As I lie in bed that night, tears stream out of the corner of my eye onto my pillow.
“The whole point of the holidays is to be with your family, and a quarter of my family is dead,” I say to Mike.
He tries to comfort me: “A quarter of your family isn’t dead.”
“A quarter of my original family is dead.”
• • •
When we get home from Arizona, we put Iris on her second round of antibiotics for a double ear infection. She hates it. Twice a day for ten days, it’s a two-man, pin-down job involving a sippy cup, a syringe, and a pacifier. Administering the meds tonight, I remember that time you basically claimed that antibiotics were some sort of sci-fi miracle antidote that boosted one’s immune system for months at a time.
It was Christmas Day, 2004. It had snowed the night before, which was extremely unusual in Texas. I had gotten home to a room full of presents at 2:00 p.m., wearing the same clothes from the night before. Dad, who was super sick with some sort of upper-respiratory infection, made a passive-aggressive comment about how late it was or how Christmas gets later and later each year or something along those lines. Whatever it was, I took great offense because I was twenty-three and had the energy to take great offense to things.
“This isn’t one of our better Christmases,” Mom said.
I was in the kitchen building a giant lox sandwich, and all of you were sitting in the living room. Dad sat on the couch next to Mom with the blanket pulled up to his neck. You were filming all of this on the video camera.
“You’re making it worse by making me feel guilty,” I shouted from the kitchen.
Dad chimed in: “That’s what mothers are supposed to do, Stephanie. Loving mothers make their children feel guilty.”
“She’s not making me feel guilty—you are.”
“I am!?” His voice raised an octave. “What did I do!? I’m sitting here with a blanket over me. I’m dying. Ever since I quit smoking, my health has gone to hell. I better start smoking again just to save my life.”
I laughed loudly. This. This was one of my favorite things about how our family functioned. Even in the midst of an argument, we could always break for a laugh.
“You should. It works for me,” you said.
“Did you go outside to smoke last night in the middle of a snow storm?” Dad asked.
“Several times.”
“That’s unbelievable. You could have had pneumonia by now.”
And then: “I took a Zithromax, like, two months ago. My white cells are through the roof.”
Tonight, as I fight to get the medicine into my kid’s mouth as she writhes on the ground like a piece of bacon in a frying pan, I think of your magical white blood cells.
And I laugh.
25 Before
November 2014
Two weeks after the Pete Holmes podcast aired, we expected Harris to come home for Thanksgiving. It was the Tuesday before the holiday weekend, and he was supposed to land in time for dinner. I assumed he’d either want seafood or Mexican. I was already at work that morning when I got a text from my mom who copied and pasted a text she had just gotten from Harris. No preface or explanation. Just this:
Mom I love you and I’m sorry but I don’t think I can come home. I had another relapse and was scared to tell you but I’m dealing with it and am just not in a place to come home and pretend everything is fine. I’m sorry I’m such a fuck-up. I really wanted to be with everyone. I’m not trying to hurt you guys. I’m so sorry.
I erupted into screaming sobs because there was now a volcano where my heart should be. It was messy and hot and all over the place; bubbly and sticky and oozing. It was also very uncomfortable for everyone in the office. They quickly vacated the room. I called my mom and screamed into the phone: “What a fucking asshole! I knew he’d relapsed! I fucking hate him! What the fuck is wrong with him?! He ruins everything! He has destroyed our family. Fuck him!” This went on and on. Lots of fucks.
I worked at a school.
I was a raging bull. The togetherness I’d been loosely holding together all unraveled in this moment. I was so sick of his shit. Given the opportunity, I would’ve pummeled him and not stopped until I saw blood.
That night, my dad finally called Harris and asked if he wanted them to go out there to help him detox. Harris said yes. My dad said it would have to be Friday because they wanted to spend Iris’s first Thanksgiving with us. I thought, “Yet another first that Harris is missing. Another holiday he’s fucking up.” The hate grew deeper.
This would be the first time in our entire lives that our family wouldn’t be together for Thanksgiving. Harris would spend the day driving around LA with his drug dealer while his niece messily slurped up cranberry sauce for the first time.
Over the next few days, I purposely didn’t reach out to my brother. I’d been angry at him plenty in the past, but in those moments of typical sibling tension I just yelled at him for a little while, he yelled back, and it was over. This felt heavier, more permanent.
However, as shitty as I felt about Harris’s absence from Thanksgiving this year, I knew he felt a million times shittier. He was occupying the darkest space, sending texts like this to my mom:
I got back on suboxone and just feel like crap.
I miss you a lot. I hate this.
It’s my fault.
Mom confessed to him that her biggest fear was that her son was going to overdose whether he wanted to
