The Road Less Traveled

Though there is a part of me that wants to pick up the phone, dial my Idiot Brother's number, wait for him to joyfully answer, and then let fly with an endless stream of obscenities and crucifying insults the effects from which he will never recover. He is that infuriating.

But I choose to do the more infuriating thing. I ignore him. I can not trouble my soul, quicken my pulse, burden my heart with so much as a single shred of his nonsense. It is like a flesh-eating virus. Just a drop and suddenly your life and everything in it is shriveling up and turning to foul smelling goo.

Charlotte takes the other route. Goes on the offensive.  Nibbles the bate to get his attention. Then gives him a run for his money.

She reminds him of the family gatherings and holidays and birthdays to which he and his family were invited. Then she reminds him, lest he forget, with that Dollar Store brain of his, that due to his conduct and lack of respect for her home and her boundaries, he's been excluded, for hello, two or three years now. Is he just catching on?

Her closing remarks are about not having the energy or the inclination to deal with his particular brand of bullshit. 

He replies, once again trying his novice hand at being clever.  Charlotte forwards the reply to me.  He claims that he doesn't have time for people who hold grudges (Really, then why are we texting?) Then he thinks he's moving in for the kill by saying "Dad would be really disappointed in all of this."

Really. That is the best he could come up with. My 12 year old could make a more wounding remark.

Charlotte fires back with the ways Dad would be disappointed in him and soon they are off on a pissing contest.

It is all rather amusing from my position of detached voyeuristic distance, until my Idiot Brother, unaware that Charlotte is forwarding the texts to me, makes a disparaging comment, that he attributes to our mother, that opens a wound I'd long closed. Mom and Joe have evidently raked me over the coals again. 

It is not an issue I feel guilty about. It pertains to when we were tasked with cleaning out Dad's house so it could be sold.  I know exactly the contributions I made to that effort. And so does Charlotte. The fact that Joe and Mom remember it differently is not important.

But the fact that they still want to flog me for it amongst themselves makes me want to throttle them both.

I will never have a relationship with my mother and don't choose to. Too much trouble, and too much polluted water over the dam.  But both of us are completely comfortable having walked away.

My brother needs to keep knocking on the door. Waving his hands in our faces. Poking the bear if only to get someone's attention. Mom was trying to get me to feel sorry for him at Commencement. Saying he misses his family. I can hardly believe she'd dare try to work me over given the tenuous relationship between us. Some people never know when to quit.

I decide to enter the ring and poke back at him, the poor unarmed, unsuspecting boob that he is.

I send him a text. "Charlotte has kept me apprised of your discussion. Don't contact me again. Ever, for any reason. You have no idea what you have done."