Page 184 of Five Brothers

Fuck.

Music drifts up the stairs. Krisjen’s dance music. I picture her in the kitchen, dancing. My heart beats.

My feet are under me.

I rise and push down my sleep pants. Pulling on some jeans anda T-shirt, I yank open my bedroom door. I don’t pass anyone as I head down the stairs, slip on some shoes, and leave out the front door. I stand in the street for a few seconds before I veer left, toward the restaurant.

Opening the back door, I head inside the nearly empty place, finding Mariette at the kitchen counter. She’s always here early. Like me, she prefers to work in peace.

She hears me and turns, a paring knife in her hand. Then, she relaxes and returns to her work. I sit on the crates next to the freezer, my head still pounding.

I love her. Blood or not, she’s family.

She was my mom when I needed one. Not when I was five or ten or fifteen. When I was twenty-three and twenty-seven and thirty. When I realized that life only gets harder and we’re all works in progress till the day we die.

Walking over, she grabs my chin and raises it, inspecting my face.

Going back to the counter, she grabs a mug and pours in tea from a nearby kettle.

She carries it to me. “Drink it.”

I nod, taking the cup.

I sip slowly, my gulps getting bigger and bigger and thankfully, I’m keeping it down. To be honest, I never liked tea, but the warmth is soothing.

I set the empty cup down while she preps vegetables for the day. “How often are you thinking about it?” she asks.

When I don’t answer, she looks at me, and I look at her.

“Have you tried anything yet?” she presses.

I shake my head, at least giving her that.

If I’d tried anything, I wouldn’t be here.

She scoops the chopped celery into a container and places a lid on it, taking the washed carrots out of the strainer and placing them on the cutting board.

“You should talk—”

“No,” I snap.

I went to a doctor a few times, but I said more to Krisjen last night than I told that guy in three visits. He was smug and entitled, and once I made the mistake of telling him I’d been in the military, that was it. That was the easy answer to what was wrong with me, even though I admitted to feeling bad since I was a kid.

I knew there was other help out there—other doctors—but I never considered it again. I’m too busy, money is too precious, and no one in the Bay would ever trust me again if they found out. Especially the men.

So I pushed it down. I turned off my brain. Some days it wasn’t even an effort. The feelings came and went just as quickly.

Other days were hard. Now, in recent months, they’re always hard. Noise hurts my ears. Rooms feel too tight. Food tastes like sand.

“The last time I saw your mom,” Mariette tells me, “she was smiling and hugging people, and she had put on makeup and looked so good.” She smiles to herself, but then it fades. “That’s when I got scared because I knew she’d decided.” She chops one carrot after another. “She was happy because she knew it was going to be over soon.”

I wasn’t here. Army never told me that. I’d never asked what the days before were like.

“My head is a hellhole all the time.” My eyes burn, exhausted. “Maybe she thought she’d be a burden if she stayed.”

“And yet, no one is happy she’s gone.”

People might be happy if I am. Maybe not.