Boys and Their Mothers, Man

A Letter To My Father

In a previous letter, someone asked if you and Uncle Charlie didn’t always get along because he was gay. Of all the possible reasons for friction between you two, that was the last one I could imagine. Homophobia wasn’t in your DNA. If anything, I think you were hurt that he didn’t trust you enough to tell you outright.

I suspect some of it started when you were both young and good-looking—and he was just a little better-looking, so the girls gravitated toward him. I mean, come on, I hate that A- is the better-looking brother in our group. At least he’s had the decency to go bald.

But more than petty, competitive brotherly bullshit, I think the friction I sometimes saw between you two was the result of having a mother who had no problem playing you against each other. The heartbreaking part—the part I recognized early on—was that she didn’t even need to pit you against each other. She was really good at making each of you feel less than, all on your own.

I watched her berate Uncle Charli…