Defne YucesoyMy brother comes to visit while I sit on the living room couch while pillows from over 15 years ago sit next to me. My brother knocks on the door and I realize he came to visit. I go up to my room, quietly and steadily while my mom opens the door for him. Having a brother from another father was easy until we both grew up. The sound of his shoes tapping on the hallway floor feels unfamiliar in a house that used to echo with both of our footsteps. I listen from upstairs, trying to remember when the house stopped belonging to both of us.
The tension was never about having different fathers. It was about finding out who we are and growing up in different realities while living under the same roof. I remember that when I was about 6, my mom would put me to bed and say goodnight. My brother from the room across would quietly call out my name to build a secret pillow fort past my bedtime. We would build and pretend we were sleeping when my parents would check on me. It feels worthy to think that our minds used to be so full of love and innocence. Back then, the world was small enough to fit inside a pillow fort. The only rule was not getting caught. The only fear was being sent back to our separate beds. We did not understand that one day we would have to fake our separation.
As years passed, the walls between our rooms grew thicker. We stopped eating breakfast together because we were so annoyed of each other doing something so human, chewing food. We stopped whispering across our rooms, we stopped going outside to play and soon after our last game of football, we built a pillow fort not realizing it would be the last time. We stopped building things together, we started building identities. We started to face reality and redefine the meaning of “different fathers”. We started facing the reality of different conversations, different expectations that I was never a part of.
The tension never started off as loud. There were no slammed doors or yelling at the start. It was more quiet and subtle than that. We quietly realized that two different identities were growing in the same household. We were being raised by different worlds. I still wonder if he felt it when we were building a concrete wall in between us too. If he felt that invisible line dividing what we shared and what we didn’t .I wondered if he noticed when our conversations became shorter, or when our laughter required more effort and fake smiles.
Families are thought of as foundations to people at an early age. My life made me realize that foundations are not always uniform. Some are built by different people using different materials. From the outside the house looks like a perfect house that is whole. It is until you get inside it when you feel the unevenness beneath your feet.
Now, when he visits I silently go upstairs. This isn’t avoidance for me, it is adjustment. It’s me trying to comprehend how we became older versions of ourselves without learning how to grow older together. I’m sure that love doesn’t disappear because I’ll always love my brother with all my heart. Maybe love just changes shape, from pillow forts to short, very short conversations or from whispered secrets to silent understanding and head nodding.
