Wolf Creek Road. The house with the shoe in the tree.
“Joey.” His words are falling over me, heavy and sad, a secret life of raiding medicine cabinets and then sitting down to roasted chicken and green beans with us.
“Doing it just made things easier. I could tune out Mom and Dad always telling me what a loser I was. Joey, you’re lazy. Joey, try harder. Joey, why aren’t you listening? Joey, why can’t you be more like Maddie? Joey, what’s wrong with you? Stuff didn’t matter much anymore, and I liked it. I could coast.”
“But why did you do…heroin? At the party? I mean…that’s heroin.”
I don’t even like saying the word. It feels sinister in my mouth. Makes me think of people stumbling in the street, sick-faced and desperate, even though I shouldn’t, because plenty of the people in the outpatient clinic weren’t like that. They looked like they do taxes for a living, or teach school, even.
They looked like Joey.
He’s quiet.
“Joey?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know, really. I didn’t really even think about it. Jake had it one minute and offered it to me the next and then I was snorting it in his pantry. I don’t know. Sometimes I do things and I don’t know why. Like, some people would say, no way, not me, never doing that, but I never think that, I just do it. It’s like the receptor inside me that should set off alarm bells is broken.
“And if you want the honest truth, even though I threw up on myself and passed out later, even though I did too much, it made me feel like I was powerful. It made me feel beautiful. It was like wings spreading inside me, the warmest wings you can imagine, holding me close, from the inside.”
His eyes are someplace that scares me: dreamy, far away. Needy, which makes me nervous. Maybe we shouldn’t be talking like this. Maybe it’s going to make him want it again.
“I felt loved, but at the same time, I didn’t care if I was loved.”
He leans his forehead against the steering wheel.
“But why, Joey? Why? Why would you do that to yourself? I was right here, whatever you needed, I could have helped you.” I’m trying not to cry, but what he’s saying is making me so, so sad.
He looks at me, his eyes wet.
“Because for my whole life I’ve felt wrong, Emmy. Reading was hard, everything floated on the page. I had that special tutor Mom and Dad got, remember that? But I almost felt worse because of it. I got hit in the eye playing baseball because I couldn’t focus on anything but the clouds. I couldn’t figure out which direction to run in for soccer. Nobody wanted me on class projects because it took me so long to do my part. Sit down, Joey. Be quiet, Joey. Joey, why do you have to be so wild? Remember when Mom and Dad made me go see Dr. Tillman? He just gave me different sorts of pills, ones that made me feel dead inside. Remember that?”
I hold my backpack tight against my chest, thinking. I remember some of it. Joey sleeping for long periods of time. The way his mouth was thick and his words garbled. My mother thought maybe he needed a different doctor, but then the roof accident happened.
My brother’s voice is thick again, just like all those years ago.
“The only thing I’ve ever been good at is letting people down, Emmy. My whole life, I just wanted to feel better. Forget about what a loser I was. And then I found a way to do that.”
He lifts his head and jams the key in the ignition. “And to tell you the truth, if we hadn’t been in that car accident, if Candy hadn’t died, I’d be trying to feel better right this fucking minute. You don’t know what it’s like to feel like you never fit.”
“But I do, Joey, I do.”
He shakes his head and wipes his eyes.
“Not like me, Emmy. Not like me.”
He starts the car, turns on the radio, loud, and peels out of the parking lot.
* * *
—
At home, we do our homework while eating bowls of lukewarm spaghetti. My mom gave us dinner, scrolled her way through Joey’s phone to check his texts and searches, and then went upstairs to her room.
Joey works slowly on math, moving his lips. He writes something down, erases it, checks his calculator, redoes it. Over and over. But he doesn’t give up. He doesn’t ask for my help. Last year, I did just enough for him to get Cs, to maintain, so no one would notice.
I look down at my own homework, check the assignment on the student portal, read about ancient skulls found in Africa, human migration. People have always moved, to find better places, better ways to live. Searching for something. Safety. Food. Love. Survival. It’s amazing to think that part of a person could be found, millions of years later. A skull wedged in the crack of a cave. A bone found buried deep in the earth. And then we try to figure out how they got to just that one place. But in the end, that fragment of bone or skull can only tell us how they lived, but not if they were happy.
When I look up, Joey’s gone, his things cleared away. No evidence remains.
17
JOEY FOLDS AND REFOLDS the orange Hank’s Hoagies T-shirt in his lap. My mother is giving him the Look.
“You start next Saturday,” she says, sipping her tea. “Hank was quite nice. I ran into him in the mayor’s office. He was making a lunch delivery. Lovely man.”
“I just feel like it’s too soon,” Joey says hesitantly. “I mean, I just started back at school and I have outpatient and stuff.”
“Yeah, Mom, he’s only been back at school for two weeks. That’s…too much,” I say.
My mother swivels her head to me. “He signed a contract, Emory. He needs to focus. He doesn’t need free time.”
I drop my head back to the book in my lap. What did the Blue Spruce handbook say? It’s important for some patients in recovery to keep a tight schedule, to know where and when and what they will be doing. Others may need more breathing room and respite. Recovery is not one size fits all, but it is always one step at a time. The thing is, Joey just got back, and I’m not sure which of these he should do. Fill his days with school and then stuff white bread full of oily deli meats? Or stick to homework and free time, where he can think about getting healthy? It just seems like my mother is throwing all possible Joeys at him at once. It’s making even me anxious.
“I’m going to make sandwiches?” Joey says. A flurry of red is creeping up his neck. I feel sorry that he doesn’t have his long hair to cover it anymore.
“Yes. And run the counter. All those things.” My mother waves her fingers. “It will give you a sense of pride. Everyone needs a first job. I worked in the library during college. I loved it.”
Joey’s jaw is clenched. I brace myself for his anger, for a fight, but then he just lets out a big sigh, so much air it ripples the leafy arugula on his plate.
“Okay,” he says finally.
Okayokayokayokayokay.
“Excellent,” my mother says, picking a radish from her plate and crunching it. “Emory can go with you sometimes, if you have to close, perhaps. She can study at a table. Hank was fine with that.”
I raise my eyes. “I don’t want to hang out at a hoagie shop.”
What I’m really thinking is, I need to be here, in case Gage texts. Because he’s my thing. He’s my own personal recovery from the hell of last year and this past summer.