By the time I was almost seventeen, Michael had fully embraced being mute, and everyone had accepted it as part of his character. He still spoke to me and Dad (and Mom, on the hard nights) but in the eyes of most people he was silent all the time. It was not that he had no desire to talk to others; as he told me many times about how badly he felt a yearning for affection from the people in his life. He knew that deep, meaningful connections would be an unattainable goal if he continued to live as a mute, but he could not by any means return himself to being a regular, speaking boy. Caring for Dad when he got sick affected both Michael and I to different extents, though his silence proved indisputably that he received the brunt of psychological damage.

Looking after Dad didn't trouble me too much, I had to take it in my stride and move along with life after he got better. Sure, I had to self-educate for a couple of years afterwards, but I knew where to look for relevant, correct information, so my emotional and academic intelligence remained about right for a child of my age. I suppose I could have been damaged far more by this disruption of the status quo; but whatever scars it may have left seem insignificant compared to what happened to my brother. A little bout of seasonal depression is nothing when mutism is a part of the conversation.

'Selective mutism' was the term used by the psychiatrist when Michael eventually caved and let one check him out. The guy listened intently, really paid attention to me, as I explained to him my brother's situation, which I admired; the doctor our dad saw seemed only to half-heartedly hear what we had to say. This man was professional, kind, with a wonderful bedside manner. He spoke to me and my brother in the softest voice I had ever heard on a man besides my father in the moments after my mother died. The psychiatrist wore glasses, the lenses so thin that I was certain they helped with nothing except vanity; this subconscious revealing of his character drew me to him in a way I had never felt about anybody beforehand- men and women alike remained far away from my study-oriented worldview. It would not be the final time I thought of a man in this manner.

Michael's disability, if I should call selective mutism a disability, led to my social development being stunted a little. I had to take care of him as often as I could when we were growing up, so I didn't have as many friends as some of the other kids in school did. It wasn't like I isolated myself or anything; I had a small (but very close) group of friends with whom I would spend all my free time; but while another child may have had fifteen friends, I only had three.

The first of my real friends, and by far the closest, was a strange boy called Tom. I had met him before Michael and I were pulled out of school, so he knew my brother before he stopped speaking- this alone made the bond between us more intimate when we reconciled upon my return to education. In the time I had spent away, Tom had made a plethora of new friends and was desperate to introduce me to them when I came back to school, but I only enjoyed the company of a couple of the new gang. My best friend Tom was kind and affectionate in a way that boys of the time never tended to be and had my back no matter what I was going through. A memory that often springs to mind when discussing Tom is when I fell ill for a couple of weeks when I was seventeen (just the flu, nothing terrible) and he moved in to fulfil familial duties in my stead. That deed of selflessness proved entirely that he was a boy I could trust. Of course, he was not perfect: he was a prolific gossiper, often reacted confrontationally in tricky situations, but none of that detracted from the sheer love I had for him. Other friends waded in and out of my life during that time, but never Tom. He was as permanent as Michael was; as Mom would have been.

Otto was another friend of ours. He wasn't around as often as Tom, and never truly became comfortable with me, but he was kind enough. He was one of the newer additions to the group- I only met him after I came back from my time as my father's carer- and he acted strangely upon meeting Michael for the first time. Otto was not hateful, and never rude (intentionally, at least) but I could not shake the hunch that he was putting up a front of contentment to appease me. Learning body language signs was unavoidable spending so much time with a boy who had selective mutism, and I could tell from the way Otto acted that there was something he was not telling me. He and Tom came over to our house one evening, and when Michael entered the room, I explained politely to Otto that my brother used American Sign Language to communicate with most people; Otto had no issue with this (not vocally, anyway) but when Michael went to shake his hand, he became skittish and fidgety. Maybe that being a red flag is little more than me being overprotective of my baby brother, but it stuck out, nonetheless.

Every Friday, after I came back to school, Tom and I would visit my mother's grave. These visits were never depressing; we always celebrated her life by singing songs (usually The Beatles) and leaving flowers which we hoped she would somehow receive on the other side of life. 

'Who knows how long I've loved you

You know I love you still

Will I wait a lonely lifetime?

If you want me to, I will.'

This routine continued post-graduation from high school. Every week, at four o clock pm, Mom re-joined the family for an hour or so. We were often the only people in the graveyard, with the occasional exception of a crying old man every few weeks. Whenever Tom and I saw him, we would make conversation and do our best to help him work through the issues he had been facing as a recently widowed, aged man. Tom would sometimes walk the man home, leaving me alone with Mom. With Tom, speaking to my mother felt so natural and easy- I could talk for hours about current events and music and my personal life- but this ease faded when it was only the two of us. Suddenly, I would feel guilty for every argument we had during our time together; I'd be regretful for everything I've ever done wrong. Tom was a safety net in that way, and I'm grateful for his ability to soften the intense feelings I often possessed during tough days.

I love my mother more than most boys do. Part of that could be because she died when I was eleven, but even disregarding that my adoration for her is beyond standard for a mother and son. We rarely fought (when we did, the subject was always petty), and I would often go out of my way to make things better for her. Hearing this may spark some Freudian suspicions, which is understandable, but I think I am an exception to his rule because of one simple fact: I am a homosexual male. I should tell you now because it is almost the chapter in my tale in which I fall head over heels in love with a man- unexpected shocks have no place in a story like mine, as there are already so many that subjecting you to more seems unnecessary. I'm sure you knew that already, Julius, I just wanted to make certain.

When I was eighteen, in 1981, another regular graveyard visitor became a fixture of mine and Tom's Friday sessions of mourning. A neat, tall man around the same age as me would perch on the bench next to ours and silently write letters. Every week, without fail, a letter. Before Tom or I said a word to him, we both noticed how frantically he wrote, and the sheer volume of letters he managed to produce. God, he was beautiful. With his free hand, he would fidget and tap his leg methodically for minutes on end; he was a fascinating creature even just to look at. He was pale, thin as a rake, but always looked as though he was tidy and planned and ethereal.

It wasn't until a few weeks into his visits that Tom and I spoke to him. We had been wanting to get to know him since he first started coming to the graveyard, but never wanted to interrupt his savant-level focus on writing. When, eventually, conversation amongst the three of us began, he talked non-stop about both his current living situation and his aspirations- but nothing about his past. It was not a self-indulgent rant, merely an explosion of passion that he had been suppressing for as long as he could remember. After he finished rambling, he said "Wow, sorry guys. I just haven't been asked anything personal in a long time."

That must have stuck with me, as I asked him if the three of us (when, really, I wasn't too excited about Tom being there) could go out and get coffee somewhere. The man said yes, and asked when we could make these plans a reality.

"Why not right now?" I replied.

The man smiled at me and took off his glasses. In front of me was the very vision of wonder. The face of Love Bergman.