The Year of Living Nervously

ROBERT WEINBERGER

I’m half asleep when my parents walk into the room, but they do not turn on the light. My parents hardly ever come into my room, alone or together. They stand there for a moment, silhouetted in the doorway. They both sit down on my bed, which is very uncomfortable for all three of us because I’m sleeping on a Castro convertible, one of those narrow pullout sofa-type beds popularized in the ’50s and ’60s by a television commercial featuring a pixie-like eight-year-old girl in a nightgown who effortlessly flings open the contraption, a feat that caused permanent disc and hernia damage to scores of burly grown men who gallantly attempted the same act at home.
My mind races. This is it, I say to myself, my parents are getting a divorce, and I try to think who I want to live with. My father is lenient and easy-going but my mother is a terrific cook. My father never makes me wear a sweater or gloves or, God forbid, the dreaded rubbers (a.k.a. galoshes) when it rains, but my mother let it slip that our house and two cars are registered in her name, a shrewd business decision made by my dad in case of lawsuits and the like but a decision that, nonetheless, gives my mother the edge.
I’m trying to make a choice and let down one of my parents easily when my mother’s voice cuts through with, Your brother has leukemia. I know right away they’re talking about my almost two-year-old brother because of his low-grade fever that never seems to go away. The fever that, it turns out, a host of doctors initially misdiagnosed; instead of investigating they placated my parents with a wave and a prescription. 

Click to read more …