Everything Is Fine

by Vince Granata

I had to learn a new way to remember my mother, to remember Tim before the terror of his illness. To learn, I had to look at pieces of my life that seemed impossibly at odds with each other. I had to understand that these pieces could be simultaneously true. I love my brother—and—my brother killed our mother.

had started, slowly, to realize how worn away these tactics had left me, how I’d tried to stay tethered to Tim, to our shared family, but hadn’t held all the pieces of what had actually happened. I had so rarely weighed the actual story, had barely broached my history with anyone who didn’t already know me. I chose to keep that burden sealed, secret, too terrified to drag it into the light.

Tim. You’ve suffered so much already. Your support of my writing and your faith in me is a towering act of love. You are and will be so much more than the tragedy that incited this book. I love you.