my mind returned to T. S. Eliot and “The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”: “And would it have been worth it, after all . . . after the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, after the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor . . . Would it have been worth while if one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, and turning toward the window, should say: ‘That is not it at all. That is not what I meant, at all.’” I realized then that my need for answers did not revolve around decoding my father’s death but more about finding a reliable way for me to perceive my world—something I now desperately needed to thrash and hack my way through the dense foliage blocking my sight.
“The library? Sure.” Jeremy turned his attention back to the Dodger game. I could tell he was having trouble concentrating. His face had lost so much luster—the skin pale and dull from medication and trauma. Some new creases aged him, but he still looked handsome. His was the kind of face that would hold up to the years chiseling away at his features. A two-day’s growth of a beard made him appear rugged, reminding me of his childhood in Montana, and how he had hunted and fished with his father in the backcountry. I’d never slept in a tent—not even in a crowded, tourist-ridden campground, let alone wandered over miles of grizzly-bear-infested wilderness. While growing up, I thought having a house in the Marin foothills was the very definition of “country.” And our “homestead” in Petaluma was even more rural. I had a sudden urge to sleep outside, under the stars with Jeremy—at least one time before we lost our home. How could I say I really knew this place without such an experience?
A restless energy came over me, while waiting for Julie, waiting to hear her next important revelation. On a whim, I pulled out bowls and measuring cups and got busy making blueberry muffins. I went out to the berry patch and scrounged enough ripe berries to suit my purpose. Another month the blackberries would be ready to pick—
I stopped in midthought, realizing I probably wouldn’t be here long enough to make my famous blackberry cobbler from this tangled patch I had kept in check these ten years. Making cobbler was a yearly tradition for me. Homemade vanilla ice cream, the cobbler warm out of the oven. I worked back tears filling my eyes. There were plenty of blackberry bushes in Marin and Sonoma counties. Plenty of places to pick them. I could—would—still make cobbler, I told myself. Regardless of where I lived.
Julie must have sped on 101, because, by the time my second batch of muffins came out of the oven, I heard the doorbell. I glanced over at Jeremy on the couch, who had fallen asleep with his chin tucked into his chest, then opened the door and signaled Julie with a finger to my lips. I whispered, “My husband’s asleep on the couch.” I stepped out onto the porch and eased the door shut behind me. “He just got out of the hospital; he needs his rest.” I didn’t have the energy to concoct some story about why my husband would be asleep on a couch in the middle of a workday.
“Hospital? Is he all right?” I could tell Julie was asking out of politeness; she seemed brimming over with words she wanted to dump on me.
“Had a little car incident. But he’s recovering.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good news, at least.”
The porch felt crowded with the two of us standing there and the dogs pressing up to see who their new visitor was. Thankfully Julie seemed to like dogs and gave them the attention they required before they chased after a flock of blackbirds chattering on the split-rail fence. “Let’s go around the back—on the deck. We can talk there.”
Julie followed me around the side of the house, dressed in what I assumed were her work clothes—a stunning pantsuit and low heels strapped around her ankles, which made walking on the grass a little difficult. Her silk blouse—a deep burgundy this time—brought out the rouge in her cheeks. Again, I was taken aback by her elegant beauty. It made me want to see photos of her mother, Shirley Hutchinson, the aspiring model.
We sat on the patio chairs, and I put in my hands in my lap, waiting. I didn’t feel like making small talk; I wanted to tell her to cut to the chase, as they’d say in those old British TV shows. Spill the beans. ’Fess up. Tiredness sat heavy on me, like a too-thick wool blanket on a balmy night. Maybe after Julie left, I would take a nap, join Jeremy on the couch, with the summer sun baking through the living room windows. A luxurious thought. Whatever stupor I felt, though, was quickly dispelled by Julie’s shocking pronouncement.
“Lisa, your brother—Neal . . .” I noticed she clenched her hands as she spoke. “He’s your half brother.”
Maybe my face betrayed my confusion, because Julie repeated herself, more slowly. “He has a different father. My father. Neal is my brother—too,” she added. She pinched her lips together and waited, watching me process this information. Which didn’t want to be processed.
I looked into her face and saw Neal’s eyes staring at me, confirming her words. I flashed on the photo of young Ed Hutchinson in the Penwell brochure, now understanding why his face had stricken me with familiarity. The spitting-image of Neal, with darker hair, the eyebrows a little thinner, but the same jawline and lips. Even their stature matched.
My mind reeled with this information, but it didn’t make any sense. “Wait, I thought you said my father and your mother had an affair. I don’t get this.”
Julie exhaled and a gush of words followed. “Lisa, I know this sounds crazy, but it’s true. And I should have told you everything when we met. But . . . anyway, my mother didn’t know about the baby, about the pregnancy, I mean. When she and your dad got together, had that affair, it was in retaliation.”
“Retaliation.” The word came off my tongue sounding foreign. I couldn’t place the word with a picture.
“You know, to get back at Ed—for sleeping with your mother. Ruth.”
“Your father slept with my mother? First? Before Nathan and Shirley ran off to San Diego—or whatever they did?”
“Yes. Lisa, Nathan found out your mother was pregnant, and . . . according to my mother, he knew it wasn’t his. He and your mother hadn’t . . . well, let’s say they had been sleeping in separate beds for a while, and so when Ruth turned up pregnant, all hell broke loose.”
Neal—Ed’s child? I pieced together Julie’s words, trying to get a fix on a scene that would play out the way she implied. “So what you’re saying is my dad discovers Ed and Ruth are sleeping together. Ruth gets pregnant—with Neal.” I’m trying to figure in the dates. Julie is two or three when Nathan has the affair with Shirley, Neal is born nine months before my father dies. A year earlier—give or take a month—my dad takes off with Shirley and moves out of the house. The numbers fuzzed in my head.
And then it struck me—my mother knew Neal was Ed’s child—how could she not? And never told any of us the truth. Never told Neal. A gasp stuck in my throat.
“Wait, so, does your father know—that Neal is his?”
Julie waved her hand in the air, dismissing the thought. “No. All this time. You can see why I feel so burdened. Right before my mom died, she told me how Nathan had suddenly come on to her one night—at a company dinner. He was drunk and distraught. Your mother wasn’t there, but it’s obvious why. If Nathan had learned of her affair—through the discovery of her pregnancy—would she dare show her face?”
I tried to keep up with Julie’s words. “So he made a pass at your mother, and she grabbed her chance—to get back at Ed for what he’d done?”
“Basically. My mother left with your dad, never went home. Who knows where they went. Maybe they stayed in a hotel until they rented an apartment. But all that time—with your dad sick and Ruth pregnant, my mother never knew. Never knew Neal was Ed’s—not until your dad was dying and in the hospital, where he confessed it to her.”
I shook my head as if the motion might help dislodge the blockage in my brain. I tried to picture Ed with my mother, picture Ed as Neal’s father. The images wouldn’t come. Ed’s lecherous expression was all I could see, and it disgusted me.
I turned at the sound of the French doors opening to the deck. I nearly jumped out of my skin; I didn’t realize how wound up I was, listening to Julie talk. Jeremy, drowsy and red-eyed, leaned out. “What’s going on?” he asked me.
I gestured him over. “You should hear this. It will blow your mind.” I added, “Do you need some help?”
He stepped with deliberation and shook his head. “I’m okay. So you must be Julie. I’m Jeremy.” He offered his hand when he got close enough, then dropped into the chair beside me. The sunlight seemed to hurt his eyes, and he turned his chair to avoid the glare. Julie shook his hand and let me catch him up.
“Get this—Julie is Neal’s half-sister. Julie’s dad slept with my mother right before my dad died.” I turned to Julie. “Are you sure? I mean, maybe your mother—”
“She knew. Your dad told her—told my mother—that Ed was Neal’s father. That he was sorry—that he had the affair with her to get back at Ruth, that’s why he couldn’t go home, couldn’t live with Ruth knowing she carried, she had . . .” Julie loosed a long breath, and I noticed her hands trembled in her lap.
“Wow,” was all Jeremy said—the man of few words. I turned and looked at him. “That’s—shocking.” He pursed his lips and narrowed his brows. I could just imagine him pondering how he could use this information as ammunition against my mother. My mental wheels couldn’t turn that quickly.
“Neal has no clue,” I said.
“No,” Julie said. “When you and I last talked, I gathered none of you kids were told anything about this. I was so startled to find you at my dad’s house, asking questions. I thought you had found out, and that’s why you went to him, to confront him—”
“And you never have?” I asked, incredulous. “You’ve known for three years that you had a half brother somewhere, that your dad had a son he didn’t know about—and you haven’t told him?”
Julie sighed. “My mother made me promise I’d never tell.”
“What on earth for?” Jeremy asked, looking paler than ever. “Some kind of power trip for her?”
Julie’s voice tightened. “You don’t know my father. And my mother wasn’t like that. She wanted to protect Neal—”
Jeremy snorted and then laughed. “Right. Leaving poor little Neal in the clutches of Ruth Sitteroff was the way to go. Maybe if your stupid brother”—he looked first at Julie, then at me—“had been raised by his real father, he wouldn’t have turned out to be such a loser, such a mama’s boy.”
Julie shook her head. “Believe me—no matter how bad a parent you might think Ruth is, my father is way worse. He’s abusive and mean, selfish and heartless—”
Jeremy smirked. “Sounds like Ed and Ruth would have made a perfect match. Why didn’t they just marry and raise the whole brood of you together?”
“Because,” Julie said almost unemotionally, “my dad had no vested interest in Ruth Sitteroff. He slept with any woman he could drag into bed. Who knows how many brothers and sisters I have floating around out there? Neal’s just the only one I know of for sure.”
“Well,” Jeremy added, his voice full with cynicism, “maybe Ruth slept around too. Maybe Neal isn’t your father’s son—maybe he’s someone else’s altogether.”
Julie looked at me. “No, your dad told my mother from his hospital bed that Ed was Neal’s father. He knew that for certain. He made Ruth tell him who she’d been sleeping with.”
“But what if she lied?” I asked. “What if she blurted out the first name that came to mind—or a name she knew would upset my father?”
Jeremy narrowed his eyes and looked Julie over. “No, she’s right. Julie, you like just like Neal. Cut your hair, add a little red to it—put on some jeans and a polo shirt—”
“You could prove it with a blood test—” I offered.
Julie shook her head. “I believe my mother. She believed what Nathan told her. And maybe he believed what Ruth told him.”
“That’s a lot of believing going around—from people not in the habit of telling the truth,” Jeremy said with a grunt. He lifted himself carefully from the chair. “I need some water—and it’s too hot out here.” He wiggled his hand in the air as if summing up all he had heard with that trite gesture. “The drama continues . . .”
We watched Jeremy go back in the house, and I wondered what he thought of Julie’s bombshell. Not that it changed anything—or offered leverage in my current dilemma. Or did it?
What would Neal do when he found out he’d been lied to for twenty-seven years? That he had a father all this time and was never told? That was surely something worth pondering. Would he turn on my mother, switch camps? Was it worth even telling him right now? Maybe I would keep it my little secret—a secret weapon to use at just the right time.
Julie stopped that line of thinking with her next words. “Lisa, would you arrange a way for me to meet Neal?”
I glanced into the house and saw Jeremy watching us. My heart felt weighted with lead. “To be honest, I don’t know. We’re in the middle of . . . a family crisis right now. Like World War III. I’m not even speaking to Neal—or my mother or Raff. The timing is . . . not great.”
Julie nodded, but I could tell she was disappointed. She’d been waiting three years, anxiously anticipating this moment—to meet the brother she never knew—her only sibling. I could see how she’d want badly to connect.
But why not? I toyed with the idea. Who was I to challenge fate? The timing seemed divinely appointed. I shook my head. I still couldn’t adjust to the concept of Ed Hutchinson sleeping with my mother—and Ed being Neal’s father. What must my father have felt—looking at his wife, seeing her belly grow with new life, and knowing the child wasn’t his? No wonder he moved out. No wonder he retaliated. Maybe he had been faithful to her all those years, faithfully tolerating his miserable marriage. And then he learned his wife was bonking his boss. And got pregnant, as an added bonus. Did he feel humiliated, a cuckold, a failure? There he was, trying to support his family, trying to be a good husband and father, and then he gets slapped in the face with this affair that Ruth had tried to hide from him. Maybe Ruth considered a back-door abortion but chickened out. Too many women died back then, from dirty instruments and careless hacks who botched abortions. No doubt Ruth put on the appearance of a happy mother, glowing with joy over the impending birth, chatting with her neighbors over the fence about baby names. Unbelievable.
We used to make jokes about Neal—Raff and I—because Neal looked different with his lighter hair and freckles, his disinterest in math and preference for sports. We even teased our mother about the milkman, insinuating how Neal looked more like him, and how Neal wasn’t really our brother, that he had been left on the doorstep in a basket with a note pinned to his blanket. My mother would laugh along with us. A longstanding family Sitteroff joke.
Some joke. The joke was on us kids. Particularly on Neal.
I could just picture Neal’s face when he learned the truth. And Raff’s too. Suddenly, I was eager to indulge Julie’s wish to meet Neal. I told her I would arrange a visit.