I'm thtuck

Until Mickey, the concept of unconditional love was incomprehensible to me. When my nephew was born -- as soon as I held him -- I got it. It's sort of horrible? One is simply bound, forever -- as he used to say, "Thtuck" -- held emotional hostage to the vagaries of someone else's life. The twists and turns of any adolescent's life are not always cockle-warming, I suppose.

My mother told me once about the horror of my adolescence for her -- climbing the stairs into the silence of the third floor every night, wondering whether she would find me there, whether I'd be alive. There is the evidence of my own memory to suggest that I hated her -- I did hate her, and I loved her, and I wanted nothing, nothing except to not have to wade through day after day of shame and yearning and anger -- the fetid neurochemical swamp that was my brain, my life, all that I knew.

Were Mickey to hate me, I would die a thousand metaphorical deaths, and I would love him still, no less. If I overheard him saying mean things about me in adolescent cool-boy tones, I would be happy to buy him ramen noodles and hot sauce, to drive my fishtailing pickup truck through the snow and ice, up the steep hill of Ravine Street in terrible traffic to make sure he was safe, to feed him eel sushi, to let him have the pickled ginger if he wants it. I love that skinny, profane, teen-aged boy.

There are complications, of course. I love him, and I think that his mother -- my beloved sister -- is a lousy mother. He lives in a half-million dollar house and has expensive shoes, but she is so very mean to him. There are reasons and rationalizations, and I understand some of them, but the net effect is that it does him harm.

I want a relationship with him. I can't have a relationship with him if I alienate her. I love her and I want a relationship with her. I can not watch this go on any longer. Over the years, I have developed this mental picture -- that every time we gather as a family, every time something happens and no one says anything to her because they don't want to risk a blow-up, we are sacrificing him on the altar of family civility.

She calls me to tell me that they would be a happy family without him, that she wants him out of her house, that her goal this year is to make the $35,000 it will cost to send him to boarding school. I can not watch this, listen to this... and I don't know what to do.