Georgie, All Along (81)

I knew, and I brought him with me anyway.

Later, I realized, it maybe was its own vengeance of a sort. I wanted to show my dad more than me with a steady job, living on my own, out from under his thumb. I wanted to show him what crowd he’d gotten me into, sending me to that place. I wanted to show him how far outside of his circles I’d gotten.

I didn’t think about anything else. Anyone else.

I roll down my window, let the cool night air and the breeze off the river calm me. I want to get the next part over with, and quick.

“I didn’t call ahead or anything. I showed up with this guy, and I could tell my dad didn’t like it, and that meant I did. I drank too much, because I could, because I was legal and he couldn’t stop me, and because I knew it’d make him mad.”

I pause, a short, humorless laugh caught in my throat. “Our pastor was there. I thought that was a real opportunity, embarrassing him in front of a church person.”

“Levi,” she says, sympathy in her voice, and I shake my head again.

“I told you before. I own it.”

And I own this next part, too.

“I was in the bathroom, digging a pill out of my pocket, because I was drowsy from all the wine I’d had. And then—” I swallow again. “I heard this awful racket, glass breaking and my sister screaming, my dad shouting. A good few seconds, I froze. Too fucked up to move quick.”

For all the chaos that happened after, I remember that moment in the bathroom the clearest, for some reason. The glass soap dispenser, the hand towels that had pumpkins and fall leaves embroidered on them, the mirror free of chips and streaks. I’d never noticed any of that before. This is such a nice bathroom, I was thinking, trying to get a hold of that pill.

“Evan found Danny on the back deck,” I say, wishing I could make my voice harsh enough for this, the worst thing I ever did to my family. “He had a handgun. He was showing it to Olivia.”

“Oh, Levi,” Georgie whispers.

“Evan went after him, eventually shoved him through the back window. Broke his own collarbone while he was at it, which is why he didn’t play the second half of his first college football season. Pretty sure he never played again. Danny got all cut up from the glass, so there was blood everywhere in the house. Olivia got sick when she saw it.”

She’d looked so young. She’d looked terrified. And Evan—all that anger on his face, and Danny’s blood on his shirt.

He’d looked like me.

You are a poison to this family.

“That night, my dad told me he didn’t want me around anymore. Not around the house, around the inn, around him or my mother. But especially not around Ev and Liv.”

If they contact you, ignore them, he’d said. Or I will cut them out, too.

“He can’t still feel that way,” she says.

“Georgie. I could’ve gotten my sister killed. I could’ve gotten my brother killed. That gun was loaded.”

“But—”

“No,” I say, firm and hard, because there’s no excusing it. “No.”

She goes quiet again.

“I wasn’t sober enough to drive home, obviously. I don’t know if Danny was, but he did anyway. I walked for hours that night, and then I passed out in what I thought was the middle of nowhere.” I nod out the windshield. “But it was roundabout there, where my dock is. Carlos found me the next morning.”

Everything after that, I’ll tell her about, too, if she wants to know it. The way Carlos took me in and cleaned me up, the way he gave me work that kept my hands busy and my body near the water, the way he got me going to therapy, eventually.

But I’m running out of energy—the comedown after a rush of something intense and unexpected. I’m grateful that she doesn’t ask me anything else about that time where I was getting straightened out, even if it means she’s over there thinking this isn’t enough of an explanation for the way I acted tonight.

“If I’d done everything my father wanted, I would’ve left here and not come back. But I built my life back here, and I’m sure he hates that enough. The least I can do is keep away from Ev and Liv. Not because he told me to, but because it’s the right thing to do for both of them. I know that makes things hard for you, Georgie, with your job—”

“Seriously?” she yells.

I look over at her, surprised. This doesn’t strike me as a yelling kind of story, but maybe I’m too close to it.

“I don’t care about my job, Levi!” She blinks when she says it, as if she’s surprised herself, but it’s only a split second before she moves on. “Your dad is . . . he is terrible.”

I’m not going to argue with her. He is terrible, or at least he always was to me, and I don’t have to forgive him for the things he did that made my life harder. But also, I know who I was back then, and he was trying to pro—

“I’d like to tell him what I think about his parenting!” she says, because I guess she’s decided I’m good and done talking for awhile. “What an awful thing to do to a person—your son!—who was in trouble! And also!” She sort of . . . points at the air. “Your brother and sister should know it was an awful thing to do!”

“It isn’t their fault.”

“Well, it isn’t yours, either!”