But I’d argue that it’s the opposite. I need my optimism to get me through the day, because if I’m not listening to Christopher Cross sing a smooth jam about sailing, or wearing a heart-printed blouse, or creating some adorable llama-shaped sugar cookies with colorful royal icing, then I might stop to think for a second about what’s actually happening in my life. That my dad is sick, that he’s not going to get better, that my brother left me, that my mom is MIA, that my best friend’s career is blowing up while mine is stalled, that I’m always going to be here while she jets off to New York or Los Angeles.
And that’s, like, the tip of the suffering iceberg. For as bad as I have it, millions of other people have it so much worse. If I stop to think about all that, what am I supposed to do? Curl up in bed and never, ever get out?
No thanks. I’d much rather put on some yacht rock and get on with things.
Which is why, as I drive home from my dad’s facility in the rapidly darkening evening, I’m loudly harmonizing with the Doobie Brothers, even as the weight of stress sits so heavy on my chest that I can barely breathe. I’m just so tired. Before I left Dad’s place, I texted Nick that I wouldn’t be back in to finish off my shift, which he characteristically accepted, promising to call in my well-meaning but incompetent young coworker, Tobin. Now I have to force all thoughts of Dad’s decline out of my head and take a quiz for my online business class about . . . ugh, who even knows what?
And then there’s the constant cloud of guilt that follows me around, hanging over my head and reminding me that I put my dad in an assisted living facility instead of keeping him home to take care of him myself.
I tried that, back when things with Dad were just starting to get bad, back when I assumed I could handle it all alone. I went to his house every morning and every night, and then, when I realized he was doing things like turning on the oven and forgetting about it, I started checking in during the day, too. When things got worse, I would come over to find him sitting in the yard, wondering how he got there, or staring into the pantry, completely forgetting what he came into the kitchen to do, or wandering around his garden in only his boxers and socks.
One day I went to check on him and found the front door wide open. I walked through the house, calling his name, trying not to panic and telling myself he was in the backyard. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t anywhere. It was a gray, rainy day, and as I stood there in the backyard figuring out what to do, I had one thought: I lost him. I screwed up and I wasn’t here and now the worst possible thing is going to happen.
I called the police, keeping my voice steady as I told them what happened. I tried not to think about the horror stories I’d heard, about people with Alzheimer’s who wandered off and got hurt or worse. And I hated myself for letting this happen.
The police found him a couple of harrowing hours later, wandering through a grocery store with a basket full of frozen food and insisting that he was just shopping for dinner. Outwardly, he seemed annoyed that I’d gone to all this fuss to hunt him down, but I saw the fear and confusion in his eyes.
Dad needed supervision 24/7, and the only way I could keep taking care of him myself was if I quit my job and moved in with him. I considered it. But while I might be patient and while I love my dad more than anything, I’m not a medical professional, and also I couldn’t afford to be jobless.
Cobbling together Dad’s social security, his veteran’s benefits, his savings (which I had to put in a trust so that he could qualify for veteran’s benefits, because this entire process has to be super confusing and time consuming), and my salary, I managed to afford a place with around-the-clock care where I know he’s safe and secure. This is the one thing in my life I had to outsource, and even knowing that he’s in the best place for him doesn’t ease my guilt. There’s still that little voice in my head, whispering, You should be taking care of him yourself.
I turn into the narrow driveway for my apartment (which is actually the carriage house behind the house where Annie lives with her uncle Don), debating what kind of pie I’m going to procrasti-bake tonight, when my headlights flash across a person. Two people. I slam on the brakes and scream, because this is it. This is the beginning of my murder story, the one that will eventually be told on the true-crime podcast about my death. Clearly whoever this is has been methodically stalking me for weeks—no, years!—and has finally come here to finish the deed, while Annie’s out of town and Uncle Don’s preoccupied with D&D and no one will hear me scream and—
Oh. I blink as I realize that one of the people is my brother.
I step out of the car and slam the door. “What are you doing standing in the middle of the driveway, you maniac?” I ask.
“Blasting the Doobs, huh?” He squints at me through his giant glasses (the kind that are in style but sort of make him look like a serial killer from the ’80s), and that’s when I remember that he’s not alone. He’s standing next to a tall, attractive, almost impossibly fit black man who I’m certain I’ve never seen before in my life. Trust me. I’d remember a man who looks this good.
I paste a smile on my face, using my years of customer service training. “I mean . . . um . . . to what do I owe this pleasure, brother?”
Milo steps toward me with his arms outstretched, his dirty-blond hair rumpled and his T-shirt wrinkled, and even though I’ve barely seen him for the past few years, I let myself sink into his hug. For one second, I bask in this familial embrace, but then I take a step back and smack him on the arm with my purse.
“What the hell, dude? I haven’t seen you for, what, an entire year, and you show up in my driveway with no warning and a beautiful man?”
Milo gives the other man a smile, one of those Sorry, this lady’s crazy smiles that I hate so much. The other man steps forward, offering me his hand.
“Fred,” he says.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Fred,” I say sweetly, then turn back to Milo and hit him with my purse again. “I texted you last week about changing Dad’s medication and you didn’t even bother responding. You don’t think you could’ve been, like, ‘Okay, thanks for handling one hundred percent of our father’s medical care and PS, I think I’m going to be back in Ohio next week’?”
Milo groans. “Chloe. This is exactly why I didn’t tell you I was coming back.”
“Great. Put it all on me.”
Milo looks me in the eyes and then, there it is. My own smile mirrored back at me. “Hey. Can’t you be glad to see your other half?”
The traitorous corners of my mouth start to twitch up in a smile. That’s what Milo and I used to call each other when we were little: my other half. Back then, when we’d only been given an incomplete birds-and-the-bees lesson from a VHS tape my dad borrowed from the library that left a lot to the imagination, we thought that being twins meant we were actually two halves of the same person. And then Dad told us that “other half” was more typically used to refer to romantic partners and not so much fraternal twins, but we didn’t care because the description felt true. He’s the irresponsible half, and I’m the responsible half. He’s the half with his head in the clouds, I’m the half with her feet on the ground. Together we make one complete person, and knowing that he’s been out there floating around Brooklyn for the past few years has made me feel, well . . . not whole.