Page 3 of The Night We Lost Him

“It wasn’t an accident.”

You Can’t Pick Your Famil(ies)

The last time I saw my brother in person was more than five years ago.

We were at a dinner party to celebrate our uncle Joe’s birthday. Joe is technically our father’s cousin, but they grew up like brothers. They were raised together, went to high school together, lived together after they finished college, and spent the last several decades working together. If brothers tended to bicker, though—especially brothers who were as connected as they were—they managed to be mostly exempt from conflict. They weren’t only brothers. They were best friends.

My father was hosting Joe’s birthday dinner at Perry St, a restaurant just off the West Side Highway, one of his and Joe’s longstanding favorites. Sam was seated next to me, at the far end of the table. He had recently started working for our father, and he was overseeing the rollout of a new property in Hawaii: a small beachside enclave on the North Shore of Kauai.

Sam flew back to New York for the dinner—which he seemed unhappy that my father had insisted he do, particularly because Tommy was spending most of the meal away from the table, pacing back and forth on the sidewalk on a work call.

Sam kept eyeing Tommy through the window. Tommy also worked for our father. He had been working for our father longer than Sam had. I couldn’t tell from Sam’s expression whether he was jealous that Tommy had a reason to not be at that table. Or whether Sam was feeling competitive that Tommy had a reason to be away from the table that didn’t include him.

Either way, I was more interested in talking to Grace, who was seated on my other side.

“Your father tells me that you just opened your own shop?” she said. “That’s really exciting.”

I’d always liked Grace. She was quiet and whip-smart and had been working with my father since I was a little girl. She had been working there nearly as long as Joe—she and Joe, my father’s two most trusted advisors. From the way my father described it, Joe helped him keep the trains moving on time, while Grace was more of a creative partner. This may be why it felt like she genuinely cared that I had managed to procure enough of my own client base to pay off my school loans (a BA in neuroscience and visual arts, followed by a MArch degree), leave my corporate architecture job, convert a garage in Cobble Hill into an open-floor studio, and become the principal at my own firm.

It felt like an accomplishment to have done that without a financial assist from my father. He’d certainly helped support me while I was growing up, but once I left home, it was understood I would do it on my own. I wasn’t a martyr, but it was important to me to be self-made, and it was important to my mother. It was how she’d raised me. Too much money causes trouble, she used to say. And my father respected that this was how she (and later I) wanted to do it.

Grace certainly knew this, which was probably why she leaned in and gave me a smile, happy to see me on the rewarding end of a long road.

“We’ve started exploring a property on the Nayarit Peninsula,” she said. “Has your father mentioned?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“There are some geological complications, but it’s quite special. We want to integrate the landscape, really lean into sustainability and health. Not just giving a nod to it but taking a page from a resort your father just visited in Asia. Creating a wellness clinic, having a medical director on staff. Obviously that will all start with the property design…”

I smiled. It didn’t feel like a coincidence that Grace was raising this a few weeks after my father came to a trade talk I gave about the impact of built environments on health solutions and longevity. That was what my father did—he saw an opening to involve me, and he wanted to step into it.

“Anyway,” she continued, “your father was hoping that might hold some interest for you?”

I could feel the air shift, Sam suddenly tuning in. “Grace, you know Nora here isn’t interested in our little company…”

I looked over at Sam. “True,” I said. “I am, however, interested in speaking for myself.”

Then I turned back to Grace. This was a conversation I’d had with my father on many occasions, the answer never shifting from a hard and fast no. But I appreciated it all the same. I was grateful my father took pride in my work, in how I approached it. Even if I wanted to stay away from his.

“I’m fully committed at the moment,” I said.

“You sure? We’d all really love to do this with you.”

“I am. But thank you for asking.”

Grace nodded, happy to drop it, especially because it was my father’s mission to make me feel included, not hers. Also, because he was now motioning for her to come and join him and Uncle Joe at the other end of the table.

“I’ll be back,” she said.

And, with a squeeze to my shoulder, she was up and out of her seat, leaving me alone with Sam.

“Your own shop, huh?” he said. “Congratulations.”

The way he lingered on congratulations felt loaded, like he meant the opposite.

I forced a smile and busied myself smoothing out my dress. I’d come straight to the dinner from a client meeting, so I was still wearing my work clothes: a button-down dress and structured loafers, a corduroy blazer. My long hair pulled back in a loose bun. I could feel Sam’s judgment in the way he was eyeing me (in his suede jacket and Chelsea boots), like he’d decided I was somehow too dressy and not dressy enough.

I met his gaze, unbothered. My mother had modeled for me early on that the quickest route to unhappiness was to pay too much attention to anyone’s disapproval, particularly someone that you barely knew.

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