up. Why I feel guilty about that, I don’t know, and that only pisses me off more.
I sit on the patio, and the sliding glass door to the room is ajar about two inches so I can hear Lucy if she wakes, and the drapes are open so I can keep an eye on her as well. Beyond me is the in-ground pool that’s closed for the season. If there was water still in it, I would already be doing laps, but it’s empty. A lot like me.
“What’s doing, brother?” Knox is a black shadow at first, but turns into flesh and blood as he steps into the dim porch light. He offers his hand, I take it, and then he drops into the aging plastic chair next to mine.
The surfer boy looks as if I woke him in January during a deep hibernation. I guess I did. “I’m sorry for calling.”
“Don’t be. Being here is part of the job. Someday, you’ll pay it forward, become someone’s sponsor, and you’ll be the one hustling in the middle of the night.”
I snort. “For when I meet the other person addicted to jumping.”
He’s good enough that he chuckles, then sobers up. “That person is out there, brother, and the universe will cause your paths to meet. I just hope you’ll say yes to helping instead of no.”
Me, too.
“Only reason I’m not at a quarry jumping right now is because I’m responsible for Lucy.” I rub my hands together as I lean forward. “To be honest, I thought about leaving her with Mom so I could jump.” I pause. “And I’ve been trying to convince myself she’ll be fine by herself here for an hour. I won’t do it. I won’t leave, but I hate that I have the thoughts.”
“Focus on the positive. You didn’t leave her at home or here. Instead you called me and we’re going to hang out until you’re strong enough to be on your own.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be strong enough.”
“You already are. Everyone else can see it in you and you’re just the last to know.”
I rub my hands again then lock my fingers tight enough together that there’s a shot of pain. “I think Mom has a drinking problem.” The words feel foreign, and there’s a part of me that’s already trying to dissuade myself from this truth. “She can go days without drinking, though.”
“Yeah, but when she does drink, can she stop?”
She thinks she can, but … “No.”
“Alcoholism comes in many different forms. Everyone thinks of the stereotype—the guy in the wife-beater, unshaven, a belligerent drunk who beats anyone in his way. Alcoholism affects all sorts of people, from all different walks of life, and it affects people in all different types of ways. The one thing we alcoholics have in common is that alcohol rules us. We never rule it. Even when we don’t drink—it still has the power to knock us on our asses. I tell myself daily that there’s no safe place for me and alcohol together. There never will be.”
I hear his words, understand them almost, but it doesn’t help this dark anger festering inside me. “Mom has been bringing men into our house in the middle of the night. She’s drunk. God knows if the men are drunk. What I do know is that some of them have looked in on my sister and scared the crap out of her.”
The mere thought that those men watched my sister as she slept causes my hands to close into fists.
“How are you feeling, brother?” Knox asks.
I’m exhausted. “Angry.”
“And you’re going to be, but I will say this: there’s one benefit to being an addict.”
Doubt it. “What’s that?”
“You understand what it’s like to have a problem—a disease—you have a hard time controlling, and you know what it’s like to be desperate to find someone who understands and will forgive you when you mess up. You know how to hate the illness, but not the person.”
My eyes shut tight as the back of my head hits the wall behind me. Anger pushes back at him so hard that I’m surprised he’s still upright in his seat. “No offense, but I really don’t want to hear this.”
“If I remember my stories correctly…” Knox continues like he has no fear to tread where I wish he wouldn’t. “Someone in your life has already shown you that grace.”
Veronica.
She didn’t bat an eye when I told her my secret, and she called me out on the