Dear Rudy,
We had shepherd’s pie for dinner tonight, minus the carrots. Mum made a big thing of forgetting the carrots at the shop, but I knew. I think it still makes everyone think about you because it’s your favourite dinner. You should come home so Mum can make you shepherd’s pie and fuss over you. She’ll give you the biggest serving and call you a ‘growing lad’. I love the texture of the mashed potato and how it makes me feel warm, and Mum smiled when I told her that. Dad told Oliver not to bring his figures to the table, and I said if Dad can have the radio on the races, then Oliver should be able to have Batman and Spiderman. Oliver shot me his dimple-cornered smile and I poked my tongue back. I wish I was the type of sister who gave him life lessons and had long chats and cuddles on the couch, but our closeness is an unspoken kind. We spell out rude words with our vegetables on our dinner plates and snigger quietly, that kind of thing. I’m not sure if that makes our bond any less meaningful than those siblings who do talk, but I hope not. You’re better at talking to him, and I know he’d love to hear from you.
I used to get annoyed that Mum makes us sit at the dinner table every night, because eating on the couch in front of the television is nice. But now I’m kind of glad. Even two years ago when Mum and Dad weren’t talking, and when they said the word divorce late at night when they thought we were asleep, we always ate dinner at the table together. It’s because Mum read an article in a magazine about how it keeps families together, and even though I’m not sure how it works, I like it anyway. They don’t say the word divorce anymore, not even late at night when they think we are asleep, and I don’t know what has changed. Dad still goes to the pub, Mum still meditates and fusses over what she eats, you’re not here and I’m still having outbursts. Oliver stopped wetting the bed, though, so maybe that was the balancing factor. When I’d finished eating, I asked them if they were happy and they both said yes, but their eyes said they weren’t sure. Maybe they were happy though, and adult happiness just looks different.
Mitch was here for dinner too. You probably don’t want to hear about him, but I’ve been telling you heaps of things in these letters and I’ve hardly mentioned him so far, so here we are. We were having a fight, Mitch and I, another one. I still can’t quite figure out if I was completely in the wrong like he said I was, or if maybe I was right and he just couldn’t admit that. I’m going to tell you how it went, and maybe you can give me some advice. You’re a big brother, after all, even if you’re not acting like one at the moment. So, it was like this:
Him: ‘Baby, you’re being ridiculous.’
Me: ‘Well, why can’t you show me the texts then?’
Him: ‘You shouldn’t have to go through my phone. Don’t you trust me?’
Me: ‘Not if you are hiding your texts from me. If there was nothing there you would show me.’
Him: ‘That’s not the point. You shouldn’t need to see them.’
Me: ‘You go through my phone.’
Him: ‘Yeah, but that’s different. You wouldn’t know if someone was flirting with you. You think everyone is just being nice. I’m looking out for you.’
Me: ‘You were texting me when you were with Mia.’
Him: ‘You were texting me too.’
Me: ‘That’s not fair.’
Him: ‘You’re not being fair. You’re acting like I’m out cheating on you when I’m just talking to a girl from work. I’m allowed to have friends who are girls aren’t I? Or is that off limits now?’
Me: ‘If you weren’t so secretive all the time I wouldn’t care about seeing your phone.’
Him: ‘I’m only secretive because you always want to go through my stuff. Don’t cry, now you’re just making me feel bad when I’ve done nothing wrong.’
Me: (crying) ‘I’m not crying to make you feel bad, I’m crying because I’m overwhelmed.’
Him: ‘You can’t just blame everything on autism and win every fight.’
Me: ‘Well, I can’t help crying. I’m not trying to win anything.’
Him: ‘There’s nothing to cry about.’
Me: (still crying)
Him: ‘Please don’t cry. I should have deleted them. I just knew you’d be upset and I didn’t want you to be. Let’s forget it, okay. I’ll show you next time.’
Me: (not planning to forget it any time soon) ‘Okay.’
What do you think? Weird, right? It was exhausting, going back and forth like that. That’s how our relationship goes lately. He does something I’m not okay about, he gets defensive, I get overwhelmed, I cry, he gets mad, he apologises and we make up and start the whole thing again.
When we fight, he comes at it with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. I’ve told him some of my darkest thoughts and he likes to pull them out like a winning poker hand, throwing them on the table instead of trying to understand where I’m coming from. It is kind of like how in movie fight scenes, if someone has a gunshot wound the person fighting them will stick their finger in the hole to disarm them. He knows where my gunshot wounds are and goes for them when he has nothing else.
I know you think he’s a loser. I don’t know if he is, or if that even matters. I’m just tired of hearing all the ways I’m getting stuff wrong. I’m always ‘miscommunicating’ or ‘misunderstanding’ or ‘overreacting’ or ‘underreacting’. Maybe other people should put as much consideration into their communication with me as I do with them. It’s all I freaking think about sometimes. Did I say the wrong thing? Did I misread the situation? Should I have asked that person more about the thing they are upset about, or do they not want to talk? Is sharing my experience of a similar thing helpful or making it all about me? It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted. And you’ve made things harder, Rudy, just so you know. You’ve made it all about you.
Mum has stern eyes but soft words for Mitch. I think she wants to help him. I don’t mean Mum is attracted to Mitch, but she cuts him more slack than she does me. Women sometimes like troubled men don’t they? That’s one of those things that I’m learning is a rule. I know there’s something maternal there, a desire to make everything okay. But it’s more selfish than that, isn’t it, more conceited. ‘I will be the one who will fix them’, or ‘I’m worth changing for’, though I’ve never seen that play out successfully. The reality is far less romantic. Hurt people hurt people as effortlessly as breathing.
Mitch makes me feel small in the ways I want to feel big, and insecure about the parts of me I so desperately want to be small, like my thighs. I’m still trying to figure out how to be, and how to read him. I know for sure I’d have an outburst and a bad time if I broke up with him, and I can’t imagine a way to do it that wouldn’t be messy. If I could just backspace him out of my life without having to tell him to his face, or over the phone, maybe I’d do it. But then I’d have one less person to spend time with.
‘You’re lucky to have a boyfriend. No one else would put up with your strangeness.’ That’s what my mind keeps reminding me, and so I’m still here, having fights about his texts with girls from work. He was nicer to me at the start, or at least I think he was. He was charming anyway, and he treated me like normal. I don’t think Mitch is a loser, but maybe you are right.
You’re right about people a lot. I don’t know if you remember this, but maybe you do. When I was eight, and you were ten we had that neighbour called Fred. If I’d been using my nickname system back then I’d have called him Flanno Fred, because he always wore flannelette shirts and his name was Fred. Fred offered to babysit on the days Mum and Dad were working late, but you told Mum you would rather we were in after-school care than go to Flanno Fred’s house. You called Flanno Fred a weirdo and Mum argued with you, but you protested so much she decided it was easier to let us go to after-school care. Then one day there were police officers at Flanno Fred’s house and they took away his two computers, and Mum told Dad and they agreed you were right after all. ‘Rudy gets people,’ I heard Mum telling someone on the phone not long after. And you do. You have that way, where people feel like you’re their friend right away and they want to tell you stuff they wouldn’t normally tell anyone. There is definitely less talking going on in the house without you, that’s for sure. Wish you’d come back.
Love, Erin