The Family We Built

Chapter 9. Ethan

The phone room is purgatory.

Today I'm not here to supervise. I’m here to enjoy the privilege of having one phone call a week. The timer is set for ten minutes. The guard at the folding desk reads her magazine, flipping pages with a dead thumb.

Griff has just told me the clinicals are confirmed and I'll start soon. I couldn't wait to tell my only family.

I dial my Auntie Marie's number. She's the only family I have.

She'd always take me when my parents were sick of me, which was often, and she told me that I only survived as a newborn because she took care of me.

I don't doubt it. The earpiece is still warm from the last kid.

The phone cord is sticky, and for a second I wonder when they were last cleaned.

It rings three times, then picks up with a half-second of dead air. My aunt's voice comes through the line:

"Hello? This is… hello…?"

"Hi," I say. "It's Ethan."

There's a pause. "Ethan, honey! Is this… oh, I had the wrong time. The call sheet said next Friday."

"It rotates. I'm on the B schedule this month."

A long pause. I don't understand why. She's usually telling me all about her church and her friends by now. But now, only silence. It unnerves me, and I don't like feeling this way.

Finally it comes: "How are you, sweetheart?"

"I'm good," I say, because that's the rule. Never make them sorry they picked up. "School's fine." Better than fine, actually, but I don't say that yet. I want to save it. I want one good thing to say out loud before whatever's coming.

"That's wonderful," she says, and her voice cracks just a fraction on the last syllable. "I'm proud of you."

The silence after that is weird. I hear the sounds of her house in the background: the dog nails on tile, the television too loud in the next room.

She doesn't ask about my classes or the weather. Instead, after a full minute of breathing, she says, "Ethan. Something's happened with your brother."

My heart freezes for a second.

"What happened?"

"He… he overdosed again." She says it plain.

Doesn't dress it up or walk around it, and I'm grateful for that, even as the words settle in my stomach like gravel.

"This time they took him to county. He got violent at the hospital.

There were charges. Possession, resisting. I don't know all of it yet."

I press the receiver closer, like maybe it will let me hear better.

"Is he okay?" It's all I manage to say. My brother was still at home when my parents sent me here. Then they left him with my Auntie. He moved out, trying to chase the freedom he never had.

"He's alive," she says, and in her tone, I hear how little that means anymore. "He's not good, Ethan. He's not… the lawyer says if there's a next time, he goes away for real. Not rehab, not juvie. Actual time. He's only eighteen… he's a kid." She stops.

I try to picture Tyler. I haven't seen him in four years.

Every time I'm at my Auntie's, he's not there.

He hasn't called or visited either. I don't blame him, he's just a kid.

He's always looked fourteen to me, stuck in the moment I left for good.

Always a head smaller, always the soft spot I couldn't harden.

I used to take his punishments for him, tell my parents I was the one who broke the glass, I was the one who got in trouble at school, I was the one who was fighting, not him, never him.

I think of his brown hair, browner than mine, and his green eyes.

He was always a troublemaker, but things got harder after I left.

He started using with friends and then it became his full-time hobby.

And I wasn't there to help.

"What happens now?" I ask.

Another pause. Another breath. "That's what I wanted to discuss," she says, and the next words come out all in a rush, like she's afraid if she stops, she won't finish.

"His lawyer, the same one from your case.

He says there's a chance they could send him to Aspire Academy instead of jail.

He said… he said your file shows that you're thriving.

That it would help his case if he stayed with the only family he has.

You…" She cuts off. When she speaks again, her voice is so small I almost don't recognize it.

"Would you be okay with that, Ethan? If he goes there? It might keep him out of jail."

My thumb presses so hard into the phone it's bone white. "I'll do whatever helps."

"It's the best we can hope for, I think. It's the only shot left, and maybe if you're there, maybe…"

"He'll hate me for leaving him," I say, and I don't mean to say it, but it spills out anyway. "He's always hated me for that. For not protecting him."

"Honey, it wasn't your fault," she says. And she's right. But it doesn't change the fact that I left him with two predators, my parents, when he was too young to understand.

"Is he okay right now?" I ask.

"They have him in a holding center, but they'll let him go. It might be a while until he's there. He's… he's scared, Ethan. He doesn't show it, but he is. He keeps asking if you know."

I never got to tell her about the clinicals.

There didn't seem to be room for it anymore.

The rest of the call is nothing. She says she loves me.

I say it back, because I do. We talk about the dog, about the weather, about nothing at all.

I hang up with one minute left, because the last thing I want is to hear the buzz when the timer runs out and the line goes dead.

I set the receiver down. The phone room is full of other voices, other stories. One kid is laughing, another is hunched over the phone with his free hand over his face. The guard flips a page, checks the clock.

My skin is buzzing. I walk out, not knowing what to do.

In the hallway, I try to breathe. I feel close to an actual breakdown.

My brother. My little bro. Coming here. Locked up.

Almost dead. And underneath it, stupidly, guiltily, the other thing is still sitting there too, the news I didn't get to say out loud.

It feels obscene to be happy about anything right now.

I go back to the courtyard. It's snack time. The air is sharp today, blue cold, just above freezing, and really dry.

Liam is outside. He's got his knees up on the bench, hoodie over his head, his black hair a mess, blue eyes catching the light. He's clearly waiting for me, my little puppy. He sees me coming and breaks into a grin. I sit beside him, our arms and thighs touching.

"Daddy! Wait… are you alright?" he asks, his face falling.

I take a breath, hold it, let it out. "My brother overdosed again. This time it's bad. He got violent. He's in county, facing charges. His lawyer wants to send him here."

His mouth opens. Then closes. Then he just says, "Fuck."

"Yeah," I say.

He thinks about it. I can see the math happening behind his eyes, the calculations, the if/then/else of every possible outcome. "What would that mean for you?" he asks, voice quiet.

"I don't know," I say. "He'll probably avoid me at first. He's always been good at holding grudges. And it'll be weird having him see me here. Things might get complicated for a while, baby."

He doesn't look away. "Do you want him here?"

"No," I say, and look at my hands. "But I can't say that. If I do, he goes to prison. Maybe worse."

He nods. "You love him."

"I do," I say. "But I also… I also hate what he's become. I hate that I had to leave him with my parents. I hate that I can't fix it, or protect him, or even be in the same room without wanting to break his fucking face and then break my own."

Liam is silent for a long time. The wind cuts through. I expect him to make a joke, or deflect, but he doesn't. He just says, "Tell me about him."

So I do. I tell him about Tyler, the way we used to share a room with bunk beds and a poster of an F-16, how he used to climb into my bed during storms, how I'd hold him tight and tell him it was just air, just sound.

How Tyler started skipping school, stealing, drinking whatever he could find.

How I was always supposed to be the good one, the strong one, the fucking model, and how I couldn't stop my parents from fighting, from pointing a gun at my fucking face, from putting me here.

I tell him about the last time I saw Tyler before they sent me here, how he wouldn't even look at me, just stared at the floor and said, "If you leave, I won't make it." How I had no fucking choice.

Liam listens to all of it. No interruptions, no jokes. He just leans forward, hands between his knees, eyes locked on some distant point past the fence. Then he looks at me, and his face is open and tender. There's no pity, but his eyes are a little misty.

"You ever think maybe it's not your job to fix him?"

"Always," I say. "Doesn't help."

He nudges my knee with his own. "What if he does come? What will you do?"

"I don't know," I say. "Be the big brother. I can't be anything else."

He nods, like he understands, because of course he does. Of all the fucked up people in this place, Liam is the only one who gets it: the paradox of loving someone who only wants to destroy themselves, and you by extension.

We're quiet for a bit. I keep thinking about the folder on Griff's desk, the way it feels stupid to bring up now, with my brother possibly going to jail. But it's sitting in my chest like something that wants out.

"There's something else," I say finally.

Liam's head turns. "What?"

"Griff called me in. There's this program…

a hospital an hour out. They take a few residents for real clinical hours, supervised, twice a week.

Ms. Okafor put my name in." I watch his face while I say it, trying to read him before he decides what to show me.

"I got picked. I've known for a couple of days.

I was waiting… I wanted to tell my auntie, but I couldn't. I'm sorry for not telling you before. "

His whole expression cycles through three feelings at once. Then he grins. "Daddy! That's… holy shit, that's amazing. You're gonna be a real nurse. Like, official, hospital hallways, the whole thing."

"It's two days a week. Not exactly official."

"Shut up, it's huge and you know it." He bumps his shoulder into mine, and for a second he's all light, all pride, exactly the reaction I knew he'd have.

Then something passes behind his eyes and he goes quieter. Exactly the reaction I also knew he'd have. "Wait. Two days a week. Out there. With real people. Nurses. Doctors." He picks at a thread on his sleeve. "You're gonna meet people who aren't, like, locked up."

"Liam… baby…"

"No, I'm happy for you, I am." He says it fast. "I just...

you're gonna have this whole life starting up out there, and I'm still gonna be in here.

And then one day you get to actually leave for good, and I'm still gonna be in here.

That's not… I'm not trying to make this about me. I swear I'm not."

"I know you're not." I take his hand, right there on the bench, guard or no guard. "It doesn't change anything. I'm not going anywhere I don't come back from."

"You say that now."

"I mean it, puppy." I squeeze his fingers. "Two days out there doesn't erase five days in here with you. It doesn't erase any of it."

He nods, but I can see he's still turning it over, filing it away next to Tyler and everything else that's shifting today. Two big things arriving in the same hour.

"I told my aunt about us," I say suddenly, wanting to give him something steady to hold onto.

He turns and looks surprised. "What?"

"Over the break, when I was there. I told her. I said I was seeing someone, that he was a boy, that it was real. I thought she was going to punch me. But she didn't. She just said she loved me. She said she was proud of me."

His jaw goes slack. "You told her?!"

"Yeah."

He blinks. "Why?"

"Because I didn't want it to be a secret anymore."

He breaks into this amazing grin. "That's… actually really fucking brave, you know that?"

"I don't feel brave," I say.

He shrugs. "It's still brave. Thank you for telling her."

I look at him without smiling. I just feel so close to breaking down.

"You don't have to thank me."

"Fuck yeah, I do! Now I have to tell my dad!" he exclaims, and I chuckle softly.

"You don't have to do that either," I tell him.

"Yeah, but I want to. Besides, he knows I'm a slut."

Now I laugh, loud. He lays his head on my shoulder. I wish I could kiss him, but I don't move. I don't need the guards to come scold us for being too close.

"Whatever happens with your brother, and whatever happens with the hospital thing," he says, "I'll still be here. I'll always be waiting for you."

"You promise?" I ask quietly.

He grins, full and open. "Yeah, Daddy. I promise."

"And I'll always come back to you, baby. I promise."