27. Aspect RatioTwenty-Four Years Ago

Aspect Ratio

"I thought we were meeting at the brownstone tomorrow," Morgan says.

I'm standing in the doorway of her and Sam's loft. She is photo shoot ready in a sheer minidress, full makeup, clad once again in her blue boots.

"I'm just looking for Sam," I say. "Is he here?"

"We're actually on our way out the door."

This is when Sam walks up behind her, puts an arm around her waist. He is also dressed to the nines in a dark blue suit, a vest beneath it. Everything about him looks rested and put together. It makes me even angrier that he didn't return my calls. All five of them.

"Why are you so sweaty?" he says.

"I ran here," I say.

"From Flatbush?"

I cross my arms over my chest and glare at him, Morgan looking back and forth between us.

"Morgan, would you mind giving us a minute alone, please?" I say.

He kisses her on the cheek, softly. Kindly. "I'll be ready in five, babe," he says.

Morgan heads inside, and Sam turns back toward me.

"What's going on with you?" I say.

"What's going on with you?"

"Why didn't you call me back all day?"

He points in Morgan's direction. "I've been busy," he says. "And we are about to head out for a fundraiser—"

I ignore this. I ignore him.

"We need to go back to Windbreak," I say.

"What are you talking about?"

"There's nothing at Dad's apartment. There are a few family photographs, sure, but there's really nothing personal. The scrapbooks, the photographs, all the things that made him him, separate from us, separate from the families, that was at Windbreak. He kept everything that mattered to him at Windbreak."

"We were there."

"Then we missed it."

"You're worse than me."

"We need to go back."

"Not happening."

"I also went out to Midwood," I say. "And you know what's crazy?"

"That you went out to Midwood?"

"There were more things that felt like our father there, in the house he hasn't lived in since he was a teenager, than an apartment he lived in until a month ago. How does that make any sense?"

"It doesn't," Sam says. "He didn't even like growing up in Midwood."

"There's one way it adds up."

"What's that?"

"We are missing the thread. The thread that starts all the way back there and ends on the cliff that night."

"You sound crazy," he says. "And that's not enough of a reason—"

"How is this for a reason? The forensic pathologist got in touch with me. She thinks you could be right. She is suspicious too. More than just suspicious."

"Nora."

"Sam, whatever it was, whatever part of his history he couldn't seem to leave behind, that holds the key to the rest of this. I'm sure of it. It's what's behind whatever happened to him that night."

He starts fidgeting, sliding from foot to foot, looking into his apartment in the direction of where Morgan went.

"Look, I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"

"Not okay. Do you hear what I'm telling you?"

He shakes his head. "You don't get it. I was wrong. You were right. I've been trying to figure out who Dad was. Or maybe I just haven't been able to accept that I didn't get to know him the way I wanted to when he was still alive. But nothing happened on the cliff that night."

"You believe that?"

"I believe I got carried away."

"Carried away with what?" I ask.

"All of it…"

He pauses, like it hurts him, like I'm hurting him, to make him say this part. To make him look at this thing he suddenly wants to pretend doesn't exist.

"I couldn't sleep last night," he says. "Yesterday got me all messed up. All that shit you were saying to me in the car. I'm on a path, you know? This is pulling my life apart."

"Oh, now it's my fault?"

"No, it's mine. But I need this to stop."

"Why? So you can marry someone you barely know? Work a job that doesn't inspire you the way playing ball did? Get drunk at some fancy party tonight that you'll pretend you don't hate?"

"Who are you to say what I'll hate?"

"Someone who's been listening to you."

This is when he starts to close the door.

I catch it with my hand, hold it open. "No. No way. You're the one who dragged me into this and now you're just going to bail?"

"You're surprised by that? Isn't this the part where you tell me you're not surprised?"

I look at him and I can see it—what's going on with him, what he is desperate to shut down. He doesn't want to know what he is starting to know about himself. Because he doesn't want to do the uncomfortable work that comes when you accept something needs to change. The uncomfortable work that comes with knowing that change means showing up for yourself in a new way.

But I refuse to simply judge him for that. Because I look at him and I see something else too. I see that he expects my judgment. Why wouldn't he? All these years that we've been kept at a distance from each other and I've done nothing to reach out to him—to reach out for him—he's been playing the role too. He's been playing the role that's more comfortable to him. The role of someone who doesn't care. So, I try something else.

"Look, let's do this differently, okay? Let's just decide that starting now we are going to do this differently. For each other. And for Dad."

He looks at me, and his eyes soften. And I think I've reached him. I think I've reached my brother. But he shakes his head, turning away.

"This is all I can do," he says.

Then he shuts the door, leaving me in the hallway, all by myself.