CHAPTER 10
Fitz
When my phonerings at 2 a.m., it's not a good sign. It's never a good sign when someone calls that late.
Especially Anthony at the Hitching Post letting me know my brother is there.
Drunk. Sad. Alone.
Again.
Second fucking time this week. I’m so goddamn tired.
But he’s my only brother and the only family nearby. Our dad’s long gone, and our mother isn’t local. If I don’t come to his rescue, he’s got no one.
I throw on yesterday’s clothes and hop in my truck. In ten minutes, I'm at the door of the Hitching Post, which may be a record. Chad sits at the bar, his head in his hands and two drinks in front of him, both empty. One looks like a shot, and the other looks like some sort of cocktail.
Anthony shakes his head at me, and I nod, walking over and taking the barstool next to Chad.
“Hey man,” I say. He doesn't look up. “Dude, are you okay?”
“Go away.”
“I'm not going to do that. I need to get you out of here. Can I drive you home?”
He shakes his head. “I can't go back there.”
“Why is that?” I ask, worried that he did something awful.
“Because I can't take being there alone.”
It takes me a moment to put the pieces together. I was in a deep sleep when the phone rang, and my brain feels a little slow.
“Where's Karen?” I ask.
“Gone.”
“I got that much. But why, what's happening?” Now I’m awake. And my investigative skills go into hyperdrive, trying to ascertain whether they had one of their usual fights because of my brother’s drinking or whether her going wherever she went is the cause of tonight’s bender.
Likely a little of both.
He shakes his head again but doesn’t elaborate, so I put my arm around him and throw a few bills down. “Does that cover it?” I ask Tony. He shakes his head and shoves the money back at me.
“You’re good. Just get him home safe.”
“Come on. Let’s go to my place,” I tell my brother. He seems more willing to slide off the barstool now and let me walk him out the door.
He's a little unsteady on his feet, so I drape an arm over his shoulders and walk him to the passenger side of the truck. I pull the seat belt over him and shut the door, then walk around to my side.
I wish I could say this is the first time this has happened, but Chad has a habit of taking out his problems on himself and finding solutions at the bottom of a bottle. Unfortunately, lately, he's had more than a few problems. He never drinks on the job, at least as far as I know, which is probably the reason he stillhas a job. But when he gets going, it can be ugly. I'm guessing whatever happened between him and Karen was more than just a fight.
We drive for a while in silence, and I watch a shooting star drop out of the sky in front of me. I still remember the first time I saw that happen when I was a kid. I was on a camping trip with Chad and our dad, and he’d taken us on an hour-long hike to the top of a giant mountain. Or so I thought at the time.
Chad was four, and I was all of six years old. I didn’t know it then, but our mother outright forbade our dad from taking us camping at that age because he could be a little reckless with parental supervision. So they compromised.
He made a big deal about how we were on a big mountain trek, but basically, he walked us in circles for over an hour before leading us up to the little rise behind our property. My mom had an eagle-eye view of our tent from the house for the entire night, and our dad got to play mountain ranger.
It was only years later that he admitted it to us, but it didn’t matter. That hill out back was high enough for us to get a bit of perspective on the land below, and we were so excited to be camping that we didn’t notice that we were basically looking down on our house.