Lionel Shriver - Big Brother

As with so many of my husband’s bullying eccentricities, I refused to get with the program and had begun to sleep in. I was my own boss, too, and I detested early mornings. Queasy first light recalled weak filtered coffee scalded on a hot plate. Turning in at nine would have made me feel like a child, shuttled to my room while the grown-ups had fun. Only the folks having fun, all too much of it, would have been Tanner and Cody, teenagers not about to adopt their father’s faux farming hours.

Thus, having just cleared off my own toast and coffee dishes, I wasn’t hungry for lunch—although, following the phone call of an hour earlier, my appetite had gone off for other reasons. I can’t remember what we were eating, but it was probably brown rice and broccoli. With a few uninteresting variations, in those days it was always brown rice and broccoli.

At first, we didn’t talk. When we’d met seven years before, our comfort with mutual silence had been captivating. One of the things that had once put me off about marriage was the prospect of ceaseless chat. Fletcher felt the same way, although his silence had a different texture than mine: thicker, more concentrated—churning and opaque. This gave his quiet a richness, which dovetailed nicely with my cooler, smoother calm. My silence made a whimsical humming sound, even if I didn’t actually hum; in culinary terms, it resembled a light cold soup. Darker and more brooding, Fletcher’s was more of a red wine sauce. He wrestled with problems, while I simply solved them. Solitary creatures, we never contrived conversation for the sake of it. We were well suited.

Yet this midday, the hush was of dread and delay. Its texture was that of sludge, like my disastrous rosewater pudding. I rehearsed my introductory sentence several times before announcing aloud, “Slack Muncie called this morning.”

“Who’s Mack Muncie?” asked Fletcher distractedly.

“Slack. A saxophonist. From New York. I’ve met him several times. Well regarded, I think—but like most of that crowd, has trouble making ends meet. Obliged to accept wedding and restaurant gigs, where everyone talks over the music.” All of this qualified as the very “making conversation” I claimed to avoid.

Fletcher looked up warily. “How do you know him?”

“He’s one of Edison’s oldest friends. A real stalwart.”

“In that case,” said Fletcher, “he must be very patient.”

“Edison’s been staying with him.”

“I thought your brother had an apartment. Over his jazz club.” Fletcher imbued “his jazz club” with skepticism. He didn’t believe Edison ever ran his own jazz club.

“Not anymore. Slack didn’t want to get into it, but there’s some—story.”

“Oh, there’s sure to be a story . It just won’t be true.”

“Edison exaggerates sometimes. That’s not the same as being a liar.”

“Right. And the color ‘pearl’ isn’t the same as ‘ivory.’”

“With Edison,” I said, “you have to learn how to translate .”

“So he’s mooching off friends. How’s this for translation : your brother’s homeless.” Fletcher habitually called Edison “your brother.” To my ear that decoded, “your problem.”

“Sort of,” I said.

“And broke.”

“Edison has been through thin patches before. Between tours.”

“So because of some mysterious, complicated story—like not paying the rent—your brother has lost his apartment, and now he’s couch surfing.”

“Yes,” I said, squirming. “Although he seems to be running out of couches.”

“Why did this Slack person call, and not your brother himself?”

“Well, I think Slack has been incredibly generous, though his apartment is small. A one-bedroom, where he also has to practice.”

“Honey. Spit it out. Say whatever it is that you don’t want to tell me.”

I intently chased a floret, too undercooked to fork. “He said there isn’t enough room. For the two of them. Most of their other colleagues are already doubled up, or married with kids, and—Edison doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Anywhere else but where ?”

“We have a guest room now,” I pleaded. “Nobody ever uses it, besides Solstice every two years. And, you know—he’s my brother. ”

A contained man, Fletcher seldom looked visibly irked. “You say that like playing a trump.”

“It means something.”

“Something but not everything. Why couldn’t he stay with Travis? Or Solstice?”

“My father is impossible and over seventy. By the time my sister was born, Edison was nearly out of the house. He and Solstice barely know each other.”

“You have other responsibilities. To Tanner, to Cody, to me. Even”—a loaded pause—“to Baby Moronic. You can’t make a decision like this by fiat.”

“Slack sounded at his wit’s end. I had to say something.”

“What you had to say,” said Fletcher levelly, “was, ‘I’m sorry, but I have to ask my husband.’”

“Maybe I knew what you’d say.”

“And what was that?”

I smiled, a little. “Something like, ‘Over my dead body.’”

He smiled, a little. “Got that right.”

“I realize it didn’t go that well. The last visit.”

“No. It didn’t.”

“You seemed to get on the wrong side of each other.”

“There was no ‘seeming.’ We did.”

“If it were just anybody, I wouldn’t ask. But it isn’t. It would mean so much to me if you tried a little harder.”

“Got nothing to do with trying. You like someone, or you don’t. If you’re ‘trying,’ you don’t.”

“You can give folks a break. You do that with other people.” I took a moment to reflect that in Fletcher’s case this wasn’t always true. He could be harsh.

“Are you telling me that throughout this negotiation you never talked to your brother directly? So his friend is trying to offload the guy behind his back.”

“Maybe Edison’s embarrassed. He wouldn’t like asking favors of his little sister.”

“Little sister! You’re forty years old.”

An only child, Fletcher didn’t understand about siblings—how set that differential is. “Sweetheart, I’ll still be Edison’s little sister when I’m ninety-five.”

Fletcher soaked the rice pan in the sink. “You’ve got some money now, right? Though I’m never too clear on how much.” (No, he wouldn’t have been clear. I was secretive.) “So send him a check. Enough for a deposit on some dump and a couple of months’ rent. Problem solved.”

“Buy him off. Bribe him to stay away from us.”

“Well, he wouldn’t have much of a life here. You can’t say Iowa has a ‘jazz scene.’”

“There are venues in Iowa City.”

“Pass-the-hat gigs for a handful of cheapo students aren’t going to suit Mr. Important International Jazz Pianist.”

“But according to Slack, Edison isn’t—‘in the best form.’ He says Edison needs—‘someone to take care of him.’ He thinks my brother’s confidence has taken a knock.”

“Best news I’ve heard all day.”

“My business is doing well,” I said quietly. “That should be good for something. For being generous.” The way I’ve been generous with you , I almost added, and with kids who are now my children too , but I didn’t want to rub it in.

“But you’re also volunteering the rest of this family’s generosity.”

“I realize that.”

Fletcher leaned on either side of the sink. “I’m sorry if I seem unfeeling. Whether or not the guy gets on my nerves, he’s your brother, and you must find it upsetting, his being down on his luck.”

“Yes, very,” I said gratefully. “He’s always been the hot shot. Being strapped, straining his friends’ hospitality—it feels wrong. Like the universe has turned on its head.” I wasn’t about to tell Fletcher, but Edison and Slack must have fallen out, since the saxophonist’s urgency had been laced with what I could only call, well—disgust.