THE FUSE

In 2019, I was cleaning out my mother’s house after the overdose death of my brother, Matthew, who had been occupying the house after my mother’s death from cancer the year before. As I carried a load of old pots and pans out to the dumpster in the driveway, a nosy neighbor walked up and told me, “You’re the last man standing.” I suppose it was meant as supportive, but it left me feeling isolated, alone, and defined by loss. Following the loss of my other brother and Matthew’s twin, Joseph, from a heroin overdose in 2009 and the estrangement from my father around 2015, I felt utterly alone in the wake of what I viewed as an unmitigated disaster of a family. Sure, I was the last one left, but that also meant I was now the one to clean up the mess, figure everything out, and find some way to continue on with my own life.