*Revision of first essay (included in portfolio)
I looked at his
extended arm, hand waving me into his embrace from the middle of the otherwise
empty dance floor. My feet were sore, my
make-up was creasing, and I was getting a rash from the way the unlined material
of the hand-crafted bridesmaid dress cut into my side. I was a fifteen year old with social anxiety
and he was calling me into a circle where two hundred sets of eyes and just as
many cameras would be trained only on us.
But he flashed me that familiar smile that said, “I got you, sis,” so I
went to him and placed my hand in his.
He grabbed my waist and we danced.
We cried and laughed and spun under the soft lighting of the reception
hall. In moments I forgot about all the
wedding guests and was isolated in the trustworthy arms of my big brother. He led me like he had a thousand times
before, his grip strong and his eyes kind.
***
I have pictures,
their backs stained with the sticky amber glue of photo album pages and the
quick scrawl of the year they depict, that show a young boy I can’t recall
swinging two-year old-me around the playground.
My back is pressed tightly against his chest and his hands are locked on
my hips as my tiny legs kick straight out, dancing in the rush of air our
bodies create. We’re both laughing, our
similar noses scrunched up and our teeth showing. I can’t remember the day these photos depict
but I’m now able to recognize the way my brother’s arms embrace me, protecting
me from the dangerous world that lies outside his grasp. However, I would be deceiving you for the
sake sentimentality if I claimed this was always the case. The son of my mother and her first husband,
Tony lived almost a generation before I was even a possibility. With fourteen years between us, it has been difficult
to find our rhythm.
***
“You remember that
card you made for your brother? He tried
to throw it away but Sarah stopped him,” my mother gossiped to me, consistent
with her habit of telling me too much while I was too young. At six years old, with hands still coated in
glitter glue and crayon wax, my heart was crushed. At twenty, with a forfeited youth in the name
of young love and that pretention of young adulthood not quite out of his
system, my bother found no treasure in an illegible card made on recyclable
construction paper.
With these
missteps, our sloppy waltz toward a synced partnership continued. A few years later, Sarah, his first wife, satisfied
her maternal instincts by fitting me with one of her sports bras. I was so excited I immediately jumped up on
the queen-sized bed shoved into the couple’s two bedroom duplex.
“Tony, look! Sarah
gave me my first bra!” I shouted, as my brother walked past the doorway,
lifting my shirt to proudly display the cotton signifying my bestowed grown-upness.
“You’re not
supposed to show that to boys,” he explained, quickly retreating from the
situation that flushed his cheeks.
“Boys never really
learn to handle bras,” Sarah whispered to me with a smirk. Too young to understand why she chuckled to
herself and too deflated to care about an adult keeping secrets, I simply
descended from my throne of womanhood, scrambling the royal sheets with my
sloppy departure.
***
As we aged, Tony
and I began to discover our responsibilities on the dance floor. My brother took the lead, looking down at his
own feet, noting the steps he took and telling me when to step forward to avoid
the same failures in my routine. I
placed my hands trustingly on his shoulders, and allowed him to guide my
movements, depending on his experience in the craft. And when my body dipped toward the floor, I
allowed his arms to cradle me, believing he was strong enough to support my
weight.
***
“I can’t fucking
believe this. Are you serious?” my
father shouted at me, trying to pacify his bubbling anger by rocking back and
forth in his computer chair.
I didn’t
answer. When my father yelled there was
no way to know what answer he expected, just that you weren’t supposed to
answer wrong. He clumsily jerked his
head like a dog shaking off water, his eyes bulging, brow expectantly raised,
the weakening skin of his aged forehead smashed together in a protrusion of
wrinkles, silently asking, “WELL?” He
demanded an answer to his rhetorical question.
“Are you serious?”
he repeated, adding extra bite to the first syllable.
“I just got the
papers earlier this week. I didn’t know
you had to take out a loan,” I said, my eyes finding particular interest in the
peeling lacquer on the office desk.
“You can’t be
fucking serious. You didn’t think of
telling me about this? When did you get
the papers?” My father’s questions were
coming in rapid succession now.
“Last week,” I
said, my voice shrinking.
“Last week. And you didn’t tell me then because…?”
I just shrugged,
too intimidated by his thunderous voice and reddening face to admit that I
didn’t value his opinion on where I went to college, and that the idea of going
away to college was really more about going away from him. Unfortunately, in the grand planning for my
future I neglected to figure out a way to pay for my escape plan without my
parents’ aid. With one of my acceptance
letters came an insistence on the ParentPLUS loan program, expecting my parents
to sign responsibility for half of my university costs. My education wasn’t worth any effort on part
of my father, though, and upon hearing he’d actually have to contribute to the
person I would grow into while at college, he put on quite the performance.
“Well, that was
really smart. No, really. You’re really fucking smart not telling me
about this shit sooner. I have to take out a loan for you to go to school? Is that what you’re telling me?” My father’s voice steadily rose as his mind
rolled over the idea, not unlike the obsessive way his tongue kneaded the
tobacco tucked behind his lower lip.
“Never mind. I don’t have to go.” I instinctively recoiled, back peddled, gave
up. I knew from experience it was better
to give in to the wrath than allow things to escalate; that’s how furniture got
destroyed.
All the while, my
brother, visiting my parents for the afternoon, manned the porch swing outside
the window. When my father had decided
he’d asked enough impossible questions for that particular “discussion,” I returned
to the kitchen. My brother met me inside
and joined the conversation, swiping a hand under my back to protect my falling
body from the impact of the cold dance floor.
“Do you know how
hard it was for me to listen to that?” Tony asked my father when he’d
returned. “Just like it was when I was a
kid.” He spat the last sentence,
accusing the older man of some past offense our argument had conjured from his
memory. From the disgust in my brother’s
voice, I knew he was recalling more than just a chair being pummeled.
“You think you can
keep her from going away to college? You
think yelling and screaming is going to stop her from leaving? If anything it’s just going to make her run
faster.”
My father remained
silent, his face still flushed with the efforts of his earlier tantrum. Dark sunglasses now covered his eyes and his
mouth was pulled tightly shut. Tony was
an adult now. A man. He’d grown into a
true professional, tie and all. He was
nursing a fledgling career and creating financial stability for himself. To my father, the authority of manhood
required some amount of respect, and so he resided to stolidly hold up a wall
of the kitchen, peering out at my brother’s defiant face from behind black
glasses.
“She is so much
better than this; this house, this family.
I didn’t finish college because I needed to work days and take night
classes so I could afford to be away from you.
It was too much. I couldn’t
handle it. She deserves to succeed where
I failed.”
Tony reached to
hug me and I collapsed in his arms. I
sobbed into his chest, welcomed with the soothing musk of his sandalwood
cologne. My hands fisted the back of his
Pens hockey t-shirt as he soothingly stroked my hair.
“She’s going to
college. And she’ll figure it out with
or without you.”
***
When I was fifteen,
my brother remarried. I attended the
wedding in an itchy, coral bridesmaid dress and white pumps that pinched my
pinky toes. My hair was set too tightly,
and by the reception dinner I was scratching at bobby pins attempting to burrow
their way into my skull. After the
guests finished their food and everyone had helped themselves to a few drinks,
it was time to open the floor. The
couple’s first dance was followed by the routine of the wedding party. Next, came the father-daughter song, and then
my brother took my mother’s hand. Before
the floor was opened to everyone, though, Tony beckoned me to center
stage. He was already a bit tipsy, and
his thinning hair betrayed the sweat the overhead lights caused his head. That familiar smile welcomed me and I placed
my hand in his.
“I know this
wasn’t something you were excited to do,” Tony said, referencing the bright
gown and high heels that made me feel out of place, “but I needed you here with me. Thanks for doing this.”
As I watched my
brother begin to cry, I remembered the faded image of the boy who held my young
body close to his. I teared up as I
compared that child to the man who stood before me, the man who, at times,
treated me almost as if I were his own child.
This tall, loving man, protecting me in his embrace once again, would
continue to offer me advice, guide my steps as best he could lead. He would try to shelter me from the cruelty
of the world threatening to knock me off balance, supporting my dipping
body. He’d even eventually take me in,
open his home to me and be the kind of man I regarded with admiration, not
fear.
***
We’ve had a lot of
practice, Tony and I, but we’re nowhere near professionals. Spending the last two decades growing
together, we’ve learned to give and take.
I lunge forward as he steps back, he approaches as I withdrawal, and
occasionally we hold each other close as our weight sways side to side in
unison. Our steps are never rehearsed;
we stumble and step on each other’s toes, as siblings do. Still, in him I’ve seen the strength of a man
capable of pulling off a Patrick Swayze lift when necessary. Whether he’s swinging me around a
neighborhood playground or simply lending me his emotional support, my brother
has been the young man lifting me up and smiling as he helped me fly.
