He startled at my candor, then exhaled. I’d learned the hard way that any money I gave him went straight into his pipe or his veins, so I hadn’t made that mistake in a long time. I still tried to buy him clothes or meals when he’d let me, and I occasionally paid a landlord directly on his behalf during the few periods when he was sober enough to live in steady housing. As far as I knew, he’d been couch-surfing or unhoused for the better part of a year. The thought of him sleeping on the street or in those awful tent encampments horrified me, but I was aware he did that sometimes when he used. I’d never let him stay with me longer than a night or two—mostly because he refused to get clean, but also because I hadn’t wanted my worlds to collide. I’d been riding the fine line between loving my brother and keeping him separate from the rest of my life since college.
Johnny didn’t say anything, so I assumed I’d guessed correctly. But I spared him the indignity of forcing him to admit he’d come to ask for money. I took a bite of chicken, chewing thoughtfully as some of the tension left the air.
“Can I crash on your couch tonight?” he asked after a minute.
“Yeah. You can stay a few nights if you need to, as long as you don’t bring anystuffinto my house.” He nodded, and I nudged the tortilla chip bag his way, raising my eyebrows in challenge.
Johnny let out a lazy chuckle. “Fine.” He took a chip, bringing it to his mouth dramatically before chomping down. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed, licking his lips. “This is fucking delicious.”
My cheeks lifted. “I know. I can’t tell if it’s the lime or the salt or what, but the chips are the star of the show.”
Johnny snatched the bag from my hand, and I watched with satisfaction as he ate almost the entire thing. He even took a few bites of my burrito. It was the most I’d seen him eat in a while and it occurred to me that, with this new phase in my life, I could potentially spend more time with my brother without having to worry about compromising my carefully curated persona. I wasn’t delusional that I could get him to clean up his act, but perhaps I could do more to ensure he ate and had clean clothes.
We sat for a while, and I told him about JBC and the acquisition. I laughed out loud when my brother became the last person that day to ask if I was sure about not going to TremMark.
After attempting to find out what he’d been up to the past few weeks—questions he’d brushed off by turning the conversation back to me—I gave up. I doubted it was anything I’d want to hear about anyway. I focused instead on having him here in my living room, sober-adjacent and happy for the moment.
He refused the guest bedroom, so I made up the couch while he took a shower. We watched a replay of the Mariners game before going to bed, and I realized I hadn’t spent time like this with my brother in ages.
In the morning, I discovered the blankets folded neatly on the couch. Johnny was nowhere to be seen. I tried not to be upset. At least we’d had a great night. Hopefully, there would be more soon.
I looked around the living room, attempting to decide what to do with the rest of my Saturday. It would be strange adjusting to not working, even on weekends. Perhaps I’d travel or dosome volunteering, maybe catch up on watching all those Marvel movies Jason and Brad loved so much.
I decided to treat myself to coffee and a pastry from the little place a few blocks away.
Slipping on jeans and a light sweater—Prada, but at least it was casual—I gathered my hair into a ponytail. I grabbed the purse I’d used yesterday off the kitchen counter, humming when I observed it clashed with my outfit.
By the time I pulled out my wallet to pay for a soy latte and double chocolate muffin, an indulgence I planned to make more of a habit, I felt almost giddy. But when I reached for my credit card to use in the old-fashioned reader, I encountered only a leather sleeve where a plastic rectangle should have been.
Knock, knock…twenty seconds…ding-dong…
I alternated knocking on the door with stabbing my index finger against the doorbell. I’d been expecting the location to be a little seedier, picturing Johnny’s usual friends, but once the rideshare dropped me off in front of this bungalow in a suburb north of the city, there was no turning back. This was the only lead I had to find my brother.
The barista at the coffeehouse had been nice about giving me their biggest muffin. I think she’d sensed my frustration when I’d had to dig out my backup card to pay for breakfast.
Johnny didn’t have a phone, so the best clue I had as to his whereabouts was this single-story olive-green house with neatly cut grass and freshly painted cream trim.
About six weeks ago, he’d shown up on my doorstep looking for a place to crash. I’d been handling a lot of meetings and paperwork from home at the time, shepherding the acquisition, and I was worried one of my coworkers might show up. I'd onlylet Johnny in long enough for him to tell me it was cool, that he could stay with a friend instead. Feeling guilty, I offered to send him there in a car, using my app, and this was the address he'd given me.
Knock, knock…twenty seconds…ding-dong…
Why wasn’t anybody answering? A huge construction truck and a little sedan sat in the driveway. Someone had to be home, right? It was eleven o’clock on a Saturday morning, a time when most humans were awake. Of course, based on my brother’s track record with his friends, everyone on the other side of the door might be passed out.
I’d gone online to cancel my card and saw transactions for large purchases made at two local department stores, as well as several online retailers. Apparently, Johnny’s plan was to get money through reselling, a scheme that had landed him in jail for a short time in his early twenties. The credit card company offered to open an investigation to dispute those charges, but I didn’t want to create a situation where Johnny might be in real trouble if things escalated. I simply told them I believed my card was compromised and asked for a new one.
Leaving it there had been an option. I could have chosen to move on from the fact my brother had stolen from me and gone about my day, lesson learned. After all, I’d spent a lifetime perfecting the art of not getting sucked into his problems. I could lock up my purse the next time he came around, and we could both pretend this never happened.
But, dammit, I thought we’d turned a corner last night.
My mind kept drifting to our easy conversation, the best one we’d had in years. Laughing over dinner. Had it been hard for him to steal from me after that? I pictured the blankets folded on the couch this morning and imagined it had.
But I needed to know for sure. I needed him to say he was sorry. Too bad for Johnny, I’d just abandoned the script I’d usedto guide my entire adulthood. And like my colleagues at JBC, my brother was in for a surprise. I wouldn’t be letting him walk all over me just to maintain appearances.
Knock, knock.
Ding-dong.
I paced back and forth on the small front porch. An old man in enormous glasses peered at me from behind the curtains next door, and a woman pushing a stroller gave me the side-eye as she passed. For all I knew, Johnny had punched in a random address and didn’t even know this house. I wished someone would answer the door so I could find out.
