Unexpected

1. I WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN A BOY.

But I wasn't. Instead they were given a baby girl, to love and cherish, and they had to make do. They'd already picked out the name of Benjamin, and my mother saw no reason to change it. My brother, who is the most honest person I know, made faces at me and asked why my blanket was pink if my name was Benjamin. We were driving back from the hospital.

"Quit bugging your sister, Jerry, snapped Dad. That's right. Ben and Jerry. Mum called me Minnie in an effort to feminize my name until I told her to stop and Dad called me J-Min in an attempt at coolness until Mom told him to stop. So it was left at Ben. Jerry ' Jeremiah ' refused to answer to his full name, not that I blame him. Mom wanted him to have the nickname Jem after the main character's brother in To Kill a Mockingbird but since neither Jerry nor any of his friends had read the book when he was eight, he declared that sounded like a girl's name and refused to answer to that as well. I wanted to say, but never did: Can I refuse my name, then?

2. MY NAME IS MADE WORSE BY THE FACT THAT MY MOTHER WAS NOT A FEMINIST.

Struck blind with love and fascination, she married my father ten years before his death and accepted his last name, not knowing what grief it would cause her and what humiliation it would cause my brother and me. My mother's name was Charlene Truman. My father's name was Lionel Grosse. She was twenty one, her whole life ahead of her; he was thirty five trying to escape his old life. In one deft move, she signed her death sentence. People thought she was mad, people not likely candidates for feminism. They protested that Charlene Grosse was a terrible name. (Had I existed, I would have agreed) Secretly, they thought that Lionel Grosse was bad news. Bad news or good news, one thing my father refused to be was no news. They were married on the 18th of September in a Gothic church two hundred miles from home. It was raining. The church was a couple of minutes walk from the car park, which was too small. Dresses were ruined. Cars got stuck. Later, my mother drank champagne; three bottles of it. My father drank champagne as well. The amount was never recounted. In a motel two hundred miles from home, on their wedding night, they conceived my brother, Jeremiah Grosse.

3. THINGS MOM DID WHEN SHE WAS PREGNANT WITH JERRY:

She listened to Dad's entire musical collection. She believed that Jerry was destined for musical greatness, so demanded that Dad sing Baba O'Riley to the bump. She wore the same chocolate-colored dress, and when my father bought her another, noting that it was stained, she threw it out complaining that it itched. She bought impractical things that were sent back at Dad's insistence. He bought practical things that were sent back at her insistence. They bought a cream couch together which was sent back because it couldn't fit through the door. She had cravings for oatmeal. She continued writing articles for the paper, but was no longer considered a reporter. She went on a Japanese course and dropped out after a week, complaining about the teacher. She enrolled in an Italian course and found it easy, being an accomplished speaker of Spanish. She did not like the teacher there either but found this less of a problem. She developed a taste for spicy food. For the last twenty days of her pregnancy she listened to Mozart in the hope that Jerry would be a classical genius.

4. THINGS THAT DAD DID WHEN SHE WAS PREGNANT WITH JERRY:

He looked behind his shoulder for his ex-wife who he had not told Mom about. He felt guilty. He let Mom at his music collection and mess it up because his conscience was on overdrive. He bought her flowers whenever there was a street vendor available. He bought her a cheap maternity dress which she grew too attached to. He bought her an expensive maternity dress so she would have something else to wear. When she threw it down the trash chute, he resolved never to buy her anything expensive of use ever again. It was one of the few promises he ever kept. She thought he was having an affair.

His son that he pretended did not exist turned three. At three, he did not resent his father, nor worried about his dimples and freckles which made him cute as a toddler but which made him feel humiliated as a teenager. While he was forgetting his son, he bought that same boy a present which he wrapped badly in Christmas wrapping paper and gave to a blond girl in his son's Montessori to give to him. The girl took the present home and forgot about the errand. She hadn't learnt Stranger Danger but Finders Keepers struck a chord with her.

He stopped feeling guilty. He didn't apologize for anything. He was promote and slept with his assistant. It wasn't so much an affair as a brief encounter of the sexual kind. They only slept together once, in the same motel where Jerry was conceived. Her name was Stacey Klein (no relation to Calvin Klein). She was not twenty two. She was not married. She was not heavily pregnant. She was not opposed to wearing a variety of garments and washing them frequently. She did not puke daily. She did not demand oatmeal at irregular intervals. She did not worry about accounts. These were attractive features. He slept with her once, only once, and did not feel guilty. This worried him. He knew, as I know (speaking objectively as though I do not share half of his genetic information), that he should feel guilty about sleeping with another woman. So he stopped, and tried to feel relieved.

5. JERRY IS YOUNGER AND OLDER THAN ME

When I was five years old, I trusted my brother Jerry implicitly because he was both older and younger than me. He was older than me by two years but had been held back a year. Some of the boys called him a retard; I didn't know what that meant, then. He regarded his apparent stupidity with the air of a senile old woman gesturing at the collection of ornaments which are all she has to show for her life in her one moment of lucidity. It was a blend of irony, acceptance and the bittersweet understanding that it was too late to do anything about it.

At first, I loved him for his need. He held my hand when we walked down the street for his sake; he read me bed time stories so I could correct his mistakes. It was liberating, his need. When I was five years old, I did not think he was stupid. I thought he was old.

Our mother used to tell us that humans have only two ages: an adult and a child. After they reach their physical and mental peak, adults start their slow descent into childhood. This scared me. When I was five years old, I did not want to be five years old.
I was cruel to Jerry, too. There were more boys, and girls now, calling him a retard. He still wanted to hold hands with me when we walked to school. In the beginning, I was embarrassed because I thought that people believed I needed my brother to walk me to school. But soon I was humiliated and tortured by the fact that people knew my brother needed me to walk him to school.

When I was seven years old, my father died sort of. He's not technically dead, per se. There was no funeral, no body, no autopsy, no irreversible terminal disease. There were no days of wearing only black, no sudden interest in religion that follows a sudden death, no unexpected rush of sympathy from people we hardly knew and were only barely related to. A lot of things were missing; they'd escaped before he died sort of. Sick people extinguish and finally give up on vital organs. Sometimes their personality, their smile, a face that reminded the family of the smile or a body that reminded friends of the personality was all that was left in the end.

My father's smile disappeared first.

My father died of cancer. Sort of. It's a cancer that does not exist. I made it up. Once, when the teacher asked me what my father's occupation was, I made up that he was a technical engineer. I made up that he was interested in gadgets, but lamented the fact that his job was being taken over by computers. Even though the computer was probably the most useful gadget ever invented, he despised it for taking what he called the 'grainy' element of it out. I got lost in my imagination. When I was seven years old, I knew how to lie. It wasn't something as far-fetched as my father was a king, or a spy, or a politician. It was close enough to something that could have happened for everyone, including me, to believe that it did happen.

I got lost in my story. My father thought that he wasn't paid enough; that his boss was annoying but his colleagues were okay; that the most useful gadget ever invented was the can opener. My mother thought it was the wheel. My brother thought it was the air rifle, because my mother wouldn't allow him to have one. I thought that my father '

"Thank you, Ben, said the teacher, bored.

6. ONE DAY JERRY SAID WE SHOULD LOOK OURSELVES UP ON THE INTERNET

He demanded to search for his first. We trawled through the Internet, a vast jungle of facts and fictions and spam. He tried to search for Jerry first. There are lots of Jerrys on the Internet; none of them are Jerry Grosse. What came up was Ben and Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream; Jerry Maguire; and Jerry Springer. "Look up Jerry Grosse, I suggested. He did.

It was August. Mom was in her bedroom drinking from a pitcher which she swore contained only ice tea, writing God know's what on the paper that Dad left behind. Even Jerry that she was lying when she said she was fine. "We need to look up baby names and meanings, I told him, yanking the mouse from his unresisting hand. His eyes were fixed to the screen. "Jerry Grosse. They'll have it. Two minutes passed before something came up. In that time I stifled a yawn, stretched and thought of Pa. In that order.

"There. Stop scrolling. It's my name! exclaimed Jerry. He pointed wildly at the screen. Jerry's party store. Grosse Point dentistry. "That's not your name, dumbass. That's a business owner. You're only nine; you can't be a business owner. "Huh, said Jerry, "then how come you're only seven and you think you're president? "I don't I'm just saying that that's not you. "It's got my name on it. I ignored him.
"I'll look up my name.

Ben Franklin's 300th Birthday.

"That's not you; your last name's Grosse. "Thank you, Brain Control. "Look up the meanings.

Like a dumbass, I did.

"What's the point of looking the meanings up, anyway? Mom would know. Jerry gave me a look that made me think he wasn't stupid. I read them out.

"Jerry is Greek. It means Holy. I snorted. "And Ben means Son of. It's a boy's name ' there's the proof! "Look up our full names then. "I thought you hated Jeremiah. "I do. But it's my name, Benjamin. "Shut up. "What for? "Otherwise I won't look it up. "Okay. Jeez. "Jeremiah is Hebrew. Exalted of the Lord. "What does that even mean? "How should I know? I'm only seven, remember? He gave me the look again. I typed in mine. "Benjamin is Hebrew. Son of my right hand. "Whose hand? said Jerry. I switched off the computer. Later, when we were in bed and he was on the other side of the wall, I heard him repeat it: Whose hand?

7. THIS ALL HAPPENED IN OUR OLD HOUSE, WHICH CRIED WHEN IT RAINED BECAUSE IT HAD WINDOWS THAT LOOKED LIKE EYES AND A PORCH AS THE MOUTH, AND IT ALL WENT ON LIKE THAT UNTIL WE MOVED TO THE CITY, WHERE AT FIRST MOM CRIED WHEN IT RAINED BUT NOT FOREVER.

After Dad died of a cancer that didn't exist, Mom didn't know what to do. She poured all the alcohol down the sink because she didn't trust herself (neither did I) and stayed in bed for what felt like an eternity. Ten years after Dad stopped feeling guilty even though he didn't deserve it, she stopped feeling guilty and didn't care whether she deserved it or not. Mrs. Dwyer, who lived next door and had just lost her husband in very dissimilar circumstances (breast cancer affects men too, she would yell at us) had once said, "Charlene, if you ever need me I'm right here! in an effort to be friendly, and Mom took full advantage of the offer.

What is there to say about Mrs. Dwyer? She loved her husband. She was just as desperate to keep their love going from beyond the grave as Mom was desperate to fall out of love with hers. She was a gossip; her phone bill must have been huge. She was always poking into our business until we actually had some business, and then she tried to stand clear. She called us by our full names and said mine with a pinched, slightly confused look on her face. She was necessary.

Her necessity didn't last. Mom, desperate to leave the town, searched for a job in the city, preferably Manhattan. The rent for a small apartment was diabolical, she said. All I saw was the city lights, Brooklyn Bridge going in, and fell in love. She found a job quickly enough, running a small florist's, sent Mrs. Dwyer a bouquet of flowers and sold the house. She painted her nails and told us we would make new friends.

We did.

I'm not sure she did.

8. A PICTURE TAKEN OF MY FAMILY ONE MONTH AGO:

We were on top of the Empire State Building with the Financial District behind us. It was five o'clock in the evening, the Sun setting behind us through the gap in the skyscrapers. Who took the picture? I can't even remember. I doubt it was a volunteer; I doubt they even agreed to take it, but lo and behold: picture perfect proof that Mom's business skills amounted to something more than money and the overwhelming scent of flowers in our small apartment. Mom was wearing a Chinese red dress with a worn blue poncho which doesn't match. I remember where she got it: it was meant for me; I refused to even put it on. We were walking down Eighth Avenue, while she talked about my latest report ("An A in Chemistry? I thought you hated Chemistry. "I don't hate Chemistry. Maybe you're thinking of Jerry. "No, Jerry hates everything. "He likes English. "Really? Und so weiter.) and I half-listened. Then suddenly, she yanked my hand and showed me the poncho in the store window for half price.

"You buy it if you're that excited, I told her, firmly extracting my hand from her pincer-like grip. She took me up on my offer. The store was closing down; now it sells cheap hardware and smells like pinewood air freshener. The queue was full of people like us who had the time to stand in line but not the money to stand in line for something at its full price. The woman at the front was unnaturally brusque, only a few years older than my mother, a little on the heavy side. It was already hot outside, and the fan had broken. She was probably about to be made redundant.
"Shit, said Mom, hunting in her handbag for money which wasn't about to reveal its hiding place. I dug into my jeans pocket; the man behind us was shifting from foot to foot in an impatient gesture and I didn't want a scene. I told the harassed woman to keep the change. She didn't need telling twice. Mom, on the other hand, did. She never did pay me back. But her face lit up and she wore it over her suit all the way home, to my extreme embarrassment.

At least the poncho didn't look too out of place in the photo. It was a windy day; her black curls bounced in the breeze and she shielded her eyes with her right hand. On her left was Jerry, looking the other way with a day dream still caught in his eyes.

In our family, we each have our clone, and Jerry is Mom's. The same overt tendency toward skinniness that borders on heroin-addict thin, the same curly black hair that looks almost Greek but is actually a remnant of Hungarian genes, the same narrow shoulders which make Jerry look like Geraldine from behind. He was thirteen, and showed no signs of growing anywhere particularly fast. He stood at five feet two inches and his spiky hair added another two and a half with half a gallon of hair gel and half an hour of mirror preparation. His hands were in his pockets. He showed all the symptoms of a bored teenage boy, not wanting his puberty caught on camera.

I was standing next to Jerry. It isn't a good picture. My father's parting gifts to me: pale skin like a geisha's; gray, bottomless eyes the color of tarmac; ears that stick out; and auburn hair on my head, eyebrows and eyelashes. It means that my eyes look exceptionally enormous because there's nothing to hide behind or under. I was looking at the camera with the distinct aura of disdain, common amongst preteen girls trying to look older than they really are.

What was happening at the time? I think I had just been entered into the Science Fair; a month seems an eternity to a twelve-year old. The word 'forever' means 'until next Tuesday' and if we want it to mean 'forever' the concept is solid until we don't want it, and then it's suddenly fluid and we didn't mean it after all.