Star Athlete Admits Doping
Siblings Under Scrutiny
Helen was tested the next day. Her results were also positive. They were suspended. Scholarships revoked. Reporters swarmed.
In the quiet that followed, they returned to the house of iron. Dust coated the clippings. The centrifuge sat idle.
They stood in the garage where their father had died.
“It ends here,” Helen said. Butch ran his hand over the metal case.
“Does it?” She turned on him.
“You heard them. We cheated,” said Helen.
“We enhanced.”
“We lied,” she corrected. He met her gaze.
“We became what he made us.” Silence stretched between them. Helen felt something crack inside—a thin fracture running through years of discipline.
“What if we don’t have to be superior?” she whispered. Butch looked genuinely startled.
“If we’re not,” he said slowly, “then what are we?”
The question hung heavier than any barbell. Weeks passed. Without training schedules, the days felt shapeless. Butch tried working at a local gym. He found himself correcting strangers’ form with an intensity that drove them away.
Helen volunteered at a community center, teaching gymnastics to children. The first time a girl stumbled off the beam and burst into tears, Helen knelt beside her.
“It’s okay,” she began automatically, then stopped.
“I’m bad at this,” said the girl.
Helen felt the old script rise to her tongue. Weakness spreads. She held her tongue, instead, she said, “You’re learning.”
The words felt foreign. Fragile. The girl looked up.
“Really?”
“Yes.” But she didn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe her own words. Helen helped her back onto the beam. That night, she sat alone in her childhood bedroom and cried for the first time in years.
Butch heard her through the wall. He didn’t knock, instead leaving her to her cry herself to sleep. He was in the garage, flipping through Vladim’s notebooks.
Page after page of data. Heart rates. Dosages. Performance metrics. Not once had their father written the words son or daughter. Only subjects and data he didn’t quite understand as yet. Butch closed the journal.
He remembered the moment in the university’s athletic offices when he had said yes. It had felt like stepping off a ledge. He walked into the house and found Helen at the kitchen table.
“I don’t want to be him,” he said. Helen wiped her face.
“I don’t want to be her. So maybe we don’t.”
“It’s not that simple,” said Butch.
“No,” she agreed. “It’s not.”
They sat in silence. After a while, Butch rose and carried the metal cases upstairs. Helen watched as he set them on the counter. He opened each one carefully. The vials glinted under the light.
He carried them to the sink and, one by one, emptied them. Amber liquid spiraled down the drain. Helen exhaled. When the last vial was gone, Butch dropped the empty case into the trash.