I can't pinpoint the exact moment I noticed him. Like a memory that tugs at the edges of your consciousness but never fully surfaces, I only have the vague feeling that I had seen him before. At first I thought it was just an old acquaintance of my parents that would resurface for large events- that would explain his presence in my parents' wedding album, and photos from when they were all together at college parties. The deeper I dug into our family albums however, the less this made sense. He appeared in far too many photos across far too many occasions to just be an acquaintance. He was there in photos with my parents as teenagers, with my father out on a what looked like a college spring break trip, with my mother at a dinner among work colleagues, and most startling, even a photo of him at my own Baptism. Clearly he had been very close to my parents, but I couldn't figure out why I had never heard of him before. My investigation through photo albums came to an abrupt halt around my 3rd birthday. There was a photo of him holding me up in the air as my parents laughed in the background. Beyond that point, there was no further documentation of him, at least in our family history. Of course, I was no stranger to people more or less vanishing in my own family's turbulent past. I was raised entirely by my father between the ages of 6 and 16, as my mother unfortunately was in prison during this time frame. I was never very clear on the specifics, as my father didn't like to talk about it, but I believe she was arrested and put away for selling drugs. The true details never really concerned me much, but as a result of this I became very close to my father during my formative years, and he has had a huge impact on the man that I am today. Now at the age of 22 and on the brink of moving out to begin my life, the seemingly innocuous wave of nostalgia that guided me to those photo albums had left me with a burning curiosity. I brought the photo albums to my father that evening and asked him about the man I had noticed in all of these photos. When I zeroed in on the man's presence in the photos, my father's initial openness flipped almost immediately to the recoil of a painful memory one has never fully come to terms with. Almost too hastily, he identified the man as an old friend named Brian. He had apparently been a childhood friend of my father's growing up all the way through college. He had been a lively and adventurous man who would always be trying to drag my father along on some crazy, fanciful adventure or scheme. As my father grew older and matured, settling down with my mother and having their child, Brian maintained his youthful energy and curiosity. Shortly after my third birthday, Brian perished in a bungee jumping accident somewhere down in Mexico. I pressed further, but after sharing these small details, my father shut down my follow-up questions. The memory of the loss of an old friend appeared to be too much for him to bear, even after all these years. While trying to fall asleep later that night, I couldn't help but dwell on what my father had told me. Something still didn't add up. Sure, I can understand that my father would not be inclined to talk about the death of a close friend of his due to the pain of the memory, but it simply did not make sense that throughout my entire life I had never once heard about Brian. It was that underlying feeling that there was more to this story that motivated me to do something I had not done for quite some time: visit my mother. My parents had divorced as a result of the friction created by my mother's arrest and incarceration, and when my mother was released from prison when I was 16, she moved to her own place the next town over from where I lived. Despite her close proximity, I now only visited her on special occasions like her birthday. To be entirely honest, I barely even consider her my mother beyond our genetic relationship; a product of her complete absence during my formative years. Whatever relationship that we had could never come close to the strength of the bond that I shared with my father as a result of my upbringing. However, she was still my mother, and I did still have a relationship with her, so the next day I packed some photo albums into my car and made the drive over to the next town to visit her. Since coming back from prison, my mother had cleaned her life up in all aspects. She no longer did any drugs, she now had a job, and she kept her home in good shape. In fact, I think she also had a steady boyfriend that stayed with her from time to time. My mother obviously was surprised to see me when I knocked on her door, but pleasantly so. In fact, it was probably the first time I had seen her genuinely surprised for quite some time. She fixed up a tea for me and we sat down at her kitchen table, and I gestured to the photo-albums that I had carried in with me, indicating that I had some questions.
I didn't beat around the bush; I opened up the photo albums to several key photos and pointed out Brian, and said I wanted to know more about him. My mother maintained her composure, but I noticed her eyes instantly widen in surprise when I mentioned Brian by name. The surprise in her eyes slowly transitioned to emotions evident in her face. Surely her face betrayed that Brian brought up painful memories, but I also saw a flash of something else more alarming: anger. My initial suspicions must have been correct; clearly there was something else at play here. My mother began: "Oh yes, Brian. Your father and I knew him for many years. They were almost inseparable, you know, Brian and your father." As she continued, her story seemed to corroborate everything that my father had told me, but still something just didn't seem right. I pressed for more information. "Yes, Brian and I became quite close as well. Through a fluke, we ended up working together as colleagues at the same company around the same time your father and I became engaged. That didn't last long though, Brian was never cut-out for an office job. He would never have been happy sitting at a desk for 8 hours." Her voice had seemed to begin shaking, as if the longer she dwelled on the thought of Brian, the more pent-up emotions were being brought to the surface. "He was a wild man. Rash and reckless at times, but bold. He was everything your father wanted to be but couldn't...especially after settling down with me, so I think he lived vicariously through Brian at times." This was new information, but not entirely surprising. However, she seemed to be steering the conversation towards her disdain towards my father, so I hastily jumped in to redirect the conversation. "And what happened to Brian?" Like a flick of the switch, my mother started talking even more animatedly. "Brian? He passed away when you were still young. He was always looking for a rush. It just caught up with him. When his adventures weren't providing him with enough excitement, he turned to drugs. And one overdose...that's all it takes." --Wait, something didn't add up here. "I thought Brian died in a bungee jumping accident...", I began cautiously. My mother lurched in her chair, growing more agitated with each passing second. "A bungee jumping accident!? Hah! Who said that, your father? Of course, he would want to romanticize his death. Make him an adventurous hero right to the end. That's what your father would have wanted, at any rate." I leaned forward, as she continued "That's the one thing your father could never handle. He wanted to be known as the man of adventure: the wild, untamed free spirit. Right up to end, Brian tried to be just that." I started to get an uneasy feeling as she continued, nearly in hysterics at this point. "He should have never gotten into drugs. That was probably my fault. I paid for it in the end though, didn't I? Yes, ten years in prison, but maybe it was worth it, just so I would never have to see your father again." Never again? I mean, I knew they were separated, but that seemed like an exaggeration. There was no stopping my mother at this point though- she charged forward in her rant at full speed. "That's why it had to be done. That bastard. Once he started using, that was the beginning of his downward spiral. He became unpredictable, he told me he loved me one day. Did you know that? The nerve of him! And he said he wanted to take you. Your father wanted to gain partial custody of you. I could never let that happen!" The sickening feeling in my stomach reached a crescendo as it dawned on me: my mother had started using "your father" and "Brian" interchangeably. My mother, not realizing what she was doing, plowed on: