Lacking money for a taxi, Brandon—a boyish man, fifty-two, with close-cropped gray hair—walks the three miles from the train station to his father’s mansion, fighting a powerful headwind. He ascends the steep driveway to the hilltop from where the great house commands a spectacular view of the megalopolis sprawling to the far horizons. His father’s silver Rolls Royce gleams in the twilight. His sister’s jade-green Jaguar is there, too, along with several other shiny new cars belonging to his stepmother and her children.
As Brandon approaches the broad stairway leading up to his father’s massive front door, a dozen ravens descend from the cloudless sky and settle at the top of a towering eucalyptus—the slender boughs bending under the weight of the birds.
Brandon turns away from the house, not yet ready to face his family. He enters the expansive rose garden where a few stalwart blooms cling to their bushes in defiance of a freezing November. He sits wearily on an elegant teak bench beside a reflection pond surrounded by Japanese maples—some red, some green, some golden. He closes his eyes and recites a litany of affirmations known as brahmaviharas.
May I be free of fear.
May I be free of worry.
May I know physical well-being.
May I know mental well-being.
May I know emotional well-being.
May I know the ease of well-being.
May I know the grace of well-being.
May I be loved.
May I be supported.
May my happiness continue.
May my suffering be at end.
I am the owner of my own karma.
My happiness and unhappiness
depend on my actions.
Brandon rises from the bench and approaches the pond. A breeze ripples the water, blurring his image. He closes his eyes and begins the brahmaviharas again, changing the pronoun as he thinks of his father and sister.
May you be free of fear.
May you be free of worry.
May you know physical well-being.
May you know mental well-being.
May you know emotional well-being.
May you know the ease of well-being.
May you know the grace of well-being.
May you be loved.
May you be supported.
May your happiness continue.
May your suffering be at end.
You are the owner of your own karma.
Your happiness and unhappiness
depend on your actions.
Brandon raises his eyes to the upper branches of the eucalyptus, the shimmering leaves turning pink in the last light of day. The ravens cling to the slender boughs as they sway in a wind from the north.
Brandon has almost no money. He lives alone in a small room in a dangerous part of the city. He makes his living as the janitor of the theological school where he meditates for several hours every day. He only comes to his father’s house one day each year—Thanksgiving. He has no other contact with his father and sister and their families.
“It’s late,” he says, watching the eucalyptus leaves turn from pink to gray. “They’ll want to eat soon.”
Still he does not rise. The knowledge of what will happen when he enters his father’s house pins him down with the gravity of Jupiter.
If he climbs those stairs and opens that door, he will force himself to feign interest in the lives of people he barely knows, and they, knowing of his poverty, will not inquire about his life. His sister will show him photo albums documenting her recent travels abroad. His father will get very drunk and berate him for not traveling to Europe, for not marrying, for pissing his life away. Brandon will make no attempt to defend himself.
After supper, his sister will drive him to the train station. He will thank her for the ride. She will hand him an envelope and say, “Happy Holidays.” There will be two checks in the envelope, one from his sister for five hundred dollars, one from his father for a thousand.
The ravens detach themselves from the branches and fly away to the west, murmuring to one another. As Brandon watches the birds become black dots above the silver horizon, he admits to himself that his sole motive for coming to his father’s house is to get those checks from his sister. He does not make enough money as a janitor to cover his living expenses, but by being impeccably frugal, the gifts from his father and sister allow him to continue his studies and practice without other sources of income.
“I won’t do this anymore,” he says, rising from the bench and descending the hill through growing darkness.
