The Loudest in the Room

by Lauren Saxon

My brother cried because he was happy. Happy to have known him. To have been known by him.

Liam. Class clown. Goofy. The loudest in every room. I’m tired of talking about friends & their smiles & their light only after they leave us. Still. Liam is gone and all I want to talk about is laughter. The way he pulled it out of everyone around him. Effortlessly. Spontaneously. Masterfully.

My brother met Liam in middle school, I think. Through mutual, neighborhood friends. Through soccer, maybe. I can’t remember. What matters is that Liam came into Michael’s life. And that he stayed. Stayed through sleepovers, basketball tryouts, and awkward school dances. Stayed through first girlfriends, first beers, and pool parties. Stayed through graduation.

In high school, I remember thinking that Liam would never change. He embodied a bold refusal of growing up. A persistent silliness that adults quickly labeled as immature. A silliness that quickly infiltrated every room.

I’m thinking, now, of AP Spanish. Me, Michael, and Liam all in the same class. There are no words to adequately express just how little work got done that semester. With Liam, mispronouncing every word on purpose. Bursting in the room with a loud Hola, placing incorrect emphasis on the letter H.

And the class would laugh. And the teacher would roll her eyes. And the tone for the day would be set—forty-five minutes of an authority figure, working desperately to reign in a room full of giggles. Liam, at the head of the table. His proud grin taking up so much space.

I’m thinking, now, of Michael. My brother. Driving the two of us home from practice after school. How he pointed to the McDonald’s on Montgomery Road. Crossing lanes, dangerously I might add, while yelling YEAH let’s get some McDank’s! I asked, mid-laughter, mid-gasping for air, where the hell he got that phrase from. From Liam.

Liam and his floppy brown hair. Liam and his two big brothers. His PTO parents. Liam and my brother and our friends and our pills. Spending weekends at somebody’s lake house.

I do not want to talk about pain. Not mine, not his. I do not want to talk about what killed him. How unforgiving addiction can be.

Though I’m trying hard not to, I am thinking about overdose. A line from Beautiful Boy, in which the exhausted father of an addict claims, I worship the people who survive. Today, more than ever, I reject this phrase. I ask—what of those who do not survive? Can we worship them, nonetheless. Are they any less worthy of praise.

Liam is gone and all I want to talk about is laughter. His laughter. And how I was so certain that I would hear it again. At a reunion. At my brother’s wedding, of course.

My brother, my brother. And the heaviness in his voice this morning. How he said, through sighs, I thought he was doing better. I shuddered, then, at how easily he could’ve been talking about me.

On the phone, he is crying. Likely barreling through swells ten times the size of mine. He is treading water. And because I can’t bear to see him sad, to see him hurting, I decide: He cried because he was happy.

The grief will ripple through my hometown. Its waves drowning close friends and family, first. And some won’t notice the water until it’s up to their knees.

Published April 2, 2023