Brava, Valentine

“You watch too many Lifetime movies.”

“I know,” he says.

“The tension with Pamela makes sense now. She calls the shop all the time. She can never find him. He forgets to show up for stuff at the school. He’s late. And he hides behind the job here. He uses me and the shoes as an excuse.”

“So what?” Gabriel shrugs.

“I don’t like it.”

“Oh, I think you like it a lot. You finally have something on that brother of yours who never did right by you.”

“That’s not true. I didn’t want to find out that my brother was this kind of a guy. I’m very sad about it. And mostly sad about it because he tortured my father emotionally all these years for doing the exact same thing!”

“That’s their business.”

“Yeah, but the rest of us were dragged into it.”

“Okay, look, I’ve known your brother almost as long as I’ve known you. I’ve always thought he was a little stiff, and I never liked the way he treated you-but I never pegged him as a bad guy. A superior guy? Yes. He was always a snob. And he never failed at anything. Well, he didn’t until he left his job at the Bank of All Money.”

“He was let go.” I correct Gabriel.

“Got it. The only difference between a vice president and a receptionist is that when a vice president gets fired, he gets to spin it and say he left first-they do not extend the same courtesy to the working class. We are, simply put, shit-ca

“Got it.”

“What you don’t get is that at the age of forty-this is the first time your brother has been shown the door. He has had an enchanted life up until now. And that’s worse than taking your lumps all the way through, like the rest of us. We are used to disappointment. We know failure. We not only expect the other shoe to drop, we’re there to catch it when it does. We know what it takes to come back from a blow. Alfred really hasn’t been tested. And guess what? Now, he’s been tested. And he’s scrambling.”

“I know. And I actually feel sorry for him.”

“You know what? I do too. The man is in a pickle. He looks at his life with the wife and the kids and the house in Jersey that costs a fortune-that he’s always been able to pay for, and now he can’t. Now everything will change. He’s looking at cleaning the pool himself, and mowing the lawn himself, and asking Ski

“As smart as he is, he didn’t see it coming. The collapse. The banking disaster.”

“Oh, they all saw it, they just didn’t believe it. They didn’t want to believe it. And why would they? Who would want to believe that the money would ever stop! And you know, it killed him to have to come here and work with you.”

“I know, I know.”

“And I will guarantee you that Gram told him in the begi

“You could be right about that. I mean, Gram never mentioned a partnership until we were all in Italy together for the wedding.”

“A little late to sit you two down, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely.”

“So almost on cue, when Alfred is feeling the most vulnerable on all fronts, and like a loser in general, then Missie the Redhead makes the scene.”

“Kathleen.”

“Yeah, her. Alfred couldn’t feel worse about himself; he’s watching June cut patterns and you making art, and he’s lived a life pushing around a bunch of fake numbers. He’s the lowest he’s ever been because he realizes that he’s spent his life not making anything. Missie the Redhead works for the government in a crap office downtown, and she’s ten years younger, therefore ten years dumber, and she looks up to your brother-who probably spun some tale to her like he’s gone back to his roots by choice to run this shoe company, and she looked at your brother, with his big life, and all his experience, and his full head of hair, and said, I want me some of that. And that’s what she’s having down there by the powder room. Some of that.”

“Dear God.”

“And everybody wins-at least in the short term. Your brother is nicer to his wife, the mistress has something to look forward to other than people like you filing loan applications-and Alfred gets his groove on. After the biggest disappointment of his life, he feels smart, scintillating, and desirable again, and then hot sex ensues. And the world goes round. Got it?”

“Oh, I got it.” I put my head in my hands.

Gram used to say if you are lucky enough to live a long life, you see everything come and go at least twice. If I had to predict the things in life that I would have seen twice, it would have included a lot of trends: the return of thick eyebrows, the resurgence of curly hair, and the reinvention of skorts. But I never thought I would have lived through Dad’s indiscretion twice, and I surely didn’t think it would be my own brother Alfred, so wounded by it so many years ago, who would repeat the mistake.

Gram’s absence, her move and new life, have never had such impact as they do right now. She was the calm center of our family, the glue. She would know what to say, and what to do-she’d knock some sense into Alfred, as she did my own father so many years ago. But family problems in a long lens aren’t nearly as potent as they are when they’re percolating in the next room. The distance between our shop on Perry Street and Dominic’s kitchen in Arezzo is so far, it might as well be a galaxy away.

No, we will have to sort this one out on our own. And whether I confront my brother or stay silent and stew, as he has done all these years in the shadow of my father’s mistake, will be my choice. I just wish my brother had made a better one.

I’ve dragged the last of the garden supplies onto the roof to plant the tomatoes. The potting soil, sticks, and planters are good to go. All I need are the plants, which my dad has promised to pick up in Queens, where they are sturdier and cheaper than the ones I would buy here in town.

I considered not planting them at all this year, but figured it had to be bad luck not to. I don’t want to be the first person in my family to cancel the family garden after decades of relying upon it for the August harvest. Even though Gram is gone, the tomatoes must go on.

I pull out my cell phone and sit down on the chaise. I dial Gram.

“Have any luck finding out about Rafael?” I ask.

“You were right. Michel and Rafael were brothers. I sca

“Unbelievable.” I can’t imagine what horrible transgression could possibly sever the relationship of two brothers forever. I know there is nothing that could come between my sisters and me. Alfred is different. And maybe part of the reason I want to understand the past in our family is to help me cope with my brother in the present. “What do you think happened between them?”

“I don’t know.” Gram is puzzled. “I was very close to my father-in-law-I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t have told me about this.”

“It must be something pretty awful.”

“Or maybe it’s just money,” Gram says. “My father-in-law watched every pe