“Like what?” Dad asked.
“The way she described her home life in such a matter-of-fact way was appalling, and it was hard for me to hide my reaction from her. It was like her rebellion to move here was a desperate attempt to escape a bad situation. It confused me as to why it was such a big deal for her, though. I would have just packed up and left,” Mom explained.
“To go against her father’s wishes is probably hard for Scarlet, especially when he was actively pushing them on her. As I said, it would be a good idea for me to sit down with her and talk about it to see if I can help,” Uncle John suggested. Then he turned and looked at me again, grinning.
“Now, let’s get back to not making those girls wrong.”
“It’s been hard not to do it, but at least with respect to Scarlet and Ashley, it’ll be easier to avoid after this talk.
“With Brook, it’s a bit different, because I keep feeling like she wants to walk away without thinking everything through. Luckily, I managed to not just blurt that out to her, and I didn’t argue with her about it, even though I wanted to.
“Keeping the focus on winning the argument and not on the outcome I want is a habit I have to break. I honestly expect that if I hadn’t stopped myself from trying to win, Brook would have left me over all this. It took me some time to remember what you taught me. I want to thank you for that,” I said.
“If I remember correctly, you didn’t believe me at the time,” Uncle John teased.
“I think I’ve progressed a bit since that summer,” I retorted.
“We all agree that you’ve come a long way,” Dad assured me.
“How do you think this helped you save your relationship with Brook?” Uncle John asked.
I gave a heavy sigh. Was he really going to ask me to bare my soul like this?
“It allowed me to push away most of the negative thoughts. In the past, I would have run through everything I imagined Brook had done wrong to me, or where she’d not seen my side of what I’d faced. On my trip from Chicago, I allowed myself to go there and wasn’t happy with how Brook had reacted. This morning, I remembered what you taught me. It helped me take a step back and consider the big picture and what I wanted the outcome to be.
“When I viewed it from that angle, I didn’t see where being right and proving her wrong would solve anything. I might feel vindicated, but Brook would have dumped me,” I shared.
Uncle John was nodding his approval.
“How did that make you feel?”
Damn him and that stupid phrase.
“You know what it felt like,” I accused him, and he smiled. “I didn’t feel like I was going to knot up inside. The stress was much less. I still worried that Brook wouldn’t be in my life, but I knew if she wasn’t, it was okay. It was weird how much better I felt about it. I really don’t know how to explain it.”
“You did just fine. What you’ll find is that if you have to be right and make the other person wrong, there’s no room for compromise. It almost guarantees you’ll fail unless the other person surrenders. You take that out of the equation, and it removes the need to protect your ego. It allows you to work toward a solution without emotions stopping you,” Uncle John explained.
“I’m not there yet. It was far too easy to fall back into that trap.”
“I’m proud of you. Do you realize that you take my coaching far better than most people do?” Uncle John asked.
“I guess I wanted to change. Now that I look back, I realize I wasn’t happy with the way my life was going at the time.”
“I know. I want you to think for a moment about all your friends and your brother. We worked to set goals and figure out what would make them happy. Do you see them executing their plans? I would bet that most of their success could be tied to you paving the way for them. In the long run, do you think that’s doing them any favors?” Uncle John asked.
“You realize that’s not going to stop me from helping them,” I said.
“I’m sure it’s not. I just wanted to tell you that I’m proud of you. No matter how it goes, I don’t want you to get frustrated with people when you show them the way, and they don’t follow. They have to want it for themselves.”
“We never talked about three more babies in my life.”
Uncle John laughed.
“What does Tami call you? ‘Stupid boy’? There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle on that one. As far as I can tell, you’re handling it as best you can. Find out for sure if they’re yours, and if they are, man up.”
“I still say we should get him fixed,” Mom shared.
“He would just get fat and lie around the house all day,” Dad predicted.
I gave them my best put-out teenager expression and stomped out for good measure. I’m sure I made my mom’s day.
◊◊◊
When I got up to my apartment, I jumped onto video chat with Tami and gave her my best winning smile.
“Brook came to her senses,” I announced.
“Thank God! I was afraid she was going to get back together with you.”
I gave her my blank look and blinked a couple of times. Then I saw the smirk sneak onto her face.
