The apartment is very quiet. I can hear the fridge humming in the kitchen. I can feel his pulse in his thumb, or maybe that’s mine. It’s hard to tell where one ends and the other starts.
I’m staring into Archie’s eyes. Those hazel eyes that make me forget, temporarily, all the reasons I should pull away.
My phone starts to chime, and Archie snatches his hand back.
My heart hammering, I reach into my pocket and retrieve my phone.
But my idea that the phone call is a lucky reprieve lasts only until I’ve seen the caller’s name.
My sister.
I stuff my phone back into my pocket.
“Aren’t you going to get that?”
“It’s just my sister,” I say. “I’ve already talked to her today.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yeah, there’s just some shit going on with my brother.” I run my hand through my hair.
“What’s going on with your brother?”
It must be the lingering smell of chicken and dumplings, or maybe it’s the way Archie is looking at me, but I find myself answering honestly.
“He needs to go to rehab again.”
Archie doesn’t give me the look I’m bracing for. The one that says “oh, how sad” or “that must be so hard.” Instead, his expression shifts in a way I wasn’t expecting, and he regards me for a long moment before speaking.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I let out a bitter laugh. “It’s the…god… It must be about the twelfth time he’s been admitted to rehab.” I don’t say that they’ve all been paid for by me. “Although we’re trying a new place this time, so maybe that will make a difference. Caitlin, that’s my sister, is hopeful that it will work this time.”
I don’t share Caitlin’s hope.
“So, you have a brother and a sister? Are they younger or older than you?” Archie asks.
“Both younger. I pretty much raised them,” I say. Then I grimace. “I’m not sure that’s a great recommendation on my parenting abilities though. Tommy got into drugs when he was in high school, and he’s never managed to hold down a real job. Caitlin was doing better, getting good grades in high school, but she got pregnant during her senior year. The baby’s father was a complete loser.”
I stop. I’m picking the label off my water bottle in methodical strips, the way people do when they’re saying more than they intended to. Which I totally am. But I find myself continuing. “She ended up graduating, but then became a teenage mom. I supported her so she could attend community college and train to become an early childhood teacher. I wanted her to come out to San Francisco to be near me, but she’s got another kid now with a different guy, and because of custody arrangements, she can’t leave Detroit.”
I don’t know if I hide the dejection in my tone as I tell the story.
Because the world we grew up in has swallowed my siblings.
It’s my fault. I’d been so desperate to escape my childhood, so desperate to do well at college so I could have a future that was different from my past, that I hadn’t paid enough attention to what was going on back home with my siblings during those critical high school years.
And now, no matter how much money I throw at the problem, it doesn’t seem to change anything.
My parents live in a much nicer house in a much nicer part of town now. Yet they’re still the pariahs of the neighborhood, the ones who leave empty cans and bottles strewn on the unkempt lawn, compared to the pristine flower beds and freshly painted mailboxes of their neighbors.
Caitlin is definitely doing better, but she seems to get sucked into the drama with her exes and makes abysmal choices when it comes to boyfriends.
My niece and nephew are at least going to a good school, but even that is something Caitlin complained about when we talked today. Apparently, Kimmy is struggling to make friends because money can buy a better zip code, but it can’t buy your kid an invitation to the sleepover everyone else is going to.
Archie doesn’t say anything right away. When he does, his voice is softer than usual.
“Sounds like you’ve spent a long time trying to hold everything together.”
