Page 16 of Wild Card

I had fucked up spectacularly.

“What do you mean?” I slammed the door of my truck harder than I needed to.

“Elias wasn’t supposed to come back, but he did. He showed up and…” My little brother faltered back a step, his face hidden under his hood.

I was on the bottom step when I noticed the shiner on his face.

“Fuck.” I stepped up and tilted his head back, letting the porch light reveal more of his face. Kyle tried to brush me off, but I held him firm. “What happened?”

“Elias tried to fucking kill me when he found out I was responsible for what happened to his precious little brother. Pathetic attempt if you ask me—he didn’t even manage to put me in the hospital, stupid fucking pussy, but…”

Stalking past him, I trudged up the steps toward the house. I didn’t want to hear my little brother trying to act tough in front of me. I had heard how his voice shuddered when he explained himself, and the fact that this was on me…it just dug at me in all the wrong ways. I’d known it was a dangerous idea to ask him to cause the car accident, knowing Elias’ little brother would be driving the other car. I hated myself for doing it, but I hadn’t been able to think of any other way to get Elias away from his room tonight. Kyle and Jason had grown up together, just like Elias and I had, and their relationship was just as tenuous.

“Mom!” I called, stopping briefly at the small entryway table where our bills usually gathered. There was a bundle of white envelopes that hadn’t been touched. I started shuffling them, knowing already they would each be at least a month past due. I tried to grab the bills whenever I dropped in to visit, but occasionally they’d slip through the cracks.

“Duggar, sweetie,” my mom responded from the living room.

I heaved a steadying breath, trying not to inhale the scent of my childhood—of my dad. Every single time I walked through the door, I still smelled that baseball glove he’d shoved on my tiny hand for the first time. That white and red striped leather he’d tossed in the air, smiling brightly as he ushered me outside to play catch. It still shredded me when I walked in this house, still ripped me open as raw as it had that first time after the funeral.

“Hey Mom.” I leaned against the wall, crossing my arms.

My mother sat on the fading blue couch, a photo album in her lap, an old comedy show playing on the small flat screen in front of her. She still had her scrubs on, her hair tied in a low bun at her neck, concealing her frizzy chestnut hair.

“Come sit with me.” She patted the space next to her.

She still didn’t understand that I couldn’t sit on that couch, or why I couldn’t stay in my old bedroom, or why, if I had to stay the night, I preferred to stay in my truck or on the other side of town under the stars.

“I’m good over here…can’t stay long.”

I never could. She was probably thinking the same thing. I never missed the way her smile fell, or how she cleared her throat and her voice came out strained after I informed her how short my visit would be.

“Kyle was hurt?” I asked, trying to gauge how much she knew. Or if she even cared.

My mother hummed in response, flipping the page in her photo album, retreating to that space in her mind that was surviving her grief by reliving memories as often as she could. She used to come home from a shift at the hospital and take a long bath. Dad would finish dinner and tell us baseball stories while she finished up. She’d come out in her fluffy robe, her hair in a tight braid, and then she’d spend the whole evening with us laughing and playing.

Now, she came home and just sat. No dinner, no bath…dark house, no life.

When Dad died, it was like she did too. Now it was just a phantom…a wraith who roamed these halls and sat on that old faded couch. No one to check my little brother for skipping classes, no one to ask how his day was or how his baseball game went. Had she even cared that Kyle dropped out of sports the year before? Did she even know he was currently failing two of his classes?

“Boys will be boys,” she said softly, flipping another page. “Remember when you two slid down that big hill over off Orchard Lane?” Her eyes lit up as she watched me.

I wanted to scream. I didn’t like remembering my life when my dad was alive. I didn’t want to think back on how happy my childhood was because it was fucking happy and good and full of smiles and laughter. So much so that now…now it was unbearable to go back, to remember it all.

“Have you been paying the bills online, like I showed you?” I rubbed the back of my neck. I needed her to start taking this over; I couldn’t keep doing it forever.

“Decker, you know what…” She clicked her tongue in that way she did when she tried to start a story. “I went to log in, and I did that thing you told me to do with my fingerprint.” She pointed at me as if I didn’t know what a fingerprint was. “But for the life of me I couldn’t get it to work.” She shrugged, snickering at her failed attempts.

“Did you ask Kyle for help?” I looked over my shoulder to see my younger brother trudge in, heading for the freezer. He pulled out a bag of frozen peas as his eyes slid toward me in that knowing way. It spoke volumes. No, she hadn’t asked for help.

I noticed when he opened the freezer that there were at least twenty frozen dinners piled inside. My gut twisted, that familiar wound of grief flaring to life, gaping open.

The walls were too close, the smells too intense. Suddenly I was seeing my dad on that couch with my mom, his arm wrapped around her, laughing at the television…his hands playing with her hair in that way he’d done my entire life.

I knew deep down that my mother was just heartbroken. She was hurt in a way I didn’t understand. She couldn’t function, and I needed to let her go through it, but I missed her. Kyle missed her. I needed her to come out of this pit of grief and be my mom again. I needed her to sell this house and let us start over. Together.

“Well, maybe we can go over it some other time,” I muttered, looking down at the worn carpet at my feet. Wrestling matches with my dad had taken place right where I was standing.

“You headed out?” Kyle asked.

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