Page 92 of Forever Finds Us
“As far as I could tell, no. He seemed to have landed in a good place with good people, and he said he’d been seein’ a therapist once a week and goin’ to meetings.”
Relief oozed out of Merv, and she nodded.
“If he’s sober, why hasn’t he come home?” Abey asked. “What did he say about that?”
“Just that he wasn’t ready, but his plan had been to come home in the new year.”
“Thanksgiving was last week,” Merv said hopefully. “That’s only a month away.”
“Yes, but Mama, I tried to call him this mornin’ before I got here, to tell him it was time for me to let you know what’s been goin’ on. I promised him I’d let him tell you about Stu’s birth mother himself.
“But the people he’s been stayin’ with, Brenda and Brooks Coulter, said he wasn’t there and they didn’t know where he’d gone. They haven’t seen him in a few days. He didn’t show up for a job he’d been hired to do at a local farm, and his clothes and the few possessions he had were gone from his cabin when Brenda checked.”
The disappointment hearing Brenda tell me Dixon had run again had been crushing. My chest felt heavy when she said it, like there was a brick on my lungs not letting me take a full breath. I’d had to force myself to see that the knowledge wasn’t any different than the heartache I’d been carrying all these years, and that my brother’s actions didn’t have to affect my life the way I’d been letting them since I was eighteen years old. But I had to work to not let the lost hope I felt wreck me again.
“Well, maybe he decided to come home early,” Merv said. “Maybe he’s on his way, but he didn’t wanna say goodbye to those people. He never did like goodbyes.”
“It’s possible,” I admitted. I’d had the same thought, but Dixon’s history said otherwise. “But there’s no way for us to know because we can’t call him directly. He doesn’t have a cell phone, at least not one I know about.”
“You’ll see,” Merv said. “He’ll show up. He’s a good boy.”
“He’s not a boy,” Abey said. “That’s part of the problem, Mama. You know this. If he does come home, you cannot keep treatin’ him like your baby.”
“Listen,” I said. “I found a therapist. I’ve been talkin’ with her for a couple weeks. And yesterday, I went to a support group for families of addicts. I think y’all should check it out. Even after just one meeting, I’ve learned a lot. And it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who struggles with how to relate to my brother and how not to let his illness run my life.”
Bax had been quiet, but now he asked, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why’d you keep his secrets? Why didn’t you come straight here to tell us Dixon was alive when every day we worried and wondered?”
“I…” Here was the hard part. The part I’d been dreading. I didn’t want to rip open old wounds. Didn’t want to remind my family about the hell Dixon had to live through. I still didn’t think Bax had any idea how bad things had gotten with our father. “I felt guilty. I thought it was my fault.”
“What, son? What was your fault?”
“When I graduated high school and left home, I also left Dixon, and I thought it was my fault that things with him turned out the way they did. I thought I should’ve done more to protect him.”
“From what?” Merv asked.
Looking her straight in the eye, I confronted her with the truth she’d been trying to hide from since her husband died. “From Dad. He hid the worst of it from Bax, Mama, because he wanted Bax workin’ the farm with him, but Abey and I saw the monster that man had become. You justified his behavior or you ignored it or dissociated from it. But when I left, Dixon was alone here. None of us can know how bad it got.”
“I was here,” Merv said. “I would’ve seen if…”
“You were here,” Abey said, “but you weren’t out there in that barn with them every day. You worked and you ran your household. God, I remember you sayin’ that all the time. Like made beds and a clean kitchen and bathrooms were more important than all the stuff that went down with Dad.”
Bea and Devo had been mostly silent, but it was clear they were uncomfortable. This—our mom and dad and the dynamic between them and us—had been the heart of the matter for years. But now, everything had come to a head, and we had to face it.
I did. If I wanted Roxanne in my life, the truth needed to come out and I needed to be free of my brother’s secrets.
And I wanted Roxanne like I’d never wanted anyone or anything in my life.
I loved her, and I missed her so much. I woke from dreams of her, sobbing. In the dreams, she still loved me, and we were together, building our house and making love in the stupid yurt again.
And the therapist helped me see that I needed to come clean for Dixon too. I’d thought all this time that protecting him showed I loved him, but in truth, it was the opposite. Me keeping his secrets only helped him stay sick.
Merv began to shut down. I watched it happen; her body became rigid in her chair, muscles tightening, face pinching. This was hard for her too.
“Why, Mama?” Bax asked. “Why did Dad hate Dixon? Why are we in this mess now? What did he do to his own son? You have to know. You may’ve been distracted, but you were here.”
