Page 24 of Off Court Fix

My eyes float to the wall of French doors leading out to the backyard. I see the pool, refinished, and beyond it, the clay court I had put in for resale value that will now get good use. But for the life of me, I can’t seem to stop focusing on the stone of the back patio. Goosebumps prickle my body—my arms, my legs, the back of my neck—as I recall the last—and final—time I stepped onto it.

“Grandma! I’m here. Let’s go to lunch. I have to be at the gym at three.”

I toss my visor on the kitchen counter and grab a handful of grapes, trying not to scoff at the display of medication on the counter—some for my grandmother, but more for Mason, who has left rehab again. I can’t even say he left early this time. Mason left before he even really started. The fight we had the other day over it should make me sad. But really, I’m just angry.

“Grandma—”

“Maxine! Maxine! Call an ambulance!”

I sprint to the doors leading out back, rushing through one that’s open, the curtains floating with the warm breeze. I expect to find Grandma on the ground. Maybe she fell. I’ve been telling her not to wear flip-flops.

And what do I see? Grandmaison the ground. Only, she’s straddling Mason, her weak knees sliding in what looks like vomit as she performs chest compressions that I can tell are too weak, because Grandma is in her late seventies, and I know she’s not capable of keeping a heart beating. Especially, I realize when I see a syringe, one that doesn’t want to pump anymore.

For a minute, as the stench of urine and throw up penetrates my nose, as my eyes gaze over the track marks on Mason’s arms, I want to scream at her to stop. If he wants to go so badly, let him. Let him lie in the bed he made.

“I just went to the fruit stand. I wanted to make him cherry pie for dessert.” Grandma turns her head to me as she continues pumping, and her eyes plead. “Oh, it was just twenty minutes, Max. Just twenty minutes.”

But really, it’s been years.

It’s been months.

It’s been holidays, birthdays, celebratory events, like victorious matches and tournaments.

It’s been forever.

“Get up.” I pull her off him and shake my head before I drop down and get back in the same position my grandmother was in. “Go call 9-1-1.”

Grandma cries as she goes inside, and that’s what keeps me going. I’m doing this for her, not for me, not for Mom, who obviously didn’t care enough about herself, let alone her children. I’m doing it for Grandma, the kind of woman who will go buy cherries just to make a pie for her grown-ass, good-for-nothing grandson who can’t stay clean long enough to technically relapse. I’m doing it for the woman who already buried a daughter lost to her vices.

I think I hear him wheeze, so I swipe inside his mouth, clearing vomit and foam. I know how to do this because I found Mason like this before, and when the paramedics came, they told me. You clear their airway side to side, never stick your fingers all the way in. If they’re breathing, you turn them on their side.

But Mason still isn’t breathing, so he’s on his back, and I swear I pump so hard I hear a rib crack. But I keep pushing, cursing him under my breath, keeping my focus on the ugly stone duck statue to my right now splattered with Mason’s blood.

“This is the last time I do this, do you hear me? I swear, it’s the last time.”

I’m repeating that over and over—a song of screams and sobs—when the paramedics come in and lift me off my brother. But even though I’m professing it, I don’t want it to be the last time.

After that day, there weren’t days, weeks, months, birthdays, or anything for Mason to ruin. And maybe that should’ve brought some relief. I wish it did. I wish I didn’t mourn the days we didn’t get—goodandbad—as intensely as I do.

I wish I had done thingssodifferently now. I don’t know if I would’ve kept administering CPR, or if I would’ve told Grandma to bring a towel so we could wipe Mason clean. I wish I held his hand and sat with him so his final moment of suffering didn’t have to be one he went through alone too.

Banishing the tears from my face with the back of my hand, I step away from the glass doors, wishing I had told the interior designer to demolish it. At the new farmhouse kitchen sink, I wash my hands repeatedly, as if traces of Mason’s vomit and blood still paint them, as if it’s possible to wash away the ghost of someone else’s addiction that haunts you long after they’re gone.

I rush back to the mudroom where I left my bag and reach for my phone to call Alyssa.

“Did you land?”

“Where are you?” I ask impatiently.

There’s a mumbled announcement over the speaker of the train Alyssa rides on from the city. “I think I need another fifteen minutes to get into Southampton.”

Turning to my right, I find a note and a set of keys to the car I secured myself for summer.

“Max? You okay?”

I swallow the emotion I drown in and clear my throat. “I’ll pick you up from the train.”

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