Bros before phones

With it being so close to Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, it seemed as good a time as any to be setting out in search of forgiveness. The forgiveness I’m searching for is from my father, for his brother. For the past 40 years he and his brother have hardly spoken.

Growing up, the brothers’s estrangement felt like the central drama of my father’s life, the place that conversation always seemed to flow. Someone would always eventually ask my father, “What happened between you and your brother?” at which point my father would grow sad or angry or defensive or wistful.

Over the years, my mother has tried to reunite them. One time, while my father was in the backyard smoking a cigar and reading a book, she came outside and said, “There’s someone on the phone who’d like to talk to you.”

For my father, being called to the phone was an event. So my father came in from the yard and picked up the extension in the kitchen and it was his brother. After all these years his brother had called. They spoke enthusiastically about the old days for about 15 minutes, which was when my father told his brother he was glad he’d called.

“I didn’t call,” his brother said. “Your wife called me.”

After some small talk, my father mumbled something about needing to go. They said their goodbyes and didn’t speak again for another five years, when his brother phoned him on his 80th birthday.

“Why don’t you call him for his 86th birthday,” I say.

“Why should I?” my father asks. “He didn’t call me on my 81st.”

This kind of tit-for-tat accounting is what always gets in the way. An ill-fated trip to Montreal left his brother feeling slighted about having to stay in my father’s basement. An ill-fated trip to Florida left my father feeling slighted about having to stay in his brother’s attic. Rude words spoken to each other’s wives. In one version of the origin story of their troubles, Sheldon’s refusal to bring a table to my briss almost resulted in my being circumcised on an ironing board.

I worry he’ll put off reaching out until it’s too late.

“I’ll tell you what,” he says. “Why don’t you call and feel him out. If he’s interested, maybe I’ll consider visiting.”

We say our goodbyes and I pick the phone back up. I dial my uncle.

Jonathan documents the brothers’s reunion in the first episode of his new podcast series Heavyweight.