You'd Be Home Now (34)

“Remember when I got hurt from jumping off the roof?” he says. “They gave me these pain pills. I don’t even remember what they were, probably Percocet, but they felt so good. I felt so calm. Different. That was probably the beginning. And then I ran out, but I wanted more.”

He runs his hands along the steering wheel.

Back when Joey jumped off the roof and landed on the brick patio, it was a wet, sickening smack and his cries could be heard all over our neighborhood. He broke some ribs and his arm and lost a few teeth and spent the next few weeks in a haze on the downstairs couch, where I read to him out loud for hours, secretly pleased he was all mine, and not with Luther Leonard. I gave him his pill every four hours with crackers and an icy Sprite in a glass with a straw. My mother was worried, but I also remember she said, “At least he’s quiet.”

    I haven’t thought about that in a long time. I thought the pain pill was like aspirin, only a little stronger, and I felt important, because it was me helping my brother feel better.

And now I feel sick thinking about that, like somehow I’m to blame, giving him those pills every four hours. But what else are you supposed to do when somebody is in pain?

An ice cream truck pulls up by the park. Kids run, clumsy as puppies, parents lagging behind, digging for money in pockets and purses.

Joey sighs.

“I told Luther how good it felt to take them, like time stopped, like inside you felt calm and like nothing mattered. He wanted to try it, so he started stealing his mom’s pain pills—you know, she has that back condition, so it was real Oxy and not…not like the Percocet—and we’d split them and hang in the attic and play games till we fell asleep. He found somebody who hooked us up with weed, too, so we had something for when we didn’t have pills. Eventually, his mom caught on, but it wasn’t hard to find more. That’s one thing I think about all the time now. There’s always more somewhere. All those athletes at Heywood? When they get injured, they get pills. They’re stoked to sell them. There’s a place out on Wolf Creek Road, a house. You can buy there. Or when we went to a party at someone’s house, we’d go upstairs and raid their parents’ medicine cabinet.”

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.