Unbreak My Heart(8)

There are a few chuckles.

“I’d have been okay with being an outfielder too. But then a strange thing happened.”

A few smiles appear.

“Somehow, shockingly, I wasn’t scouted for the majors in high school.”

More laughter, and it emboldens me. Makes me think I can reach the other side of the ink on these cards.

“I figured sports broadcasting was a logical alternative. If I wasn’t going to play, I could call the games. I practiced with my phone. I’d do the play-by-play along with the radio.”

A flash of memory hits me. A game we listened to five weeks ago. I did the play-by-play for Ian.

Shit.

A fist of grief grabs me, crushing my chest, throttling the major organs in my rib cage.

I need to fast forward.

“But then, I took a constitutional law class,” I say, meaning to skip ahead, jump over the parts that were most likely to strangle me. I flip to the last note card and stare at the blue ink.

That’s when I fell in love with law. That’s when I understood why my brother had loved it, and my dad before him.

They never pushed me to pursue it. Neither one asked me to follow in their footsteps in anything but bleeding Dodger blue. But all at once, like a light turned on, I understood what I wanted in life: something bigger than me, something that made sense of the world.

The law was that. It was a set of instructions for how to live, and how to live well. That’s what I needed; that’s why I chose here. And that’s why I’m proud to be a member of this graduating class. May we all follow the guidelines for how to live, and how to live well.

The words swirl in front of me. The letters levitate off the index cards. I’m not thinking about law at all. I’m remembering the last time I pretended to call a game as Ian lay dying.

I shut my eyes, trying to squeeze away the memory, but the dangerous images only snap into tighter focus.

I open my eyes quickly, reading the words like it’s a stilted recording.

But in my head, I hear my voice, calling the game as we listened one last time.

I wonder if the hall pass extends here. Guess I’m about to find out. I shove my hands through my hair and finish, “Go Dodgers.”

The dean blinks. My classmates stare. A professor furrows his brow.

I rip the index cards in half, grab my diploma from the table, and leave.

You’ve never seen a room go silent faster than when the guy giving the speech makes a dramatic exit two minutes in.





5





Andrew



Come to think of it, I like this hall pass.

No need to make small talk.

No need to shake hands.

Best of all, no listening to condolences.

I’m free, strutting down the street, my gangster rap blasting in my ears. No John Legend for this guy. And no tie either.

Fuck this tie.

I unknot it and toss it in a trash can.

I walk home, since it’s only a couple miles away, handing my suit jacket to a homeless dude on the corner, who thanks me then asks for some chicken wings too, pointing to the convenience store on the corner. “They have a half-dozen wings for $2.99.”

“Sure thing.”

I pop into the store, grab some grub, and hand the man two baskets. “Here’s a dozen.”

He reeks of liquor and gratitude. “Thank you.”

“Enjoy.”

When I reach home, I change into shorts and head to the garage, Ian’s dog following close behind as I park myself on the gym bench. Fitness calls.

Holland always liked my arms. Holland liked touching me. Holland liked the way I looked.

“Fuck.” I can’t get her out of my head, but hell if I’m working out for her.

I’m working out because I can’t deal with studying for the Bar. I haven’t cracked a book in weeks. I really ought to reschedule the test, but that’s another thing I can’t handle.

But this 150-pound weight? This, I can handle.

Exercise is what got Ian and me through the phone call no one wants to receive. Our parents were in Hawaii on a thirty-fifth-anniversary trip, doing one of those helicopter tours, when the chopper crashed.

It was quick and painless, we were told. Like that would make it easier to swallow.

Shortly after, Ian built this home gym, patted the weight bar, and declared, “Anytime we get depressed, we lift. When we get sad, we run.”

I’d laughed. “Dude, we are going to be so fucking fit.”

He lifted the hell out of that bench press for months. I did the same. We worked out, we ran, we talked, and we trash-talked, and somehow, we made it through.

It was only us, since our sister was long gone from our lives. She’d become a film producer, married an Indian man in the business, and moved to Mumbai with him to work in the burgeoning Bollywood industry. She’d send us cards and gifts on holidays. She’d check in with us from time to time, but it was hard to stay close when her life was so far away. It still is—though she’s become a champ at weekly emails, so I have to give her credit for that.

But we didn’t need Laini then. We were brothers-in-arms, and we found our way through.

We had freedom of choice. No debt, no school loans—our parents were well off, and everything that was theirs became ours. We went to the same college then the same law school. I’d join the family firm too, when I finished my studies.