Page 55 of Hard to Handle

“Hunter? Is that you?” My mom’s voice calls out from where she no doubt is sitting with him in his room.

I’ve offered to buy them a new house a million times, even put deposits down on a few. I explained how much easier it would be having a custom suite built for Jonah and his needs. How it would make their life—and his—so much easier, how it would give him some autonomy when he already feels trapped, but after numerous rejections of the offers, I gave up. They’d preferred to stay here where they can be reminded daily of the ghosts of that day and the butterfly effect I created.

“She’s in Jonah’s bedroom,” my father mutters from his La-Z-Boy where he folds his newspaper with a crisp snap and reveals the blood pressure cuff on his arm. His eyes move from the newspaper in his hand to the television on the wall beside me, but he never looks at me. “Sloppy game tonight, son. Your skill fell by the wayside to your aggression. You need to work on keeping both at the same time.”

“Yes, sir.” I choke over the words and the resentment they cause. I played a damn good game by any player’s standards, and as much as I know it, I also know he’s nowhere near finished.

Just like the nights he kept me on the ice way past midnight. My body would be exhausted, my fingers numb, my stomach growling, but dammit, I was nowhere near good enough.

I wasn’t Jonah.

And the way he looks at the picture of Jonah in front of him tells me just that: he sees everything Jonah could have been and more. He sees everything I caused. He sees everything I’ll never be.

“You’re weak on your left side, you know that? You were beat every damn time. You’re not checking your shoulder enough like Jonah did, and it’s getting you in trouble. You’re partying too much. It doesn’t seem like you’re practicing on your shot and that’s for mornings. You’re out drinking and hungover. It’s showing.”

“Yes, sir.” I nod—my feet shifting and lips pursing—and take the ridicule without talking back, because whatever I say doesn’t matter. It won’t be heard. His head is too preoccupied with another star forward, the one lying paralyzed in the next room, who I’ll always be compared to.

I take the criticism, I accept the disdain, because I know my dad is hanging on by a thread. I know this is the only way he can cope with the dreams that were killed that day and the future that was robbed from us.

But it doesn’t prevent my resentment from festering. It doesn’t prevent my hands from fisting.

“There was a ticket there for you, you know. I didn’t see you in the box. I thought maybe you’d like to come.”

He nods, his eyes never leaving the television. “You know I like to watch my hockey from home.”

Not with Jonah, you didn’t. You were at every damn game up against the glass cheering and yelling.

In the fifteen years since the accident, you’ve sat and pushed me, but criticized and judged and disapproved from afar.

I swallow over the rejection that tears into me like it does every time, and let it settle in a place where someday I’ll deal with it. Maybe. “Your health? It’s okay?”

Forced words in a strained relationship.

“Yes. I can’t be going anywhere, now can I? Jonah needs me too much.”

So do I, Dad. So do I.

But that’s irrelevant—I’m irrelevant—because Jonah does. Only one son survived that night and in my parents’ eyes, it wasn’t me.

I need a dad too, but not according to the man in front of me.

If only I had truly died that night. Anything but a walking ghost who once had a family who loved him.

“Of course.” I stare at him for a beat. The blue of the television casts an odd glow on his skin, and I wonder if he really loves this life he lives, or if he’s merely going through the motions.

“Maybe I’ll see you in the stands at the next game?” I ask like I always do. My, I love you, Dad, and still need you as a father plea that never seems to be heard.

“Maybe.” The lone word is all he says. All I want is for him to tell me to stay and sit with him, but I take off down the hallway toward Jonah’s room.

The old, oversized den we used to sit in for hours playing Nintendo as boys and then later making out with girls as teenagers, looks like a hospital room now. My mom has tried to dress it up, but there’s no hiding the reality.

The quiet hum of the television hides my footsteps as I stand there and take it all in. There’s a bed on the far side of the room with a lift that hangs on a boom off to one side that helps my mom get Jonah in and out of bed.

The room is decorated in light colors that do nothing to disguise the medical equipment dotting its perimeter. A wheelchair is parked against one wall while on the opposing one a curio cabinet showcases his old trophies like shrines to an era gone by.

Like reminders to Jonah every single day of what he’s missing out on in this shitty deal fate handed him.

My mom’s back is to me as she fiddles with something beneath the hospital bed, her soft talking a constant, soothing sound she somehow adopted after the accident—almost as if one of us were a little boy complaining about an upset stomach, not a quadriplegic depending on her for his every need.