Chapter 31
Fitz
Two Weeks Later
The whinny of a horse stops me from where I've been hand spraying a winding hedge of rosemary whose roots aren’t pulling enough water from the ground.
I stand and turn to see Chad trotting up on his horse from the paddocks. He must have stopped by there to visit Dolly, which makes me happy for Dolly.
“How'd you get through the gate?” I shout over the sound of the water.
“Are you kidding me? I've known the combination forever.” He slows to a walk, dismounts, and leads his horse to a shady spot beneath some lemon trees.
Grabbing a carrot from his pocket, he offers it to his horse, who snaps it from his hand with a snort.
“You do know I come here when you're not here, right?”
I nod and aim the spray nozzle at a different hedge, which looks equally dry. It reminds me of the day Tessa and I were bathing the horses, and I sprayed us with water. Everything reminds me of her.
“Nice little appendage you've got there. What is she, about a month old?” He points at where I'm carrying Charlotte on my chest in a little baby carrier. It’s my week with the baby, and Tessa is at Loveland. They’re about to start demo on the back half of the ranch house, where the new construction will be.
“Six weeks. Yeah, she’s napping, and I can get some work done. Gotta multitask.”
“Oh yeah. You’re the king. What would we all do around here without you?” Sarcasm drips from his voice, and I'm not really sure why he seems annoyed with me when I've barely even seen him in a week. I turn off the hose.
“Why’re you making that sound like a bad thing?”
He presses his fist against his mouth and looks at the ground as though he’s trying to physically hold in his words until he can’t anymore.
“You’re kidding, right? You don’t see the false image you’ve got going where you’re out there doing the Lord's work while the rest of us dummies make a mess of our lives? Those of us who aren’t as good at ‘multitasking.’” He puts the last word in air quotes
“This again?” I ask. “I’m pretty sure multitasking isn’t your issue.”
“Oh, I have plenty of issues. Going to see a mediator next week to figure out how to divide up my assets with Karen.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. And that’s not what I meant.”
His tone is sharp. “I know what you meant. The drinking. I guess it was bound to take me down eventually.”
I nod, relieved that he’s saying the words out loud, but sad that he seems resigned to his marriage falling apart. “You say it like you don’t have a choice in the matter. You okay with letting your marriage end?”
“What do you think?”
I never planned to do this with my daughter strapped to my chest, but then again, I didn’t plan to have a daughter, and she’s the best damn thing to happen to me. So maybe the idea of plans can go fuck itself.
“I think we’re at the end of a road here, and you have a choice to make. I’m not helping matters by bailing you out and making excuses for you at your job.”
“So don’t. No one’s asking you to do it.” He scowls at me, but there’s no power behind it. He has the same exhausted, haunted look as on Karen’s face the last time I saw her. Neither one of them has anything left, and I’m not far behind.
I could yell. I could boss my younger brother around.
Instead, I walk over and put an arm around his shoulders, pulling him hard against my side.
He’s stiff under my arm at first, but then he stops resisting, and his head falls against my shoulder.
Charlotte lets out a little sigh but doesn’t budge.
This is my family.
For better or worse, we stick together. But I don’t want to disturb her, so I carefully undo the buckles and settle her into the stroller sitting a few feet away in the shade. Then I go back and hug him for real.
All this time, I’ve been staring at Chad like an adversary, a thorn in my side, an albatross that controlled my own ability to be happy.
With our mom far away, he’s my only family, and maybe my fear isn’t that he’ll fuck up my life.
Maybe it’s that he’ll fuck up so bad that I’ll lose him altogether.
“I don’t want you to die from this like Dad did. ”
I’ve never said the words out loud before, never allowed myself to give voice to my biggest fear. I’m so choked with emotion that it’s hard to force in air.
“I don’t want it either. But I don’t fucking know what to do, man.” His voice is small, almost a sob.
“Yes, you do, Chad. Yes, you do,” I assure him, trying to steady my voice.
“I want Karen back.”
“Okay then, good to know what you want. But it’s not enough. You need to do the real work. Rehab. Meetings. You have to go all in.” Broken record again, but this time, it feels more urgent.
He stares at the ground for so long that I start to wonder if he’s okay. When he looks up, his eyes are rimmed with red and a little wet. “Scares the hell out of me.”
I can’t believe he’s even considering it. I inhale a deeper breath than I have in a long time, feeling a silver lining of relief from the endless dark sky.
“Of course it does. It’s scary to know what you want. Because then you gotta fight for it.”
He nods and wipes his eyes on the back of his sleeve, pulling himself back together. His expression sobers as he nods, and eventually, he moves to stand right in front of me, giving me a hard stare.
“How would you even know?”
“Know about what?”
“Where’s the fight in you?”
“This is your journey, Chad. Not mine.”
“Bullshit.”
“Seems like you came here with something to say.”
“Yeah, maybe I did.”
“Say it, then.”
He wags a finger like a church minister. “How’s it going? Your domestic partnership?”
I could lie. Tell him I’m happy with Tessa back in LA and only seeing Charlotte part-time. Keep up appearances like I always do.
I shrug. “It’s fine. Making it work. The usual.”
He shakes his head the way our dad used to, conveying utter disappointment without saying a word.
Like there’s no point in explaining all the ways in which one of us fucked up because it wasn’t worth the effort.
Knowing we’d just make the same mistake again, so what was the point?
I hated him for having such a low opinion of us, and then I turned around and proved him right.
“Where’d it go?”
“What?”
“The fire. Of anyone I’ve ever known, you were the one I banked on always having it together.
Look at you. The whole town respects what you have to say enough to stake their future on a Hail Mary lawsuit against a giant company.
That’s the guy I always looked up to. And now that you have a chance at a family of your own, you’re half-assing it. Pretending you don’t want more.”
“Oh, you see it all so clearly? Sorry if it’s hard for me to believe that when I'm the one who gets the late-night phone call that you're looking at the bottom of the bottle as a coping mechanism.”
“Fuck off. It's my coping mechanism.”
“Not when it affects other people,” I say, feeling my hands clench into fists. It's not like I’d really hit my brother, but I find myself having to tamp down the instinct.
“Maybe you ought to look a little closer to home for your own problems to solve,” he says quietly.
The creases in his forehead make him look older than he is, and I wonder if people would say the same about me, especially now that I’m short on sleep.
I look down at Charlotte, still sleeping peacefully in the stroller, while my pulse thunders in my veins, and I feel like anything but a calm cocoon.
I run a hand over the soft wisps of hair and kiss the top of her head.
“Don't you think I'm doing that? I'm busting my ass trying to figure out how to get water for this damn land, which you're a part owner of. This is for your future as well as mine. And I don't see you doing a damn thing to help me.”
“Because you won't let me.” He flings his arms to the sides like he’s ridding himself of me and everything associated with me.
“Admit it. You don't think I'm capable. I've always been a fuck up in your eyes, and now that this stuff is going down with Karen for real, all it does is prove that you were right all along.” He paces in a circle, winding himself up even more.
“Well, I've had enough of it. I can make my own damn decisions, and some of them are bound to be good ones.”
“You think I don’t know what you can do if you actually try?” I ask. “That’s what kills me when I see you wasting your nights drinking until you can’t see straight. You’re so smart Chad, so fucking smart. But you’re wasting it.”
He yanks a lemon off a tree and throws it. We both watch it disappear into the deep grass. “How did I become such a goddamn albatross?”
“You’re not.”
“I’m just like Dad.”
“Nope. He never tried to fix his issues. He just let them bleed out all over everyone else. I’m not gonna do that.”
“Maybe he couldn’t.”
I close my eyes to block out the memories. “It’s hard to believe that…”
“You don’t know until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.”
“You feel like you know him better since you have the same affliction?”
He looks down at the dirt and kicks it with the toe of his boot. “Drinking wasn’t a way of connecting with him, if that’s what you’re asking.” He inhales deeply and meets my gaze. “At least, not consciously. I never wanted to be like him. Ruining people’s lives.”
My heart cracks open hearing the way he thinks about himself. He’s never verbalized anything like this before. His wife has never threatened to leave him before, though.
“You’re not—”
He stops me with a hand in my face. It’s like seeing my own hand. Strength in his grip, itching to wrap around a firearm and defend the law. I’m sure it embarrasses him to be a security guard, but he’s never said as much. I’ve never asked.
So much we’ve let fester between us by going through the motions instead of getting honest.
“I’m not afraid to admit what I am. An alcoholic. It’s time to work this shit out, if nothing else, so you can stop using me as an excuse for why you’re not happy.”
I flinch at the accusation. “That’s—”
“Stop. Come up with a real excuse or stop fucking up your life. I saw you two together, the way you look at each other. The kind of love I used to have with Karen before I fucked everything up. If there’s a chance for you to have it too, go after it.
Go hard. Make sure she knows you’re all in.
I don’t want to be the one standing in your way, so maybe you’re out of obstacles. ”
“You let this woman you're crazy about walk away and raise your child away from you half the time. You let her live two hours away from here even though it makes you miserable every minute of the goddamn day. It’s.
So. Fucking. Obvious. If you're not willing to take charge and do something about that, how can you expect people in this town to listen to what you have to say when you pretend you know better? Why should I listen?”
“Wow, tell me how you really feel.”
“That's it. That's how I feel. I feel like I need to sort out my shit, but maybe you need to sort yours more.” He looks fragile, even a little shaky saying the words, and I can tell that part of his anger is sadness and part is fear. I can relate.
I take a long inhale and let my breath out slowly, willing my anger at his insinuations to subside. He’s only speaking the truth, after all. I’m the one who’s bullheaded enough to think I could get away with no one noticing.
“I’m not gonna wait until I hit bottom and take you and Karen down with me. I’m gonna get the help I need now and hope to god it sticks.” He takes in a deep breath and blows it out, puffing up his cheeks. It almost feels like he’s stalling or doesn’t know what the next sentence needs to be.
My breath hitches, throat choked with emotion. For a second, I don’t think I’ll ever get air back into my lungs. And then I manage to calm my pounding heart enough to suck in some air.
Maybe I never actually thought I’d see this day. Maybe I wanted to see it so badly I stopped hoping. But here we are.
“I’ve got your back. Whatever you need. Help Karen, help you. Whatever it is.”
He nods. “Glad to hear you say that. I think…I’m gonna need the support. Been a long time living life one way, and I’m not sure it’ll be so easy to change.”
“If there’s anything I have faith in, it’s your ability to do something once you make a decision on it.”
“Yeah…” He looks up and to the sides, as if trying to see some other way out of his mess. “I’d like you to drive me to the place, the rehab. You okay with that?”
A sob wells up in my throat at his vulnerability. I’m too choked to answer verbally, so I just nod. Then I pull my brother in for a hug, and neither one of us lets go.