Page 181 of Five Brothers
But he’s felt it for too long. And he feels it more than other people. Some do.
A distant knock hits a door. “Krisjen?” I hear someone call in a muffled voice. “You home?”
Aracely. I think she’s knocking on Liv’s bedroom door.
Macon startles. “Don’t …” he says. “Don’t let her see me.”
“I locked it,” I assure him.
I raise my voice. “I’m here,” I tell Aracely. “I’ll be out in a bit.”
She’s quiet, and I don’t waste my time imagining what she’s thinking about why my voice is coming from Macon’s shower.
“No rush,” she finally says, closer. “I dropped off your paycheck.”
“Thanks.”
After a moment, I hear the door downstairs close, and I probably should’ve told her to tell Mariette I was going to be late.
“Can you make it colder, please?” he asks me.
I do. I feel him draw in a big breath as I close my eyes. It’s like a waterfall in my hair.“That feels better,” he says.
His shoulders relax. I climb off, sitting down next to him in the tub.
Finally, he opens his eyes again. “Don’t tell them.”
I want to promise him that I won’t, but I’m not sure what’s right. He’s falling fast. What if he ends it and I regret not trying everything?
“I don’t want you to leave,” I say.
It’s all I know for sure.
Licking the water off his lips, he looks like he’s about to talk, but it takes a few seconds to say the words. “I …” He takes a breath. “I don’t know why I feel like this. I never did.” His tone grows a little stronger. “And that’s what shakes you, because you don’t know how to fix it.”
I know there are no magic words.
“It’s just this black cloud that hangs over you and follows,” he tells me, and I see more tears pool in his eyes. “If you’re hungry, you eat. If you’re injured, you go to a doctor. If you’re running late, you drive faster. I have a house, a healthy family, a little money in the bank, my own business, a means of supporting myself and those around me, so why do I feel like this? How do I stop it?”
Tired of fighting. Tired of problems. Tired of nothing ever changing … Tired of money. People. Themselves.He was talking about himself that day.
“And in those moments,” he continues, “I know exactly why she couldn’t hold on until Monday when she could see another doctor. She couldn’t feel like that for one more second. She just wanted it to stop. She was done.
“I want a woman. I want kids,” he tells me. “I see her in my head, Krisjen. My baby inside of her that will look just like her, and I know it as I look down into her eyes in the shower. I want it. I want it all.”
He swallows, his head bobbing a little.
“But that’s why she did it,” he says. “I know now why my mother did it. She loved us too much to let us see her weak for one more minute. She stopped being there for us long before her body died, and she just couldn’t stand being aware of that anymore. My woman is out there somewhere, and I’m going to let her find another man, because it will kill me when I fail her. I don’t want her to see this. I don’t want any of them to see this.” Tears fall, and he squeezes his eyes shut, turning away. “Just go. Please just go.”
I wipe the water from my eyes. I won’t say anything to Army or the others. Yet. He’s talking, and that’s more than he was doing fifteen minutes ago.
“My maternal grandmother killed herself, too,” I tell him. “Pills. Around the same time your mom did, now that I think of it.”
That’s when things started going downhill with my mom and my parents’ marriage.
“I was only ten, so I don’t remember much,” I say, “but what I do remember is that the family was close before she did it. My mother and her siblings saw each other all the time, spent holidays together, their children—my cousins—were all best friends. We were a family.”
He breathes normally now, the cool water hopefully helping.