If I had any hope of turning this around, I had to face some hard truths… and they weren’t about Jake and his trauma, they were about me and my low self-esteem. There was no smoking gun that made me who I was. There was no scandalous crime. It didn’t always need to be some life-changing event that rewired one’s brain. Sometimes it was simply small irritants that, left unchecked, grew into cancerous tumors. That’s what had happened to me. I’d allowed life’s little injustices to pull me down and make me feel less worthy.
The group leader warned the dude beside me before giving me an out. “I’m sorry for Cory’s outburst, Keith. Of course, it’s up to you what you decide to share with the group. Maybe next session. Eva, why don’t you go next?”
“Actually…” I shut my notepad and glanced around the room. If they wanted a story out of me, I’d give them one, but it wouldn’t be anything like they were expecting. “I want to share.”
“Oh, that’s excellent.” She brightened, and I swear I saw everyone in the room sit up a little straighter. “Go on.”
“Okay, so, I know what you’re all thinking – that I’m here today because I couldn’t cope with what happened to my family. And while it’s true that event took my drug use to whole new levels, it’s not the reason I started abusing them in the first place.”
I could almost see Ms. Marshall taking mental notes.
“My defining moment goes all the way back to when I was five years old and playing in my first T-ball game. My half-brother Mitch, who was eight at the time, was playing on the adjacent field. I got up to bat, stood at that T, and whacked the shit out of that ball – hit it all the way to the outfield. It was the greatest triumph of my little life. As I was running the bases, I heard my father cheering from the sideline. Oh, man, you can’t believe the pride I felt in that moment – my first time up to bat and I hit a goddamn homerun. I looked back to wave at my father with the biggest smile I think my face had ever produced. It was then that I saw his body was turned away facing the other field. He wasn’t cheering for my homerun. He was cheering for Mitch.”
24
Keith: Color-Coded
All I wanted to do the day I left rehab was go to some rundown motel and sleep. Lie low for a while. Being by myself while I readjusted to a new, clean way of living sounded pretty damn nice. But I knew what needed to be done, and putting it off would only delay the inevitable. So after getting picked up and driven home, I slipped out when my parental wardens weren’t watching and began the trip to Arizona, where I was determined to right the biggest wrong of my life.
Driving through the night, I stopped only for gas and at a rest stop for a few of hours of sleep before continuing on my journey. It was 9:00 am when I pulled up to a townhouse on a tree-lined street. The anxious pounding in my chest kept me glued to my seat as I took in the place my brother called home. The bushes were trimmed to perfection, and colorful blooms were strategically placed in flowerbeds around the entryway to the front door. Everything was so orderly and fresh, like the man himself.
Those familiar pangs of jealously crept through me like a poisonous spider. But instead of gathering the eight-legged creature in a cup and taking it outside to live another day, I squashed the shit out of the black widow before it could strike me down first. There was no more room for negativity in my life. Today I would wipe the slate clean. It didn’t matter if Mitch forgave me. All that mattered was that I finally manned up and apologized to my brother for the years of contempt I’d directed his way.
And that’s why I continued knocking after the first round didn’t produce any results. The fact that his truck was parked in the driveway inspired me to keep thumping my knuckles on his door. I was on round three of repetitive knocking when I finally heard movement on the other side, followed by what I was sure would be an eyeball peering at me through the peephole.
The door suddenly swung open and Mitch stood before me, bare-chested and barefoot in only a pair of sweats. It was clear by his sleepy eyes that he’d just stumbled out of bed. “Keith?”
“Hey, sorry,” I replied, taking in his beefcake physique and smashing the imaginary spider threatening to crawl up my spine. “Did I wake you up?”
“I…” Mitch ran his fingers through his neatly trimmed brown hair, the look of surprise almost comical if it didn’t reflect so poorly on me. “What are you doing here? I thought you were…”
“In rehab?” I finished his sentence before extending a full set of spirit fingers and exclaiming, “All done. Surprise.”
Mitch’s shocked expression didn’t fade as he asked, “Is everything all right? Dad?”
I could see that his thought process was not on par with mine. For me to show up unannounced in his life, of course he’d be thinking the worst. “He’s fine, Mitch. Everything’s fine. I came to see you.”
Because we weren’t the type of brothers to show up unannounced at each other’s doors, it took some time for Mitch to allow my words to sink in. I shifted back and forth while I waited. But once an uncomfortable amount of time had passed, I finally broke the silence. “Can I come in?”
“Oh, shit, yeah. I’m sorry.” He stepped back, opening the door wider. “Come in.”
Stepping over the threshold into his home, I allowed my eyes to wander. Everything was so neat and tidy, and he seemed to have a thing for organization. A long bookshelf was divided into cubbies, and three quarters of them held labeled storage and file boxes as well as color-coded pull out bins. And it was spotless. Not a thing out of place. Even the decorative pillows were all resting at 90-degree angles with the required ‘V’ smacked into the middle. Damn. This guy liked order in the house. Unlike me, he clearly didn’t spend half the day searching for his keys.
Neither of us spoke past the customary greeting, and it was awkward enough that it began to feel a little like hugging a friend goodbye in a restaurant only to realize you are both going in the same direction.
“So, um… nice flowers outside,” I said, scrapping my first idea of complimenting him on his organizational skills for fear he might want to share the details. “I didn’t know you counted a green thumb among your many talents.”
“I don’t. My girlfriend does – she’s the botanist.”
“Really? Cool. Is that like a flower scientist?”
His eyes widened before he smiled. “I was…um… kidding. Kate’s a business major, but she’s the one with the green thumb, not me.”
“Ah.” I smiled back. “Sometimes you need to spell things out for me.”
He nodded, amused. “I remember.”
“Well, more power to her. I can’t keep anything alive. Emma bought me a cactus once that only needed to be watered every three weeks. It was dead by week four. God help my future children.”
