I was not consciously aware, however, of how much her loss represented a missing piece of the family puzzle. While that hole was filled with something very special, what was lost was never recovered. It was as if someone had torn a section from a painting and replaced it with a lovely likeness. Our family remained a beautiful if reconfigured composition, one that was born out of tragedy and rearranged by an overwhelming desire to make sure that Beau and I were okay. Yet for me, that original piece was always missing, always gone.
When our dad remarried five years after “the accident,” as we called it, he gave us the bonus of the Mom we have now (“When are ‘we’ going to get married?” Beau and I would pester Dad, constantly encouraging him to propose). A high school teacher from Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, Jill Biden did an amazing job of taking over the role of our mom—with a curious public looking on. I consider her to be my mother as much as one can possibly imagine.
Yet I still longed for what was lost, even if I couldn’t quite remember it.
It has taken me more than forty years to acknowledge that original loss, address that original trauma, recognize that original pain. And it has taken that long for me to understand that my doing so isn’t a betrayal of those who tried their mightiest to save Beau and me from the worst of it.
I remember my childhood as almost idyllic. I spent most of my time riding BMX bikes with Beau on back roads all over the outskirts of Wilmington, or hiking along railroad tracks and building forts in the woods.
Other times we headed to Buck Road to throw acorns at cars. Beau and I and another friend followed a disciplined set of rules: Never throw at a car driven by a woman or an elderly person. The highest-value target was a teenager in a van, but we basically zeroed in on people we knew would stop and chase us. We had places all along the road where we could best chuck the acorns and then hide. It was horribly stupid and we freaking loved it.
Some days we hung out at a little convenience store and used the money we made cutting lawns to buy Cokes, hot dogs, and candy bars, and then played video games—Centipede, Space Invaders—until we drove the clerks crazy and they ran us out. We’d bike over to the Gulf station and clean customers’ windshields for tips until we drove the owner there crazy, too. We’d then head over to Gandalf’s, a video-rental store in a strip mall, and poke through videos until we could sneak into the X-rated section tucked away in the back.
When we were home, we played one-on-one basketball or football for hours, beating the living shit out of each other. Our buddies came over on weekends to play pickup games; in the winter, we played hockey on the pond behind our house. When we all got bored enough, BB-gun wars broke out.
Because our birthdays fell just a day apart, Beau and I celebrated them together, alternating the day we held it on: February 3 one year, February 4 the next. The whole extended family—aunts, uncles, cousins—showed up to celebrate. We alternated the dinner we served, too: for me, chicken pot pie that Mom made from scratch; for Beau, spaghetti and meatballs. But when it came time to blow out the candles, every year there was a vanilla cake with chocolate icing for me and brownies (with candles) for Beau.
Those massive family gatherings at our house were repeated every year at a Christmas Eve dinner—all of it on behalf of my brother and me, all of it to keep us whole. I grew up watching, without always fully appreciating, my entire family perform the most selfless deeds on our behalf, without any real benefit to themselves. Everyone took a turn as a hero in our story; everyone performed a kind of magic act. It was an obvious expression of how much they loved my dad, who understood something rare, something truly genius: trauma gave us the gift of each other.
Beau always saw that his role as older brother included being my protector. He and our mom joked around together all the time, sometimes directing their humor at me, all in good fun. I was more sensitive, or maybe just less mature, and was as often confused by their jokes as I was in on them. My new mom was doing a great job, especially with everyone watching. Although she showed her deep love for me in ways I only fully understood later—her steadfast and undying loyalty, as just one example—the rhythms and dynamics of our new home were now slightly different. I was confused by that. I started to act out at school, not in alarming ways, just small, silly rebellions.
Between third and fourth grade, I transferred from Quaker-run Wilmington Friends to St. Edmond’s Academy, an all-boys Catholic school. Beau was moving that year from the Lower School at Friends to the Upper School across the street, so we wouldn’t be in the same building anyway. I don’t recall exactly why I wanted to transfer; again, I was probably being overly sensitive. My best friend at Wilmington Friends had cystic fibrosis, a boy named David who everyone was certain wouldn’t make it past the age of eighteen. I’d stay inside with him while he took his medicine during recess, after which a teacher gave each of us a Tootsie Roll.
