ALL-INCLUSIVE

I was looking forward to writing a love story because I wanted to live one. But I got exactly what I deserved that night on the cruise ship. So, I am writing about my little brother.

My mother often used to sigh out loud and say (to no one in particular) that the most difficult times to be a parent are during the Terrible Twos and the Terrible Teens. She also used to say (to me, in particular) that, in my brother’s case, the only distinction between them was that you could actually reason with him when he was two. There was a time when she would tell this joke, or some variation of it, and I would snort a laugh, and she would sigh and laugh: this was before either of us fully understood what we were laughing at. The joke died once we learned.

As a kid, my brother had been a teacher’s dream: he’d possessed that pure, undifferentiated enthusiasm for experience that reminded them why they’d chosen to do what they did. He had a place in every schoolyard clique and was so well-liked that kids refrained from bullying other kids for fear of upsetting him. I knew, very early on — as did my teachers, my friends, and even my parents — that, even though I was older than him, I was already living in his shadow. Looking back, I think he was probably the only person at our school who didn’t know. He was too noble-hearted to see things