Prologue
Eight years ago
“Mom, are you there?” I pull the phone away from my face and squint at it, just to make sure the call is still connected. “Mom?”
“B-Brooky, it’s your sister…” she finally replies, a choked-sounding thing—almost as if she’s recently been sobbing.
In spite of myself, I roll my eyes. Ryann is always in some sort of trouble, and it is almost certainly something that our mother will call me upset about. And I’ll have to listen to it for hours, because that’s what a dutiful son like me does. I try to remain unbiased, attempt to withhold judgement, and offer rational advice about how to best tackle Ryann’s latest downward spiral.
Only, when it comes to my big sister, my only sibling, I have a hard time refraining from containing my judgement. The chokehold drugs and alcohol have on her have landed her in more legal trouble than I can shake a stick at, and typically this is why my mothers call—theyneed more money. Doesn’t matter if it’s ‘for groceries’ or for bail. I feel like I work my part-time job, all while being a full-time college student, to pay forhermistakes. But I do it, because that’s all Icando, so I can keep moving on with my life without being swallowed whole by hers, like I used to.
Because despite being someone I don’t know at all anymore, I was her brother.
Amher brother. Our nearly decade-long estrangement makes it hard for me to think in the present tense. And it’s not even like I meant or wanted to cut her out of my life nine years ago, but she just—ugh, well, she just kept playing tug-of-war with my heartstrings.
I love her, the person. No question about it. I love what we were before her demons took over. Despite our two year age gap, we were as close as a brother and sister could be, before she went to high school without me. I missthatRyann and Brooks, besties that we were, with my whole heart.
But, for my sanity, I had to set firm boundaries with her the day of our family intervention—the one where she chose to take off to God knows where, instead of accepting help from her family. I had to sever ties with the unrecognizable person that Ryann became, unlike Ma and Mom. They continue to call me and beg me to help them come up with a bailout, even though they too have not seen her in years.
Which is what I’m sure this call is about—her needing another hand out—if only Mom would just cut to the chase, instead of fidgeting with the phone. There are voices in the background I don’t recognize, but their presence lets me know the line hasn’t gone dead.
“Mom?” I ask again, annoyance mounting in me. Why call, if you’re just going to have side conversations and leave me here dredging up my guilt and annoyance about our falling out? It’s souring my moodfor whatshouldbe a good day looking at properties to start seeing my post-graduate dream become a reality.
I sometimes wish I could just shake Ryann and wake her up. To get her to see the damage she does to our family—to her own self even—but I know that’s not how addiction works. She’s tried to reach out to me a few times, but every time, I’ve stood my ground. It’s frustrating. I’m frustrated by being a bystander, wishing I could do more to help, but I know that boundaries are just that. There comes a time when you need to protect yourself, too.
I adjust myself in the driver’s side of my vehicle, settling in for what I am sure will be a lengthy diatribe of what legal trouble Ryann has gotten herself into. Only, this time I need to stand my ground and not dip into my half of what I’ve managed to scrape up to help get mine and Kai’s business plan up and running.
“What’s she done this time?” I sigh.
There’s more rustling on the phone, and then Ma’s voice comes over the line next, “Brooks, honey, there’s no easy way to put this…”
Uh oh, this doesn’t sound good…
I sit up in my seat, gripping the phone just a little tighter. “What’s going on?” I ask, the former petulance in my tone now forced out by the sinking feeling in my gut.
I hear Mom’s choked sob in the background of the call. “Ryann. She was found unresponsive this morning,” Ma replies, her voice cracking.
I freeze up entirely, every muscle in my body going tense. “Well, where is she? What hospital? Ma… is Ryann? She’s responsive now, isn’t she? I mean, they were able to revive her, right?” The questions spill out of me, like a bucket filled with water that’s just been kicked over.
“I’m afraid not, baby,” Ma replies stoically, though I know she’s probably falling apart just as much as Mom is right now. “Ry—she’s gone, sweetie…”
No… no, no, no.No, this can’t be real. No, this is just… wires got crossed somewhere. Ryann always tiptoes this line, but she always makes it out alive. I refuse to believe this.
“I’m on my way over right now,” I say, frantically fishing around for my discarded keys. I find them under the specs I have printed on the parcel of land which I’m currently parked at, and slip them in the ignition. I can’t even think about looking at this property with Kai right now; my family needs me. “Ma, I’ll be there in twenty minutes, okay?”
“Okay, but we’ll be a while. We’re all the way over on the coast. We’re just leaving the morgue now. We had to identify her.” Ma’s last little bit of resolve cracks on that last statement, and the dam breaks. She emits a bubbly-sounding sob. “There’s more news, but we’ll wait ‘til we can talk in person. We’ll see you in a few hours, baby.”
I feel like I’ve just been slapped in the face for the millionth time in the past two weeks. While no physical hand has touched my face, it burns and stings as if I truly have been hit. I can’t take much more of this; I’m at my breaking point.
“Okay, and I get that, babe. All I am saying is that you could have at least mentioned it to me before you brought an eight-year-old in!” Kai flings his hands up in the air, exasperated.
“It doesn’t sound to me like youdoget it,” I snip back in a hushed whisper. It just took me over two hours to get my niece, Morgan, settled into bed, and I’m sure her little mind is reeling right now. She doesn’t need to hear Kai and I bickering. “She doesn’t have anyone else! Why do you think I’ve gone through everything lately to become licensed to care for her?”
“I figured you were helping your mothers out, not having her come livehere… with us! Christ, I haven’t even gotten all my shit moved in here yet! Hell of a surprise ‘welcome home’ gift… surprise, I brought us home a kid to raise.”
“My mothers just laid their only daughter to rest, Kai. I just had to burymysister,” I say, choking back a sob—one I haven’t been allowed to release yet, during all her funeral preparations, because I’m the one expected to hold it all together. “I’m not letting Morgan go into the foster care system; she’s my family, for crying out loud! She’s the only thing I have left of Ryann; I’m not sending her to live withstrangers.”
“You’rea stranger! You didn’t even realize your own sister had a child! Hell, I know what all three of mine had for lunch today!”
