Bryan

I was trying to stomach dinner with my family this evening. The art gallery project was going fairly well. We had the electrical and plumbing finally up and running, which meant we were already in the process of restoring the outside of the building. Hailey’s visions for the place left me a blank canvas for the outside, so I had mock-ups of colors and designs running through my head. It kept me distracted from the uncomfortable silence that had descended the opulent dinner table at my parents’ house, but I knew it wouldn’t last for long.

I tried to have dinner with them every couple of weeks to try and do the whole family thing. It kept me from feeling guilty that we couldn’t make our family work. It reminded me of why the family fell apart in the first place. I had a tendency to blame myself for not being able to keep everyone together.

Even though they pissed me off, they were still my family, the people who had brought me into this world and raised me. I still had fleeting hopes that I could repair the damage done and that we could all enjoy one another again. It wasn’t that we didn’t love each other. We were all just so strained. We had all been affected by the death of my brother, and I couldn’t wrap my head around why my parents reacted the way they did. I still valued them as family, and I still wanted a relationship with them, but I didn’t understand how they could write him off like that.

But, all that guilt would quickly drain away whenever my mother would open her mouth.

“You still working that job?” she asked.

“You mean owning my company? Yes.”

“Whatever. Please tell me you’re at least taking a corporate seat.”

“Nope. Still pretty hands on. Working on a job site now, actually. I told Drew we were going to add a commercial property branch to the company and expand beyond residential properties.”

“Expansion. That sounds exciting,” my father said. “Any rental properties? You know, ones that might bring in more money for you.”

“We haven’t gotten it off the ground yet. It’s still in its infancy. I’m working on this art gallery in the southern part of San Diego. It’s going to be the first in our portfolio that we’ll use to advertise our services.”

“Oh, an art gallery. Will they have Degas and Monet? Oh, I bet we could donate one of our pieces. Maybe the Rembrandt upstairs?” my mother asked.

“Actually, it’s a newly-local artist. She paints and sells her artwork and delves into art therapy. Really has a passion for helping the community around her express themselves through art,” I said.

“Oh,” my mother said. “How quaint.”

“Well, I think it’s wonderful,” my father said. “Did you cut the artist a deal? You know, to nail down the client?”

“Yep. She was appreciative of it, and it got us on board,” I said.

“See? That’s that keen business mind I keep telling you about, Dorothy. Our son’s got a good one on his shoulders,” he said.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“All right, Michael. We hear you,” my mother said. “You can calm down now.”

I had to excuse myself from the table. I couldn’t stand the way my mother was so fucking close-minded. An art gallery only had her attention if expensive works of art hung on the walls like their fucking hallway that guided you toward the damn bathroom. Rembrandt and Van Gogh hung from the walls like they were fun little ornaments, decorations to sigh over before getting to the more important stuff. I’d stared at this artwork in awe as a child and had tried to mimic the brushstrokes and colorings. I learned how to shade on my own simply by trying to mimic those pictures, those beautiful pieces of heaven.

The more I looked on the walls, the more I realized something. There was prized artwork and decorations, a few pictures of my mother and father, and a couple pictures of me. But there were empty spaces, areas where the wall was a different color.

Pictures had been actively taken down.

There were no pictures anywhere of my brother, and I had to hold back my vomit as I rushed to the bathroom.

I threw the door closed behind me and vomited into the sink. They’d gotten rid of them. All of them. Like he didn’t fucking exist. Like he’d never been born to this earth. I’d never noticed it before, but then again, I’d never attempted to elongate dinner beyond what I could possibly stand anyway. I hated walking through this house. I hated the memories it bombarded me with. I hated remembering how John and I used to run these halls together with the nanny chasing after us as she tried to keep us from making a mess.

The memories alone were enough to choke a horse, and as I threw up the last of my dinner into the sink, I rinsed my mouth out and cleaned up the area around me.

I gave myself a good, hard look in the mirror. They were my family. My parents. I had to make it through dinner. Just dinner and then I could excuse myself from dessert, telling them I wasn’t feeling well. I loved my family. I really did.

It’s too bad I had to keep reminding myself of that fact.

I meandered back out to dinner where my parents finishing their plates. I sat down and took a few bites, trying to stomach the food as my mind began to whirl. My father talked aimlessly about the current state of the San Diego real estate market. He asked me questions about my new projects, about how much the homes I built went for and what kind of profit I made from them. He asked me if I’d thought about renting them instead of selling them, bringing in a guaranteed monthly profit I could rely on to expand even more.

And that segued into a conversation with my mother that almost blew my head through the roof.

“Speaking of poor business decisions,” she said, “are you still giving charity jobs to hobos?”

I had to put my hands in my lap so no one could see me balling up my fists in anger.

“Yes, Mom. I’m still instilling community outreach into my business,” I said. “I’ve even taken a couple of them on as permanent employees once I trained them and cleaned them up.”

“You know that will never bring your brother back. It’s just your guilt driving that sort of thing. It really is a poor business model,” she said.

“Dorothy, I believe that’s enough,” my father said.

“Look. We tried to talk him out of those hideous tattoos, and it almost cost him his career, Michael. The least we can do is intervene now before his emotions completely sink his business.”

“Well, I’m not the one actively removing the presence of John out of my life, so I’d be careful with the next words you choose,” I said.

“Beg your pardon?” my mother asked.

“The pictures. You’ve removed all of them containing John like he didn’t even exist. I might be reaching out into the community because of what he went through in his life, but at least I’m not trying to act like the black sheep of the family didn’t exist.”

“Bryan,” my father said.

“And for the record, the mere fact that I’m a successful business owner disproves your theory about the negative value of tattoos,” I said.

“I’d like to scrub them off with steel wool,” she said, murmuring.

“I’m a law-abiding citizen with a very successful career co-owning the premier up-and-coming construction company in all of California. I reach out to the community and try to revive it by pulling from the most underutilized workforce in this country, the poor. I’ve had requests from all over the state wanting our crews to come in and develop some of the lands they can’t seem to do anything with and to revive communities that have sunken into turmoil. And I did it all with these tattoos you seem to think so rudely of,” I said.

“The tattoos simply make you look bad, regardless of your business success,” she said. “I gave birth to such a beautiful boy, and you marred your body with these ugly things.”

I had to take a deep breath in order to regulate my blood pressure. The chef tried to sit dessert in front of me, but I simply waved him off. I had no intentions of staying any longer in this house. I didn’t have to tolerate my mother speaking to me this way, and I sure as hell didn’t have to tolerate my father trying to shut me up while she did it.

I didn’t give a shit as to whether or not she liked the tattoos, but I’d be damned if I was going to sit here and listen to her degrade and shit on my plan to help the homeless.

Just because she thought she was better than everyone else didn’t mean I had to sit here and listen to her preach her twisted truth.

“And anyway, everyone who is able-bodied proves themselves,” my mother said. “People who are homeless simply deserve it. Handing them jobs they don’t deserve or interview for simply perpetuates their dependence on us. Those who have become successful because we didn’t succumb to the pressures of life.”

“I am not giving handouts, mother. I am taking them on with strict rules they have to abide by. If they don’t follow the rules, they get fired. Simple as that. They work full days, earn their paychecks, and learn a trade in the process that they can then use to get them off the streets. I’m not handing them jobs, I’m giving them a chance to do what you just talked about.”

“And what is that, my dear?” she asked.

“Prove themselves. I’m doing exactly what you both taught me to do growing up, provide opportunities for hard-working people who recognize the fact that they’ve made mistakes.”

Silence descended upon the table again as my parents sent their desserts away as well. We all sat there, sipping our expensive wine while the tension slowly grew between the three of us. Despite all that occurred, despite everything with John and all the values they raised us with, they were stuck in this insane mindset that permeated the upper-class arrogance of this area of the country. They lacked empathy and respect. They lacked the ability to have mercy and put themselves in other people’s shoes. It was that same lack of desire to help and care for and love that had pushed my brother out of the house and onto the streets.

It was that same lack of respect that pushed my brother all the way to Los Angeles.

It was that same lack of caring about anything other than how shit reflected on them that resulted in my brother overdosing in the streets instead of being helped by the people he should’ve been able to trust all his life, especially the two people who should’ve taken him in when no one else would.

“Thanks for dinner,” I said as I stood.

“Going so early?” my mother asked.

“I am. Got an early morning on the job site,” I said.

“We’re proud of you son,” my father said.

“I know you are,” I said as I pushed my chair in. “Mom, however, still needs a bit more work on her script.”

I heard her scoff as I headed for the door. I threw it open and didn’t bother shutting it behind me, making my way to my truck. I wanted to get to the site early in the morning to test out a few of my theories for the outer design of the gallery. It would help to get my mind off all the things that had been said tonight and all the emotions that rattled my stomach.

It would help me rid my mind of the fact that my parents were actively trying to remove all memories of John from that house and from their lives.

I drove away from the house with my father’s face receding in my rearview mirror. I knew he wanted to fix things. I knew he wanted to make things right. John had been his baby boy. The prematurely born child he sat in the NICU with for weeks. The first time John had ever wrapped his finger around my father’s hand, it was while my father was wearing gloves.

He had been so fragile then, and my father had tried to protect him as much as possible.

He wanted to fix our family and fix what was left of it before he lost his only other son too.

He just didn’t know how to do it, and quite frankly, neither did I.