My brother sits on his bed, an open bottle of whiskey on the table next to him. He's been at it for a while, the bottle near empty.
My brother has been almost catatonic since he came home after Carrie died. He's always been the more taciturn of us, barely showing any emotion unless he's around Carrie and his girls, butthisis something I've never seen.
He's crying. Tears trail down his cheeks to the two-week-old scruff he hasn't shaved. His hair is in disarray, the short dark strands sticking up every which way. I can smell the alcohol on him from here.
And in his hand is one of my dad's pistols, taken from his gun safe.
"I can't do this anymore, Atlas," Silas says, not looking at me. His voice is slurred. "I can't do it without her."
I don't know what to do.
Fear is a tight coil in my gut as my mind goes blank.
I expected to find my brother depressed and grieving, not suicidal.
"Silas, give me the gun."
"No," Silas slurs, taking the safety off, the click sending my blood cold.
He raises it to his temple.
"Si..." I gasp out desperately, holding out my hands but not willing to move in case I spook him. "No, no, no—put it down. Put it down. What about—what about the girls? You have to take care of the girls."
"I can't do it without Carrie. She... she handled everything. She did everything. She waseverything,"he cries, eyes squeezed shut and snarling. "It all means nothing without her. My life means nothing without her!"
"What about Molly and Jem, huh? What about them? They need you—"
"They need their Mama, and she's fucking dead!"
He screams, his voice cracking on the last word. His finger flexes almost imperceptibly, and my heart skips a beat. "I need to go be with her. Please, you and Wendy, take care of them... I have to go be with their Mama."
I move. In any other situation, he'd dodge and shoot before I reacted. But he's shitfaced, so he's slow and sloppy.
I grab his arm and twist it, wrestling it away from his head. It clatters to the bedroom floor, skittering across the floor andmercifullydoesn't go off.
My brother’s not as big as me, but he’s trained and he’s strong, but the combination of the liquor and grief lets me subdue him. He tries to break free, weakly hitting me, kicking, trying to twist himself out of my hold.
We roll around on the floor until he finally just... breaks.
"Just let me fucking die," Silas begs, anger and fire gone. He's all agony now. "Please, just let me die, let me die..."
"Si, it's okay, it's okay..." I repeat over and over, holding him tightly and pleading with him to juststop.
Meanwhile, all I can think of is putting myself in his shoes, and the horrifying realization that if I had put Wendy in the ground days ago, then Silas would be the one holding me.
I think of Wendy, of my sweet, wonderful wife, dead, and hot tears fall from my eyes as I hold my brother through his grief.
I don't know how long we stay like that, but Silas eventually passes out. I carry him to his bed, lay him down, and turn him on his side so he doesn't choke.
I stay, back propped up against the bed, next to a trash bin I grab in case Silas pukes.
I only leave for five minutes to place the gun back in my dad's safe, and then I change the combination to the lock.
My dad barely hunts anymore; he probably won't even notice the change for a while. That's the only reason Silas still knew the combo: it’s Mom's birthday.
The adrenaline is making its way out of my body, but fearstill runs through my veins as I sit next to my snoring brother.
I can recognize that I'm in shock, that the full extent of the fucking mess that just happened hasn't hit me yet.
