Page 37 of Ever After All

“Hey,” I offered, striving to keep my tone nonchalant.

“Hey. No sense in sneaking around. I go to NA meetings, but I’ve been clean and sober for a year and a half. Kenan knows. I went to an actual rehab program for sixty days after I dropped out of college. I moved home after that. Seeing as you’re married to Rosie, I’m not gonna ask you to keep it a secret, but she’ll probably freak right the hell out if she finds out.”

I must’ve looked as flat-footed as I felt because Brent grinned a little. “Too heavy for you.”

“Oh, I can handle it,” I finally said. “I’m sure you know our family history, so dealing with heavy stuff isn’t new to me. I guess I just wasn’t expecting it in an instant dose like that from you. Does Rosie know anything about this at all?”

Her brother sort of shook his head and shrugged at the same time. “No, but maybe. The other day, Kenan and I had to take a trip to Juneau early. I went to an early morning meeting so I didn’t miss it for the day. That’s the kind of thing that would make her worry and wonder what was up. To be clear, I’m not bitching about her. My mom died right after I was born, so Rosie’s the closest thing I have to a mom.”

His tone was serious. The love in his voice scraped over my heart because I knew what it might mean for Rosie to hear that from him.

“Rosie worries about me. All the time.” He continued. “She thought I made a mistake when I dropped out of college. If she knew I’d dropped out to go to rehab, she would lose her fucking mind.”

“I understand,” I finally said. “I know she doesn’t like secrets.” I hadn’t forgotten how much it had bothered her to try to keep the secret that we were married. She flat-out said she hated secrets. And holy hell, this wasn’t a secret I wanted to keep. But it wasn’t my secret, and I knew it was Brent’s to keep or tell.

I eyed him for a few beats. “I don’t want to keep this from her,” I finally said.

“And I understand that.” He leaned his head back, looking up at the ceiling. The hallway had fallen quiet since the rest of the people in the meeting had filtered out and gone upstairs. “I’d like to tell her myself. Can you give me a week or so?”

I could live with that. “I can handle that. For what it’s worth, it’s not like I want to tell on you. I just know that it would hurt Rosie if she knew that I knew?—”

Her brother cut in. “It would break her heart. She would be really hurt, and I don’t want to keep this from her forever. I’ll tell her.” He paused, bouncing his heel on the floor. “If, for some insane reason, it comes up some other way, I will make sure she knows that I asked you to give me time to tell her myself.”

Brent turned to go, but I reached out, catching him lightly by the elbow.

“Yeah?” He spun back.

“I know it can’t be easy for you. You sure as hell don’t have to give me all the details, but for what it’s worth, I’m impressed by and proud of anyone who goes into recovery. It’s not easy. We lost our oldest brother to alcohol poisoning.”

Rosie’s brother blinked before he nodded. “I know. I will never pretend it’s easy, but I appreciate that. I hope I’ve gotten through the worst of it. Just one day at a time now. To start, it was one minute at a time. I just gotta remember that I can never get too relaxed about it.”

I pulled him into a quick hug because it seemed like the thing to do. When we broke apart, he grinned at me. “Wow, I’m hug-worthy.”

“Absolutely. You’re family.”

He chuckled, and I watched as he walked away. It wasn’t my secret to tell, but I sure as hell hoped I didn’t have to keep it for him for too long.

After Brent jogged up the stairs, my thoughts circled his situation. I knew well what it meant for someone to face addiction. Our oldest brother had for years. To this day, I wrestled with a jumble of emotions about him. They were constantly bouncing into each other. Jake had borne the worst of what our grandfather had doled out. Yet he turned that anger outward toward our sister. As a result, I’d hated part of him for much of my life while also experiencing a messy mix of loving him and wishing things had been different.

Jake had been the person who taught me that nobody was all one thing or another. Good people make bad choices sometimes and hurt others, and the reverse could also be true. My mind detoured back to a well-worn path. I’d been in high school, and he’d been home for a visit. McKenna was in middle school at the time. She’d argued with him about something small, and he’d slapped her so hard, that the force of it whipped her head to the side and left a bright red imprint on her cheek for over an hour.

The next day, I’d approached him. “You’re a fucking asshole.”

He’d spun around and glanced over his shoulder. Because I was past the age he’d been now, I knew how young he was then even though he’d seemed all grown up to me. He’d been just old enough to call himself a man but wounded and damaged. I could picture him so clearly. He’d never gotten past that age where the contours of his face became sharper. He’d been lanky and thin.

“Yeah, I know I’m an asshole. Tell me something I don’t know,” he’d sneered.

“Don’t ever fucking hit her again,” I’d said. I was the tallest in our family, taller than him by then even though I was just a freshman in high school.

He’d stared back at me. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You bullying McKenna. Just fuck off. You’re just like our grandfather.” I knew now what I hadn’t known then. Our grandfather had raped Jake. None of us would ever know if it was more than once because Jake was dead. We didn’t find out until after he died. Our cousin had walked into the wrong room at the wrong time once and later shared it with the rest of us after years of experiencing panic attacks.

Now, when I pictured Jake’s face, the guilt was even worse than it had been before. Because I understood how much pain he was in and what it meant for me to say he was just like our grandfather.

“Fuck you all,” he’d muttered before turning and walking away.

That was the extent of my confrontation with him. He never bullied McKenna again because he died the next day.

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