He shakes his head back and forth.
“Joey,” I say. I slide my hand into his jacket pocket, curl my fingers around his. “It’s okay. It’s all right.”
“I didn’t want you to see me like this. Never,” he says.
“I don’t mind.”
“I let you down.”
“No,” I say firmly. “No. Never.”
His fingers, ever so slightly, tighten around mine in his pocket.
“I’m tired,” he says.
“Me too.”
“I read…your stuff. I just want you to know that. Luther showed me.”
He starts to cry, his head falling against my shoulder. Inside my jacket pocket, I feel my phone ping. It has to be Dad. He should probably not come into the house. I angle my head to Daniel and then to my pocket. He comes over and bends down, slides the phone out, very easy, like Joey is something that shouldn’t be startled. My dad, I mouth, shake my head.
Daniel nods, starts texting as he moves back to the doorway.
Joey lifts his head and looks at the flat-screen. “Crypto,” he says. “I used to love playing as Crypto, with Luther.”
“I remember,” I say gently.
There’s a long silence.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Joey whispers, his voice ragged. “I just can’t stop.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” I say. “You…need some help, is all.”
“I don’t…I don’t know how to live.” He sighs deeply, his breath troubled. “Emmy, help me. Oh, god, help me.”
“Okay, Joey,” I say. “I can do that. I can do that.”
I stand up, pulling him gently to his feet, lacing my arm through his. Max gets up from the couch and follows us down the hallway. Joey is heavy against my body. Daniel takes his other arm.
Outside, Dad is waiting at the end of the walkway, in the freezing air, on his phone. He shoves it in his pocket when he sees us.
All the air goes out of Joey when he sees our dad. Daniel and I catch him before he falls.
Dad rushes up to us. “It’s all right, son. It’s all right now,” he says. “I’m here, and I’m not mad. I’m not mad at you, Joe. I love you. But let me see if you’re all right, okay?”
My dad is crying silently, squinting back his tears as he opens the back door to his car, helps me set Joey inside. He picks up his medical bag from the car floor and starts checking Joey’s eyes, his blood pressure. He’s talking to him in a smooth, gentle voice. Do you want help, Joey? Let us help you. Joey keeps his eyes on my face as he nods slowly.
I feel like I don’t want to breathe, because at any moment, any noise, anything at all, could suddenly make Joey come to, run, leave us again.
Daniel is squeezing my hand.
My dad stands up and walks over to us. “He doesn’t need the hospital. His vitals are slow but steady. I made some calls before I came. There’s an open bed in a facility about three hours from here. Your mother will meet us there.”
He takes a deep breath. “Emory, anything could happen on the drive, even when we get there. He may change his mind. And he can. He’s an adult. Do you understand that?”
I nod.
“It means if while we’re driving and he changes his mind, we might have to let him go. It means even if he agrees to sign himself into the facility, he can still leave at any time, because he’s an adult. We just…”
He falters. “This isn’t a thing we can control, Emory. All we can do is try to help, do you understand?”
I think about when Shadow told me that sometimes it’s just the beginning and it will happen again and again. Relapsing. And sometimes it works for a long time, until it doesn’t.
It’s a very long road without an end. I can see it stretching out before me.
Slowly, I nod again. “I get it, Dad. I get it.”
My dad turns back to the car and tucks Joey’s legs in, shuts the door, and goes around to the driver’s seat. He turns the car on.
Daniel faces me.
“This is good,” he says. “Text me what happens. I’ll think good thoughts. Good god, you’re shaking like a leaf.”
He unwraps his scarf and carefully winds it around my neck, tucking the ends into my jacket.
The scar around his neck is long and pinkish, like someone drew a very thin necklace across his skin. I touch it gently. Daniel doesn’t flinch.
“It’s okay to be afraid,” he says. “I have your back.”
He kisses me softly, and I walk around the car and open the door.
I fasten my brother’s seat belt and then my own. My father turns the car around and drives down Bolton, away from the beat-up house.
“I let you down,” Joey says quietly.
My father glances in the rearview.
“I let you down, Joey,” he says. “I won’t do that again.”
* * *
—
I think he’s sleeping because his eyes have drifted closed, the lights from the highway grainy as they flash by the windows, and I almost don’t hear him when he speaks, his voice is so soft.
“I knew, Emmy,” he says. “When I saw Max, I knew.”
“Knew what, Joey?”
“That he would call you. And I felt grateful. And that’s why I stayed. I knew you would come for me. I just wish…you didn’t have to see me like this, but there’s no other way.”
“I’ll always come for you, Joey.”
And I will, forever and ever. I take his hand.
“I wouldn’t do this if I wasn’t high. I’d never be brave enough if I wasn’t fucked up. That’s so fucked up and shitty, but it’s true. I have to be messed up just to be brave enough to go get better.”
He heaves a sigh so large I’m afraid it will break his body apart.
“I don’t want to live this life anymore,” my brother says.
I pull the scarf up over my mouth so he can’t hear me cry.
* * *
—
There’s a wheelchair waiting outside Ridgecrest and what looks like a nurse and two counselor-type people in front of huge glass doors. The light from inside is so bright it hurts my eyes to look at it.
My mother is with them. She starts to cry when she sees us pull up.
She doesn’t say anything when my dad helps Joey out of the car. She just wraps him in her arms, tightly.
When she’s done, one of the counselors, a gentle-looking old man, says, “I’m Barry. Are you ready to go inside, Joe?”
My brother doesn’t say anything for a long time. I’m afraid he’s going to do what my dad said. Change his mind. Run. Walk away.
“What’s going to happen?” he asks.
“We’ll get you rested,” the counselor says. “In detox for a week or so, then general, and then we’ll see. We’ll go very slowly, Joe. Does that sound all right to you?”
We wait, my mother gripping my arm.
“Yes,” my brother says finally. “But I don’t need that.” He gestures to the wheelchair.
He begins walking.
We follow my brother into the bright light.
Emory Ward
American Classics
December 21, 2020
The Portrait of a Lady
Dear Mr. Watson,