Calypso

by David Sedaris

A person expects his parents to die. But a sibling? I felt I’d lost the identity I’d enjoyed since 1968, when my brother was born.

“I don’t know that it had anything to do with us,” my father said. But how could it have not? Doesn’t the blood of every suicide splash back on our faces?

“Anything,” I said, just so grateful to have her alive and beside me.

Anyone could tell that we were related, even someone from another planet who believed that humans were as indistinguishable from one another as acorns. At this particular moment of our lives, no one belonged together more than us.

Honestly, though, does choice even come into it? Is it my fault that the good times fade to nothing while the bad ones burn forever bright?

Happiness is harder to put into words. It’s also harder to source, much more mysterious than anger or sorrow, which come to me promptly, whenever I summon them, and remain long after I’ve begged them to leave.

I felt my eyes tear up, and as my vision blurred I considered all the people who had fought against this and thought, Take that, assholes.