He said we, but he was now an I.
Sara pulled a bottle of tequila out of her bag and set it on the table with a thud. “Shots.”
And it did. Help. After the fourth shot. Temporarily, at least, to ease the grip of the fist that was closed tightly around Patrick’s heart. They started with a souvenir shot glass from the Sands that Patrick had acquired on a trip to Las Vegas with Joe; after the third shot Patrick knocked it over, and it rolled under the couch. The Sands itself was long gone, imploded to make room for a newer casino. There was perhaps some symbolism there, but Patrick couldn’t imagine building anything new on his own ground; he wanted to exist as rubble, a fallen monument whose lights once shone bright. “Fuck it,” Patrick said when Sara tried and failed to retrieve the glass; they each took a swig straight from the bottle.
They shared memories of Joe, but they could only speak a few key words out loud. Wretched, putrid and sub-par conjured a telephone call Joe had made to a hotel in San Diego to complain after a disastrous stay. Clams casino, a weekend with food poisoning that was only funny now. Jim jinlet, the way he would try to pronounce gin gimlet after consuming two or three. Full stories were painful and unnecessary. The memories were fresh, the history recent. They played out like little movies on a screen inside their brains. Fleshed-out memories would come later, when the edges started to soften in the fog of memory, when the details needed to be spoken to be recalled.
“You lied to me,” Patrick said when they were sufficiently drunk. The laughter had subsided and things, once again, looked starless.
“I’ve never lied to you,” Sara protested.
Patrick stared into some middle distance. The lie was a long time ago. “You told me life would be easy.”
Sara thought about this. “It still might.” The way she said it, offhandedly, completely dismissive of the pain they were both currently in, was exactly what Patrick needed to hear. Not because it was true—they both knew it wasn’t. But because they were still them. And it was something at least for him to hold on to. A reason, on that day at least, for him to continue.
When the visitors’ lounge door creaked, Patrick spun, his heart in his throat. Greg appeared in the doorway, his hand gripping the knob as if it were the only thing holding him up, looking calm and rested and . . . pale. Did they not let patients outside? Wasn’t the restorative nature of sunlight one of the key selling points of detoxing in the desert? Patrick locked eyes with his brother, much as they had in the Hartford airport right before this misadventure began. Neither of them said a word. Greg’s eyes nervously darted, in search of the kids, Patrick supposed. They took each other in warily before moving in for a tight hug. Patrick grabbed a fistful of his brother’s shirt, lifting it halfway up his back, and pushed his head into the meaty part of Greg’s shoulder; the facility obviously had a gym and Greg had been making full use of it. Their chests pressed together, Patrick could feel his brother’s heart beat.
“The kids okay?” Greg grabbed Patrick’s arms and pushed him back so he could see the answer on his brother’s face.
“Yes. Good. Good. They’re fine.”
Greg stared as this sank in. “I was crawling out of my skin after the earthquake. First Clara, and now this? It took the whole facility to calm me down, everyone advocating for me to stay focused on my recovery here. They promised me if you lived in Southern California, you had experience riding them out and you would call if anything was seriously wrong. Eventually I passed out, from exhaustion or from worry.”
“Yeah, we . . .” Patrick made a gesture with his hand like a boat sailing smooth waters. “Rode it out.”
“And the Clara thing? You’re putting me through the wringer.”
Patrick wanted to point out that neither an earthquake nor his sister’s actions was his doing, but he simply let it go. “I took care of it.”
He nodded and Greg nodded again, until his nodding dissolved into an inquisitive smirk. Then why are you here? There were twenty-four days left of his treatment, both had the exact number down. Greg thought it had been pretty clear they wouldn’t see each other until then. The facility was family-friendly, visitations were allowed. But Greg was adamant; he did not want his children seeing him here. It would hurt, the separation, them and him, but then it would pass—the ripping off of a Band-Aid. Their time apart would soon be forgotten as the kids forged a new sense of normal, free of knowing, until they got older, that their father was an addict.
“So, they just let you walk around in here? Unescorted?” Patrick asked.
“Yeah. What did you think?”
Patrick wasn’t sure, but had pictured Greg being frog-marched into the lounge wearing leg irons. “I thought I would be on the other side of some partition. And we would speak over telephones and hold our hands meaningfully up to the glass.”
“This isn’t prison, Patrick. I’m here voluntarily.”
Patrick looked around the room, taking a second catalog of everything, his gaze landing on his coffee. The powdered creamer had congealed into several disturbing islands dotting a caramel sea. If internment here was voluntary, he didn’t see the appeal.
“Where are the kids?”
“With JED.”
“Who’s Jed, your friend? Is he responsible? Up to watching both kids? They walk all over new sitters, you know. It can take more than two hands to keep them in check.”
Patrick stifled a laugh. “JED’s got it covered.”
“Then why are you here?”
“It’s good to see you, too.”
Greg looked up and to the left, away from his brother. You think it’s not good to see you? It exuded from every pore in his face.
Patrick took
