I hadn’t been back to Colorado in years, but there I was, rolling through the Rockies with my daughter, heading to some kind of family event—my sister’s wedding, I think. Or maybe it was something else. Everything in Colorado has that same clean, polished, tax-exchange-funded look to it. My father’s house stood tall against the backdrop of Red Rocks, a monument to his financial maneuvers, a grand display of years sacrificed at the altar of fiscal loopholes. He was proud of it, the way a man is proud of a car he never really drives but keeps polished just in case someone important stops by.
We were all out in the yard, making small talk, when my brother and his wife arrived. Now, if you’ve never met a walking spectacle before, let me introduce you to my brother’s wife. She had a way of making an entrance—this time, she was hobbling around, proudly showcasing some sort of medical tube sticking out of her back, telling anyone within earshot that she’d just had a spinal tap. She went from person to person, parading her suffering, making sure everyone got a good look.
My brother just stood there, nodding along, neither confirming nor denying. That’s his thing—existing in some half-space between participation and absence, letting the tide of his wife’s theatrics carry him wherever it pleased. He never contradicted, never intervened, just let the lies settle like dust over the whole scene.
I was standing on the other side of the yard, drinking in the absurdity, when she suddenly locked eyes with me and made a beeline in my direction. She moved fast for someone supposedly recovering from a spinal tap.
“Hey, how you doing?” she said, her voice dripping with manufactured warmth. “I just want to apologize for what happened between us. It was a total miscommunication. I tried messaging you on Facebook, but you blocked me.”
I sipped my drink. “Yeah, no stories to it. That was, what, a year ago? Not a big deal. Life moves on.”
She nodded vigorously, eager to cement this fake reconciliation. “I just want you to know, I’m happy you’re happy.”
“Great,” I said. “Are you happy?”
“Oh yes, yes,” she gushed, but then, as if the devil whispered it straight into her ear, she leaned in with a conspiratorial grin. “Now that you’re single, I have this friend you’d be great with. She’d show you an amazing time.”
And that’s when my brother’s mother-in-law, some southern-fried matriarch straight out of an evangelical fever dream, swooped in. “Why does he need to have a good time?” she snapped. “You need to back away from James.”
And just like that, my brother’s wife scurried off, cast away by the iron will of whatever the hell that woman was. It was almost entertaining.
Fast forward to Christmas.
My brother’s wife’s family had come into town, straight from Alabama, ready to make a grand impression. My father, the host, had prepared an absolute feast—pans full of ugly-ass beets, roasted until they looked like something that had crawled out of a bog, limp Brussels sprouts that had been exiled to the corner of the counter, and racks upon racks of pork ribs, because in his mind, ribs were still going for a dollar a pound.
We waited for my brother and his wife to arrive, holding off as long as we could, but when it became clear that she wasn’t about to grace us with her presence, we moved on.
The dinner was going fine, until I noticed the boy—my brother’s stepson—sitting there, staring longingly at the ribs, an untouched pile of beets and Brussels sprouts on his plate. His grandfather was in full control, dictating the child’s meal like a goddamn drill sergeant.
“You finish all those beets, and then you can have another rib,” the old man commanded, his wife nodding in firm agreement.
The kid’s face was a tragedy. He was starving, staring at those ribs like they were the last salvation of a doomed man, but the decree had been made: eat the beets, suffer the sprouts, and then—and only then—earn the right to enjoy something decent.
It was like watching a rerun of my own childhood. The same power plays, the same control disguised as parenting, the same denial of joy because “lessons” needed to be taught. Some people never evolve. They just get older and become crueler with better excuses.
Then, right as we were finishing up, the phone rang.
It was my brother’s wife.
He put her on speaker, and the second her voice came through, you could hear the bar in the background. The clinking glasses, the laughter, the unmistakable sound of people having a real good time.
“I’m sorry, babe,” she moaned, her voice dripping with forced weakness. “I got dizzy, and I, you know, I had a seizure. My parents are taking care of me. I’m sorry we couldn’t make it.”
We all just sat there, listening to her tell this story of frailty and illness, while the unmistakable sounds of alcohol and bullshit painted the real picture.
My father heard it too. And for the first time in a long time, the old man snapped.
“FUCK this,” he spat, his face red with rage. “She’s been playing this game for years. She can go to hell.”
It was beautiful. A Christmas miracle.
My brother sat there, feigning confusion, as if he hadn’t known all along that he was enabling her nonsense. He let it play out, as always, acting like he was trapped between two worlds, when in reality, he had chosen this circus.
And I?
I just sat back, drinking my beer, laughing to myself.
Because in that moment, I remembered his mother—my father’s second wife—the one who once leaned in close to me, smirking as she whispered, “My son will get more and better women than you.”
And I thought, Oh honey, I fucking hope so.
