Chapter Eighteen #2
I know Silas doesn’t want me to keep pretending everything’s chill when it’s not.
But at the end of the day, he won’t understand that the shit I have to complain about is nothing compared to the shit he deals with in his head every day, so I can’t be the kind of selfish asshole that puts that on him.
The first beer goes down like water, because I’m dehydrated on top of everything else, and it’s ice fucking cold. I feel refreshed as fuck. The second one is almost as good, and I finish it in the shower.
Once I’m clean, comfortably dressed and cradling a glass of room-temperature whiskey in my hand, I can finally relax.
I know I should eat something as well, but exhaustion is dogging at my heels so I don’t have the energy for more than getting chips out of the cabinet.
There’s a brief pause while I think about my choices, and I force myself to chug one of Silas’s protein shakes as well.
For posterity.
I’m trying not to think about it, but the image of Jaden’s ashen skin and vacant eyes feels like it’s etched onto my eyeballs. I normally excel at letting this shit go, but sometimes something sticks.
All I can think is what if, what if, what if…
What if I’d pushed his parents harder?
What if I hadn’t let Tristan talk me down?
What if they really did have options for getting help, but they were too lazy or defeated to try?
And of course, the question I’ve been desperate not to ask, what if it was Sky or Maddi?
I don’t need to wonder what would have happened if it had been me, because I already know. I would have been dead a long time ago.
I start off by scrolling on my phone, but eventually I boot up my clunky old Chromebook because I need a bigger screen to focus on.
I set up shop at one end of the dining room table, hyper aware of how much medical neglect Silas himself has suffered right here in this room, and click through page after page.
It’s not easy to say what I’m looking for. I start by looking up services that the Hallorans might have been able to use, but just chose not to. The reality of getting them charged with abuse or neglect is practically non-existent, but I feel the need to prove it to myself. Or Tristan, maybe.
Exploring social services is a mixed bag, but it leads me down one rabbit hole after the other once I start thinking about what I would do in the same situation.
I know I’d fucking care, for starters. I go through my own insurance with a fine-toothed comb, now that I have it, and then do the same for the girls’ coverage from the state.
I still don’t know what I’m looking for, but one click leads to another, which leads to another, and then another.
The light in the room shifts as time passes, but it doesn’t feel real.
I keep switching between beer and whiskey, sipping fast enough to keep my mounting anxiety at bay, but slow enough not to get sloppy.
Well, not too sloppy. At some point, the chips run out. I get up to root through the cabinets for something else to eat, but I keep knocking into the walls as I’m moving around.
Which doesn’t make sense, because I feel fine.
I feel ass-sober, not even buzzed. Just sleepy enough and cotton-mouthed enough to not let my worst thoughts dig their claws into me, and let each tumbling emotion that attacks me shrug away one by one.
I’m fine. So I don’t know why the world tilts a little when I sit down again, or why I keep accidentally banging into shit.
I know I should go to sleep. It’s probably late, but I refuse to look at the time, as if that can change it.
I know I should feel tired, and I do, but I also feel so alive.
Like the alcohol has burned away all the bullshit that normally clutters my brain and left the rest of me pure, fast and able to focus.
I don’t stop searching.
After the conversation I had with Silas the other day about getting custody of the girls, this is the first time I’m actually consciously looking into it.
I’d felt so convicted at the time, but Silas’s hesitation really worried me.
I didn’t abandon the plan, but I did decide to take a breath before I continued down that road.
To make sure he and I are on the same page.
But today has reminded me of just how quickly things can change, and how little it takes to let your children slip through your fingers.
I have to do something. I have to. I can’t just sit here and wait for something awful to go down, I’ll never forgive myself.
It’s bad enough that Sky got burned last winter because I wasn’t there to help her. I owe them this.
The sound of the door opening startles me so much I knock my lukewarm beer over, and start cussing as I pick up the laptop, watching my hastily scribbled notes on back of junk mail take the worst of the damage.
“Motherfucker,” I hiss, just as Silas, Maddi, and Sky all come into view.
The looks on their faces start off surprised, but quickly settle into some form of scared and/or pissed.
“Uh, hey guys. Sorry, I must’ve lost track of time, I didn’t realize you were about to get home, or I would have cleaned up.”
“Cade,” Silas says slowly, putting his keys down on the little side table and pulling off his Carhartt without ever looking away from me. “It’s 3:30 in the afternoon. Why are you still awake?”
“Um,” I start, without having anything to follow.
I take a look at my sisters and immediately wish I hadn’t.
Sky looks stressed, and has grabbed hold of Silas’s hand, while Maddi’s face has settled into the same brutal disappointment as when I had that fight with Dad.
Yikes. “I just got caught up. Shift ran late,” I lie. “I was having trouble winding down.”
The bottle of whiskey on the table is more than half empty, I realize, now that everyone is looking at it as well as me, and a tendril of shame curls through me.
At some point I’d hit a wall, and the whiskey started tasting like water too, not having any effect on me that I could feel no matter how much I drank.
“It’s fine. I’ll clean up so you guys can do homework. I should probably get to bed, anyway.”
Maddi frowns, and I realize I’ve listed a little to the side while I was talking, and reach out to catch myself on the table. Except I misjudge the distance and miss, which makes me stagger back a step, and suddenly draw attention to myself and make everything worse.
Shit.
And of course, Silas doesn’t even have the heart to look pissed. He just looks sad.
“Why don’t you guys go upstairs for a bit while I get your brother in bed,” he says, never moving his gaze away from me as he speaks. “I’ll make you something to eat in just a minute.”
“I can make us something,” Maddi interjects, her eyes flicking between us, but Silas is already moving.
He cups one large hand around her shoulder and gives it a reassuring squeeze before kissing the top of her head.
“Don’t worry about it. Go relax. I’ll take care of everything.”
That’s supposed to be my line. I can already glimpse the magnitude of how I’ve fucked up, but it hasn’t quite penetrated the alcohol-fog enough to truly settle in yet.
Silas stays calm as the girls drift away, both of them watching me with careful, terse little faces.
“G’night,” Sky says, but I notice she doesn’t even look like she wants to hug me. Maddi doesn’t say anything at all.
“What happened?” Silas asks as soon as they’re gone.
“What do you mean?”
Sure, Cade. Play dumb. That’s worked so well for you all the other times.
“I mean, why are you shitfaced in the middle of the day? In front of your sisters. Right after you promised not to bottle shit up anymore.”
The words are supposed to be a question, but it all comes out flat. Period. No answer expected.
“I—” I swear I had an answer that was about to come out, but as soon as I open my mouth, I think about Jaden again, and this time it feels like a gut punch.
The whiskey creeps up on me all at one, and before I know what’s happening my eyes are stinging and my throat aches.
For one bright, terrifying second, I wonder if I’m about to truly fall apart.
I swallow hard and take a breath, and that’s the best I can do right now.
“Cade,” Silas says again, but this time it’s soft. Like a prayer.
He moves toward me and gathers me into his arms, and I let him. I go slack, allowing the man I love to hold me up, taking deep breaths of the smell of him and burying my face in his shoulder.
“I’m just so tired,” I try to say, but it comes out half-sobbed.
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”
Silas reaches down, and with one sudden movement—and a grunt of effort, because I’m smaller than him but I’m not exactly small—hoists me the fuck up like a little kid.
I don’t object. Not one little bit. I just slide my arms around his neck and wrap my legs around his hips and let him walk me slowly but steadily toward the bedroom.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers, cupping the back of my head as he walks.
Once we’re in the bedroom, already dark from the shades being down, he half-places, half-dumps me on the bed.
All I want is for him to crawl on top of me and lean his entire bodyweight into me, but no such luck.
Instead, he keeps a blank face as he moves around the room, fussing over this and that.
Silas gets me to take my hoody off and my sweats.
He brings a wet washcloth in from the bathroom and wipes my face.
He turns the ceiling fan on, because I like it on when I sleep, and once I’ve drunk a glass of water with some electrolyte powder in it, brushed my teeth sloppily and taken a piss, he gets me back on the bed and wrestles me under the covers.
“Please don’t leave,” I say, my voice sounding small and wounded.
Silas stops, halfway between the bed and the door, then comes back to sit on the bed next to me.
He leans over and kisses me. Just a peck, but it already makes me feel more rooted in reality. Then he brushes back my hair while he speaks.
“I have to go take care of Maddi and Sky. They’ve had a rough week, and you know better than anyone that this shit stresses them out.”
I jerk back as if he slapped me.
“It’s just—” I start, but Silas cuts me off.
“Stop. We’re not talking about this while you’re shitfaced.
I don’t know what happened today, but we’ll talk about it when you wake up.
Please sleep. I gotta get them some food and clean up.
” Silas pauses, studying my face for a second before he sighs.
“It’s okay, Cade. Everything will be okay. Just sleep. Can you do that for me?”
I nod, feeling a little like a chastened child and not liking it a single bit.
“Stay with me? Just until I fall asleep?”
I know it’s pathetic, but that doesn’t stop me.
Silas shakes his head. He looks pained, and I hate it. This is the opposite of everything I’m supposed to be doing for him.
“Sleep, Cade. I’ll be back in a little while.”
He cups my cheek one more time before he stands up, and it feels like there’s a glass wall between me and the affection I’m used to getting from him. It hurts more than I want to exist.
Silas slips silently out of the room, closing the door behind him, and it’s only then that I let myself start to cry.