Page 21 of The Bad Brother
You aren’t welcome.
You’ve been disowned.
I’m supposed to call the police if you show up.
Instead of letting her finish, I interrupt her. “Are they home?”
Sighing, Olga shakes her head. “Your father is at the club and your mother…” Her gaze darts to the left, toward the side of the house the pool is on. “Is resting. By the pool.”
Resting.
It’s what she used to say when my mother was drunk and didn’t want to be bothered. Not by Ethan. She always had time for my little brother. Never hid from him. Never shooed him away with anot now, I’m busyorthat’s not my job—go find Olga.
Shaking her head, Olga tightens her features into a sternmask, while her soft brown eyes glisten with unshed tears. “You’re not welcome here. You need to leave before I call the Sheriff.”
Olga shuts the door in my face before I can argue my case but that’s okay. She told me everything I needed to know.
Thanks, Olga.
Walking the length of the porch, I step off of it to follow a cobblestone path woven between carefully manicured hedges, around the side of the house and into the backyard. Stepping onto a carpet of thick grass, I see my mother immediately, lounging by the pool in a designer bikini, eyes closed, a mostly empty pitcher of what I assume is straight vodka on ice, melting next to her on a nearby table. Next to it is a brown prescription bottle. That’s mostly empty too.
She has no idea I’m here until I stop next to her, blocking out the sun and casting her chaise in shadow.
“Olga—be a dear and freshen my drink,” she says without bothering to open her eyes.
“I can’t say for sure,” I say in a tone that’s deceptively casual. “But if history is any judge, I’d say you’ve already had plenty.”
As soon as she hears my voice, my mother’s eyes fly open, mouth wide to screech at whoever’d be stupid enough to disrupt her pool time., It’s been a while but when she recognizes me, her thin mouth curls in disgust.
“What are you doing here?” she spits up at me, bleary gaze narrowed into a glare. She’s half in the bag as usual. Some far, distant part of my heart twinges at the sight of her. It’s been years since I’ve seen either one of my parents—not since I was seventeen.
Instead of answering her, I ask her a question of my own.
“Where’s Ethan?”
When I mention my brother, my mother’s eyes widen again and she instinctively presses a trembling hand to her stomach because Ethan is the child she loves and my showing up here, looking for him, is a threat.
“He doesn’t live here anymore,” she tells me in a haughty tone. “He lives with his fiancé—he’s getting married.” The last is delivered in aha ha, he’s better than youtone, telling me that she knows all about Hanna. That I was engaged to be married too, but that she cheated on me because I wasn’t man enough to keep her.
“I heard.” Shoving my hands into my pockets, I give her a nod. “I just wanted to come by and congratulate him.”
She knows I’m lying.
My brother and I haven’t exchanged a kind word since the day I was arrested.
“I don’t know how you got in here but?—”
“I grew up here, Mom. It wasn’t that hard.” Hands still dug into my pockets, I look around. “This was my home too, remember?” Ethan and I used to run wild over these grounds together. We were inseparable. Best friends. Somewhere along the way, he started to hate me. They all did, and I never even knew it.
“Don’t call me that.” She spits it at me like venom. “I’m not your mother and this isn’t your home anymore,remember?”
Even though it’s not anything I haven’t heard before, it still stings.
These people aren’t your family.
They were never your family.
“Next time you see Ethan,Monica, let him know I stopped by looking for him,” I tell her, backing away slowly.
