My boys were in high school by then, their lives filled with friends and sports and girls, and my marriage was starting to come apart. During the day, I was able to put that out of my mind. But at night, before I fell asleep, I had the creeping awareness that in a few years, when my sons left for college, they would take every last shred of happiness in our home with them.
Thanksgiving was approaching. It had been nearly a year since Charley had moved away, and I missed him. We had celebrated this holiday together for nearly a decade, so I invited him to come to Austin for a long weekend and spend it with us. He said he would.
After he and I made these plans, I mentioned his coming visit to my sister-in-law, Libby , who lives in San Francisco. "Just so you know," she said, dropping her voice to a whisper, "I think he's stopped washing his hair. He's grown this awful mustache. He locks himself in his room and doesn't talk to anyone. I'm seriously starting to worry he's writing a manifesto in there. You won't recognize him."
She was right, I didn't. And it wasn't just the hair or mustache. Charley wasn't Charley anymore. For the four days of his stay, he was terse and dour and didn't smile once, let alone laugh.
On Sunday morning, determined to cheer him up, I took him for a walk around Town Lake, peppering our conversation with witty snark and clever puns, two of his favorite things. No response. In desperation, I said, "Just look at the beautiful colors of the sycamore trees."
He turned to me sadly. "Stop," he said. "Just stop."
Charley's broken heart was breaking mine.
Later that week, I was in the marketing team's communal space at work when a new hire popped in to say hi. Her name was Regan; she had just transferred to the Austin office from our company's Northeast region. She decided to introduce herself by sharing cookies and stories of her struggles adjusting to Texas living: the culture, the weather, the flora and fauna — if you can call gigantic flying cockroaches "fauna."
"What are those?" she asked with comic indignation as the rest of us stuffed our faces with stroopwafels. "They're not bugs. Bugs are small and run away when they see you. These things are huge, and they are not shy. I swear, I was watching TV last night and one marched right past me and waved, like, 'Hey, just getting some cereal.'"
Everyone laughed, and suddenly I saw a vision of Charley sitting in the corner, laughing with us. Once again handsome and well groomed, with his legs crossed and arms folded over his chest, he was looking at Regan with his eyes lit up. And then the vision disappeared.
"You should meet my brother Charley," I blurted out.
"Why, is he bald?" she asked.
"No," I said.
"Not that there's anything wrong with that," she went on. "It's just that every guy people have set me up with lately has been bald. It's a trend, apparently."
"Here he is," I said, showing her an old picture I kept on my desk. "He lives in California."
She let out a low whistle.
As soon as she left, I sent Charley an email telling him that I had just met the woman of his dreams and that he should move back, marry her and live happily eve r after. On a whim, I included her company email address.
Ten minutes later, Regan reappeared at our office door, hands on her hips. "What did you write to your brother?" she asked.
"Uh, why?"
"I just got an email from him asking me to marry him."
The office became quiet. Everyone was looking at me.
"Oh, I'm sorry," I said, my face flushing. "He can be kind of — I should have — oh, gosh. What did it say?"
She replied, "It said, 'My sister says you're perfect for me and I trust my sister, so will you marry me?'"
"Did you answer?" I asked meekly.
"Yes! I said: 'Sure, I'll marry you. I'm not doing anything else this weekend.'" Then she walked away, laughing.
Over the next several months, I would go through my own divorce and find my own true love, David, who two years later stood by my side at Charley and Regan's wedding.
To make a short story even shorter: Charley and Regan kept emailing after their first exchange until eventually they decided to board planes and meet. During their first get-together, Charley proposed and Regan said yes.
In their wedding pictures, we all look incredibly happy.
One night not long ago, after I had finished reading their three boys a bedtime story, I was lying down with them for a while in the dark, listening to their breathing, until a small voice sliced through the quiet.
It was Sam, the middle brother. "Aunt Maddy?"
"Yes, honey?"
"I just want to thank you for the idea of my mom and dad meeting," he said. "Because I really love my mom and dad, and I'm really glad they met, and that I'm here."
I recently learned about "kintsugi," the Japanese art of using powdered precious metals to repair broken pottery. It's based on the belief that breakage is part of an object's life, and that when mended with gold, platinum or, in my case, the tender love of a beloved middle child, unsightly cracks are transformed into something uniquely sublime.
"I'm really glad too," I said.
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