left to deal with back here, Peter. Did you see how much of a shithole Dad’s house is? Nobody’s going to buy this dump unless we get it cleaned out.”
“I figured you could handle it,” I said.
“Screw you, Peter.”
I gripped the steering wheel with my free hand and tried to control my temper. Yelling at him over the phone wasn’t going to get either of us anywhere. That didn’t change how annoying it was to deal with him and his entitlement.
“Look, I know you feel like you’re drowning,” I started, “but I needed to get out of there, Mike. The house can sit on the market for a few months. It isn’t the end of the world. Dad’s realtor said it’s not a seller’s market right now. We might be better off waiting anyway.”
“You want to just leave this sitting for three months, Peter? Are you crazy? We could get a couple hundred grand for this shithole.”
My jaw ached as I clenched my teeth together. “No, we wouldn’t get shit. Dad would. And whatever profits come from the house will be used to continue the payments to the new care home. We went over this. Dad doesn’t have enough in savings to keep up with the payments. He’s got a year and a half, maybe two. Then he’ll run out of money.”
“He should’ve saved more.”
“How’s your savings account looking, little brother?”
Mike went quiet. “This isn’t about me, asshole.”
“Last I heard, you had a grand total of two grand set aside which you were planning to use to buy—hold on, let’s see if I recall correctly.” I paused for dramatic effect. “Oh yes. A new gaming console and a civic so you could drive around town and visit all your no good, waste of space friends. Am I close?”
“Get bent.”
“Gee, you sure make a guy want to come home, Mike.”
My brother and I didn’t always have such a strained relationship. Things between us had been fine until our father’s health took a turn. Mike’s carefree, irresponsible, no-consequences lifestyle hadn’t really bothered me until I needed him to step up and help me take care of our father. When he dropped the ball and started distancing himself from us, it got harder to respect him or even like him.
I loved my little brother with every fiber of my being, but he was a little prick ninety-two percent of the time.
Mike sighed heavily into the phone. “I know you needed a break, Peter. But I need your help here. Dad’s shit is everywhere. I don’t know where to start. Hell, I don’t know what half of this shit is. What do I do with it?”
“You need my help?” I asked dryly. “Convenient. You were balls deep in a bottle of Crown and puffing on weed for the last year when Dad and I needed you. How many times did I call you, Mike? How many times did I warn you that we only had so much time left before he forgot who we were?”
Mike sighed into the line and didn’t say a word.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. This was pointless. We had argued about the same thing countless times and neither of us was willing to bend. Mike wouldn’t bend because he was stubborn and had a streak of narcissism.
I wouldn’t bend because I was right.
“Look,” I said. “I’m not trying to make this harder on you. I’m not trying to punish you. But I did my part. And I need time to clear my head and get right again. If the house is too overwhelming, then leave. Lock the doors. Don’t go back. I’ll sort it out when I get back.”
“And when is that?”
“Three more months.”
“Fuck, Peter.”
“You knew this when I left.”
“I thought you’d change your mind.”
“Why?” I asked sharply. “You thought what? That I’d miss being the only person in our family willing to put in any work? That I’d miss being pulled back and forth between you and Dad and trying to figure out how to keep everyone’s heads above water?”
“I thought you’d miss him,” Mike said quietly. “I thought you’d leave and then realize you were missing out on the last months of his life and that you’d come home. Because that’s the right thing to do.”
“Dad doesn’t know me anymore,” I said.
“But you know him.”
He was pulling at my heart strings. This was always Mike’s last defense. He’d get personal, and he’d hit me where it hurt. And for the last three years, the place it