Chapter 18
TRIPP
Pressing a pair of pillows over my ears doesn’t do much to drown out the sound of Drumstick digging through his litter box at the foot of the bed. Right now, I wish we were at the house, if not for any reason other than the thing being kept in a quiet closet away from where I slept.
Where we slept.
Fuck.
A knock sounds at the door before my brother lets himself into the room, dodging an excited Drumstick with a look of disgust on his face.
“Say hi to the cat,” I groan, turning over under the bedding.
“That is not a cat.” Stepping closer to the bed, he rests a steaming mug of coffee onto the nightstand and gives the mattress a nudge with his knee. “Are you planning on getting out of bed today? I’m sure Ham would like to see you.”
When I don’t respond to him, he crosses the room, stopping in front of me and crouching low at the side of the bed. He pulls his glasses from his face and rests them in his hand on the mattress.
“You haven’t left this bed in three days, you’ve hardly eaten, and you stink, little brother,” he tells me. “I will give you one more day to forgo basic hygiene if you truly need to, but beyond that, I will force you to take care of yourself, are we clear?”
“Crystal,” I grumble.
Putting his glasses back into place, he brings himself to a standing position, offering a pat to my shoulder.
“I transferred some money into your account. Order yourself something that sounds good.”
I offer him a nod, knowing that I won’t be ordering anything.
It isn’t that I’m not hungry; I’m fucking starving, but if I think about food, I think about all of the meals I’ve shared with Julia over the past sixteen years, then about our wedding and the small cake that we shared with each other afterward.
And then I think about my best man on top of her.
Tossing the pillow off of my head with a groan, I roll over and out of the bed, because I know my brother, I know he’s serious, and I know that he’s not above taking me out to the backyard with a hose and fucking power-spraying me with the thing.
He’s my big brother, but Brody’s been more of a dad to me than the real thing for practically my entire life.
Even when he was in school and getting ready for the Bar.
Even when he was laid up after surgeries and cancer treatments.
He’d still have me bring my homework to him so he could go over it with me.
He’s the one who taught me how to drive, how to shave, how to file my taxes; how to do just about everything I needed to know in order to be a functional member of society.
When I left the faith and our parents disowned me, he was the one to reach out and tell me that he loved me, that he understood, and that he’d always be here for me. He promised me that I’d always have access to my siblings and the kids, and he’s kept that promise.
My shower is cold and half-assed, but soap has touched my skin now, so everyone can leave me the hell alone about it. You would think that when a guy’s life falls apart, he’d be able to stink up the place in peace.
He’s one to talk, anyway, I think.
After Brody’s divorce, he didn’t answer his phone for two weeks.
Graham, Edie, and I all thought he died or something.
I was ready to fly out to check on him, until Edie texted to say that he was fine, just holed up in a hotel suite and reading alone in the dark like some kind of depressed fictional vampire or something.
Maybe I’m not divorced - maybe I don’t know if I even want to be divorced – but I still lost something this week. I should have the freedom to hole up in whichever dark cave I choose, too.
Despite how badly I just want to be left alone with no one to bother me, or to ask how I’m doing, or to offer me their homemade cheer-up cards covered in crayon drawings – okay, maybe those are kind of adorable – I find myself reaching for my phone to send a text to Graham, telling him to come to Brody’s.
True to his nature, he uses his key to let himself into the house an hour later, nearly on the dot, with an arm full of fresh baked goods and a smile on his face.
That smile fades almost immediately when his eyes land on me, and he sets down his gift before hurrying toward me with worry overtaking his features.
“I’m fine,” I tell him before he has the chance to ask.
“You look awful,” he tells me. His arms wrap tightly around me and I reciprocate, clapping him on the back as I stifle a pained groan. “Did you get into an accident? What are you doing here?”
“Missed you guys,” I lie. “Tell me what you’ve been up to, kid.”
I pluck a chocolate muffin in one hand and a brownie in the other as I listen to him ramble about his theology classes and his work in the church, biting back a laugh at his basket of all-chocolate foods.
Graham only bakes with all-chocolate when he’s worried about something, like his big brother showing up out of nowhere and asking to see him on short notice.
When I finally put his pattern together a handful of years ago and I asked him about it, he told me that ‘God gave us chocolate because it’s healing, and it provides comfort to us in times of need. ’
As I take a bite of the brownie in my hand, I can’t help but wonder if the kid’s not onto something with that. Or maybe it’s just sitting with my baby brother without our parents here to dictate our actions and conversation for the first time in more than a decade that feels so nice.
I always hated it when people older than me would tell me that I’d ‘just gotten so grown up’ when I was younger, but that’s all I can think about while I talk to him. He’s not my four-year-old kid brother with a bowl cut, wearing his Sunday best and a bow tie anymore.
Sure, he’s still stuck in our parents’ house and he’s still fucking brainwashed, but he’s all grown up, anyway.
If there’s only one thing I regret about leaving the way I did, it’s missing out on a lot of that.
“Do you promise you’re alright?” He finally asks. “I’m worried for you.”
“I’m just going through some stuff, G,” I tell him. “Not stuff I really wanna talk to my baby brother about.”
He sits with that for maybe a few moments too long, studying me before finally asking, “Can I pray for you?”
“Would it make you feel like you were helping?”
“Yes,” he nods.
Gesturing toward him, I pull my lips into a tight line. “Knock yourself out, then,” I tell him.
With a gentle, Graham-Montgomery smile, he makes the sign of the cross over his chest, clasping his hands together in his lap before he bows his head. His prayer is silent, but it’s long.
We sit for several minutes before he finally finishes, offering up a quick Amen before making the sign of the cross once more. Reaching forward, I stick my fingers into his hair to rough it up a little bit.
“Thanks, G.”
“I know that I don’t understand a lot of things about your life,” he says as he stands, “but if I can ever help to unburden you…”
Looking between my brother and his basket of snacks with a laugh, I tell him, “How about this: I’ll text you before I fly back out and you can bring some chocolate chip cookies for me to eat on the plane.”
“I can do that for you,” he tells me earnestly.
I stand, wrapping my arms around my little brother to squeeze him tightly. “Double batch,” I clarify, poking him the chest. “Don’t be stingy.”
“I’ll even make the chocolate chips myself,” he promises with a smile.
If it weren’t for everything else that came with it, I might be jealous of my brother’s seemingly-boundless optimism.
Worried about something? Bake a cake about it.
Feeling guilty about something? Go to confession about it.
Unsure of the right choice to make in any given situation? Flip the Bible to such-and-such page, there’s a verse there that will answer every question you could ever possibly have.
I don’t find the same peace that he does in baking, I don’t have our parents to go to for guidance, and I sure as shit don’t have God to turn to, anymore, if I ever even did to begin with.
There’s only one other place I can think to go, and even that, I’m not sure of.
Every time I come to this building, it gives me the creeps.
The gold and white, the décor; it’s all just a little too close to looking like a church for me. Sure, there aren’t any crucifixes or pictures of Jesus watching me from the walls, but the energy is there. I can feel it scratching at my bones.
Locking eyes with a familiar man seated behind the reception desk, I offer a nod in greeting, and he sighs as I step toward him. His eyes scan something in front of him and his fingers fly across his keyboard before I’m even standing in front of him.
“Mr. Montgomery is in a meeting,” he tells me as I approach. “He isn’t available.”
“Yeah, he’s always in a meeting, isn’t he,” I snark. “Every time I come here, every time I call. He’s in a meeting, or he’s at a lunch, or he’s just not in the office. Funny how that works, isn’t it?”
Pressing my fingertips to the counter top in front of me, I lean closer to the man.
“I know you have some list of names in front of you that you’re supposed to send away. I get it. Maybe if I change my name, I can see my brother. Is that what I need to do? Do I just need to be someone fucking else?” I demand.
In my peripheral, a security guard inches closer to me at the rise in my volume.
“I’m leaving, alright? just— tell him I came by.” Shaking my head at the break in my voice, I add, “Tell him that I’m not fucking like them.”
The side of my fist pounds against the counter as I fire one last desperate glance toward the elevator no more than a hundred feet away from me.
My eyes move to the ceiling above me as I walk out of the building with a defeated shake of my head.
Nash liked a photo I posted online a few months back, and I thought maybe, just maybe, he’d been reaching out to me. That it was a chance to finally reconnect after years and years of missed calls, ignored visits, and excuse after excuse from all of his lackeys.
I’d sent him a message afterward, inviting him to fly out and stay with us for a few days. A week. A month, if he wanted to. Whatever he would have given me, I would have taken.
When he left me on delivered, I realized he’d just interacted by accident. He didn’t mean to let me know that he was there. He may not have even noticed that he’d done it.
But now I know that he’s been watching us, and now I’m here again.
For all I know, he was right above my head only mere seconds ago.
One trip in an elevator, and almost twenty-seven fucking years of waiting would have been over.
I can still remember what he looked like then, how tall he was, what he fucking smelled like.
I still remember what it sounded like when they took him away.
I remember Edie crying so hard, she hurled in Molly’s favorite ficus.
I remember thinking she might cry herself to death.
That she might scream so hard, her lungs would pop like balloons at the end of a party and she’d drop dead, right there in the foyer.
We may not have died that day, but a little piece of each of us did.