"Have you been drinking all night again, Charlie?"
"Not all night," I answered.
I lied.
"Did you have any luck finding a new job today?" I wanted to tell her to stop hounding me, but instead, I stared down into my glass full of amber liquid and swirled the contents.
"No," I answered.
Juliette walked in front of me and leaned forward with her finger pointed in my direction. "I am calling your mother."
I may not have been entirely inebriated at that moment, but Juliette’s words pulled me from my lazy trance. "There is no need to worry my mother," I told her.
"Bullcrap. You have a serious problem, Charlie. You have been let go from two jobs in the past three months, and you can’t sit on the sofa all day and feed off our income. You are not our child or our responsibility, and this isn’t fair to us. Charlie, were you aware that Claude and I want to start a family?"
I was stone sober at that moment. "A family?"
"Yes, Charlie. Claude and I want to have a baby, but I can’t fathom bringing a child into this world where you are sharing our space and drinking yourself to sleep every night. You know Claude still suffers from the thought of drinking? Yet here you are filling the apartment with bottles of liquor every day."
"He works in a damn bar, Juliette!"
The argument was going nowhere fast, and I knew better than to argue with her. Juliette was headstrong and stubborn like I was.
"If you don’t clean up your act, I am calling your mother, Charlie. Maybe she will get through to you."
I placed my glass down on the side table and stood with a wobbly stance. "I’ll find my own place to live. How about that?" I told Juliette as I made my way down to my bedroom.
"That’s just fine, Charlie. You can make this out to be our fault, but it is you who has the problem.”
Our fault.
After putting my anger aside within the confines of my bedroom, I realized that my stupor led me to the solution—a solution fit for Claude and Juliette. If they wanted to start a family, it shouldn’t be while I’m living with them.
When morning came after a restless night of sleep, I sat at the small kitchen table and waited for Claude and Juliette to wake up so I could tell them with a clear head what my plan was.
It was Sunday morning, the only day neither of them had to work, so they both slept in a bit later. Claude was awake first and dragged his heavy feet down the hall toward the kitchen inlet. In silence, he sat down at the table across from me. His hair was a mess, and he looked exhausted. "Brother, talk to me."
"What is there to talk about?" I was quick to respond. Though, I wasn’t sure what else he was expecting me to say.
He leaned forward, resting on his elbows and framed his hands around his face. "Your drinking is out of control. Take it from a man with experience. I know we have already spoken about this several times, but it is affecting your life, Charlie."
"I have decided to move out so you and Juliette can have your own space, and so you won’t have to worry about me any longer. She told me you two were thinking about starting a family, and I don’t want to interrupt those plans."
"She said that?" Claude sounded like the information was news to him rather than a conversation they had.
"Last night when she came home from work," I added. "Claude, I understand her point-of-view. It is natural to want to share a home with just your spouse, and I’m becoming nothing more than a nuisance around here.
"You are not a bother, Charlie, but I am worried about you."
I am worried … not, we are worried.
"I don’t want to be something or someone you have to worry about, Claude."
"Juliette and I briefly talked about moving to Connecticut, to a suburb. She has mentioned wanting children a couple of times, but it was never a conversation. I didn’t know she was thinking about it so intently."
I felt confused hearing what he was saying. "What about her career?"
"She has talked about cutting back on the shows to three nights a week. She can take the train in for that."
