Page 38 of The Book Swap

JAMES

My book has a rough title. I’m calling it Ten Ways to Say Sorry. The drink with Joel has added another element I’m trying to tie in: the guilt we carry for things that aren’t our fault. The times we say sorry when we shouldn’t. When we have no need to.

I was twelve years old when Mum first told me her bipolar started after I was born. That for a long time everyone presumed it was postpartum depression, until Dad insisted on a diagnosis from the doctor. I fixated on that fact. That if I hadn’t been born, she would never have been this way. She could hold down a full-time job. Laugh whenever she felt like it. I apologized to her once, during one of her really bad spells. She hadn’t been able to leave her room for three weeks. She had this blank expression on her face, like she didn’t even know who we were. Dad sent me up to invite her downstairs to watch a movie and she just shook her head. I ran toward her and squeezed her hand, desperate for her to be well.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, “that I made you this way.”

In the movie version of my life, she squeezed my hand back and said that it wasn’t my fault. That she’d go through it a thousand times if it meant having me. In reality, her hand sat like a cold rock in mine, until she pulled it away and turned onto her side.

It was stupid to look for forgiveness, and I never dared again. Instead I live with the knowledge that she is the way she is because of me. My life marked the end of hers as she knew it.

The thing I feel most guilty about is my relationship with my mum, I wrote in a comment to Margins Girl.

Thank God for siblings, don’t you think? she’d replied. They’re the only people who can understand our fucked-up family dynamics. If I didn’t have my sister to speak to, I think I’d be estranged!

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Elliot asks, when I call him on Saturday afternoon. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what she said. Maybe I need to try harder.

“Just thought I’d check in on my brother and my favorite nephew. Hey, Jordan!” Elliot gets up with Jordan at about six, so even though it’s early in New York, I know he’ll be awake.

“Who’s that?” comes a voice in the background and I flinch. He’d recognize my voice if I called more. I don’t know why I find it so hard to pick up the phone.

“It’s your uncle James.”

“I don’t know James.”

Elliot looks at the camera and grimaces. Something about him looks different. I frown.

“What’s happened to your face?”

“You mean these?” He shows me his teeth, which are about ten shades whiter than when we were kids.

“Yes. And...?”

“Botox,” he stage-whispers as I shake my head.

“You’re thirty-two.”

“But I look younger.”

“You also only laugh with the bottom half of your face. It’s very disconcerting.”

My brother laughs, his forehead remaining stationary. There it is. The easy banter we slipped into when we were younger. When we talk like this, it reminds me of the good times we shared as a family. The times when we’d all go to the beach and Mum would bury us in sand and buy us ice creams. Dad would throw us around in the sea. Elliot and I would get told off for fighting. The days when we were just like any other family.

“How’s life in New York?” I ask, changing the tone.

“Oh, you know...same old. Carl’s still away a lot. Closing some big advertising deal in LA. Jordan started American football lessons and I’m pretty sure he’s the next Tom Brady—aren’t you, buddy?”

I’ve noticed how much he does this. I ask Elliot about himself, and he responds by telling me about Carl and Jordan, in the same way that all Dad has to talk about is Mum.

“Nice one, Jordan,” I shout, unsure how close he is to the phone.

“And what do football stars eat for breakfast?” Elliot says, moving from the sofa and walking through to his kitchen. “Protein. Bacon. Eggs. Pancakes. Coming right up.”

“At what point do you become an official American? When you marry one or when you have pancakes and eggs for breakfast?”

“I think it’s when you catch yourself ordering a ‘soda.’”

We both screw our faces up, mine creating many more wrinkles than Elliot’s. We both burst out laughing.

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