Wildfire (Maple Hills 2)

MY RINGING PHONE INTERRUPTS MY running playlist for what feels like the millionth time in the past hour and my brother has officially irritated me to the point that I’m willing to answer just to tell him to stop fucking calling me.

“What do you want, Ethan?” My loud voice is a jarring addition to the tranquil Honey Acres morning. The horses grazing in the field beside my running route look at me wild-eyed, letting out a displeased neigh before scampering away from the fence line, spooked.

The best part about this place is the terrible reception, but there are certain patches that have pockets of service just long enough for my family to invade my peace.

“You’re a piece of shit for never answering anyone’s calls.” It’s a strong start, not unexpected. “You need to fucking grow up.”

No matter where I am, no matter what I’m doing or how closely I follow the rules and pray that it’ll be enough, the universe finds a way to humble me.

“What do you want, Ethan?” I ask again, the frustration from earlier diluted by the prickle of his words.

“Dad is in the hospital. Mom’s asking for you; she wants you there. So stop burying your head in the sand and pretending you’re not part of this family, like a selfish prick, and support her.”

You’d expect my reaction to finding out my dad is in the hospital to be more emotional, but my first thought is I wonder how he landed himself in that situation. I’ve been here before, so it’s not much of a surprise: When he pawned Mom’s jewelry and the guilt made him drink so much he needed to get his stomach pumped. When he was in a fight at a casino and ended up needing stitches. When he crashed his car, but swore he hadn’t been drinking.

“I can’t. I’m working.”

“Grow the fuck up,” he says harshly. “If you don’t get your ass on the road in the next hour, I’m going to come to that camp you’re at and drag you home by your hair.”

“Which state are you going to travel from to do that? You’re going to interrupt your tour for this?” Ethan and I have never had that close brotherly connection people talk about. Our seven-year age gap was too big to overcome when coupled with his never wanting to be in Dad’s verbal firing line. I’ve always been angry he left me alone, but I’m not sure I would have made a different choice if I were the older one.

“I’m in San Francisco right now. I’m not bluffing, Russ. Ignoring your phone isn’t going to work this time. Show up for your family. You don’t get to bow out because shit’s difficult sometimes.”

I don’t know whether to laugh or scream. I want to tell him that bowing out is exactly what he did to me when he moved across the country and left me to navigate everything alone. Ethan says I’m stubborn and closed-minded. That I don’t truly understand what it’s like to deal with an illness so corrosive and that he understands better than I do because he’s in the music industry.

He told me once that he has more memories of when things were good and that’s why he isn’t as angry as me. It’s easy to say you understand and you’re not angry when you’re on the other side of the country most of the year.

“I don’t want to talk to him, Ethan. You don’t get it. He’s so unpredictable. He can be nice as pie or he’s awful and I hate it.”

“He’s sedated. Do it for Mom, Russ. It isn’t her fault.”

“Fine,” I snap. “I’ll see you later. You’ll be there, right?”

“You’re doing the right thing. Drive safe, little brother.”

The familiar sense of dread fuels my run back to my cabin. It’s early so there’s nobody around and the kids won’t be awake yet. Xander did the night shift, so he’s in the Brown Bears cabin with Maya and I don’t want to risk going in to explain.

After a quick shower, I throw a few things into a backpack and head toward the main building. It takes five minutes for me to work up the courage to knock on the door for the overnight leader’s door. Jenna is half asleep when she pulls the door open and I’m standing there, backpack slung over my shoulder. “I’m really sorry to wake you up,” I say when I can’t find the words to explain why I’m going.

“Don’t worry about it. Is everything okay?” she says carefully.

I wipe my sweating hands against my shorts and force myself to focus. “If I tell you something, will it stay private? Because you’re my boss?”

She nods slowly, tightening her dressing gown around her waist and leaning against the doorframe. “It can stay confidential if you need it to. As long as it’s not a safeguarding issue. What’s happened, Russ?”

“My dad is in the hospital and I need to go home for a day or two. I can work back the missed shifts or something. I’m really sorry, Jenna. Is that okay?”

“Oh my God. Of course it’s okay. Are you okay to drive? Is home far for you? I’m so sorry! What’s happened?”

That’s the moment it occurs to me I was so busy arguing with Ethan that I didn’t even ask. When there’s always something, sometimes asking about specifics gets lost in my order of priorities. I’d feel bad, but I could probably think up a handful of scenarios and be close to the real reason.

“No, my parents don’t live far from Maple Hills. But I don’t really like to talk about my family, is it okay if this just stays between us? I’d rather the team don’t know I’m going to the hospital.”

She nods and I instantly feel better.

“Can you just tell them there’s a personal emergency or something? But that I’m okay. I don’t want anyone to worry.” It’s not that I don’t want my fellow counselors not to know I’m going back to Maple Hills, but there are tons of excuses I can come up with that don’t involve my dad being the topic of conversation.

“Sure thing. I hope your dad is better soon. If you’re going to be any longer than two days, can you call me?”

“Yeah I’ll call, but I’ll definitely be back soon. Thanks, Jenna.”

MY STOMACH SINKS THE SECOND I see Maple Hills appear on the highway signs, and now that I’m taking the exit, I’m not sure it’s even still in my body.

The gas station coffee I’ve been sipping on is burned and bitter, the perfect representation of how I feel right now. I ignore the signs I normally take to campus, instead following the ones toward the hospital.

As the building comes into view, I consider that I could turn around now, turn my phone off, head back to Honey Acres, and play pretend. I want to run away from this, not have whatever conversation I’m about to have, avoid the people I work so hard not to speak to—but I don’t. I park my truck in the short-stay lot, like the action alone will manifest a quick visit and I’ll be able to head back to a life I’m actually starting to love.

I spot Mom before she notices me in the family waiting area. She looks more tired than the last time I saw her, whenever that was. Four months ago? Five? The bags under her eyes are dark and striking against her pale skin, her hair grayer, face more gaunt. She’s clinging to the coffee cup between her hands as she stares into the distance, and once again I’m wondering if I should turn around and leave.

My feet keep carrying me forward until I’m standing in front of her. No part of me on the long-ass drive here considered that I’d have to say something when I arrived, and now that I’m facing her, I don’t know how to start.

She doesn’t say anything as she stands, throwing her arms around me. With her face buried in my chest, she begins to sob.

“What happened?” I ask, keeping my voice steady.

“He’d offered to pick up some groceries for dinner and he was hit by a drunk driver,” Mom says, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

“He was hit? Was he drunk, too?”

“No! He wasn’t!” She sounds appalled, like it’s totally unbelievable I could ever suspect he might be in the wrong. She gives me a full play-by-play and I know from where the crash happened that he was on his way home from the track. There isn’t a grocery store near that intersection. “You can go in and talk to him in a minute, the doctor shouldn’t be much longer.”

“Talk to him? Ethan said he’s unconscious. Also, where is Ethan?”

“He was unconscious but now he’s awake. And your brother is on tour somewhere in the Midwest I think. Why? Did you think he was here?”

I’m going to strangle Ethan the next time I see him.

“I don’t want to talk to him, Mom. I don’t want to be here.”

She sighs and takes a seat, gesturing for me to do the same. There’s no one else with us in the room and I’ve never wanted to be surrounded by strangers more than I do right now. “You need to move past this delayed teenage rebellion phase, Russ. I don’t know what to do with you. You’re an adult but you’re part of this family, whether you like it or not. You need to start putting us first.”

I don’t realize the noise is coming from me until the chair begins to shake because I’m laughing so hard. There’s nothing funny about this situation; there’s never once been anything funny about it, but the laughter continues to bubble up until it feels like it’s choking me—and I stop. “You’ve never put me first, ever.”

“How can you say that, Russ? Have you ever gone without a meal? Without clothes you needed? Gas in the car to get you to school? And hockey practice? A roof over your head?” Her eyes water as she stares at me, waiting for me to respond. “Do you think I worked extra hours for fun? Your father is sick, Russ. You don’t turn your back on people because they’re not perfect.”

“You’re enabling him. Every time you do nothing, you’re making it worse. You know he wasn’t going to the grocery store. You know that if he was, none of us would be here right now.”

“You can’t claim to know what it means or what it takes to keep a marriage together,” she says, brushing her hands against her skirt. “When you love someone so much, you’d give your life to make them better. I really don’t think the hospital is the right place for this conversation, Russ. Let’s talk about it at home later.”

“I’m not going home. I don’t want to talk about it at all. I don’t want to be here.”

My mom has never talked so candidly about my dad’s issues before. I feel her pain in her words, even when she delivers them calmly, but it doesn’t erase mine. It’s a fight in my head where no one else can weigh in, where no one else really gets it and, really, where absolutely no one wins. Where logically I understand it’s a sickness, that it’s a disease that takes hold. That he never stood a chance and the odds were against him, which, when talking about a gambling addict, is ironic, I know. I can say that and I can understand it and mean it, but it doesn’t stop it from fucking hurting.

“Then why are you here, honey? If you don’t want to talk about what’s happening in our family, why did you come?”

I could tell her that Ethan lied to me to get me here. I could explain that the idea of him turning up at Honey Acres and making a scene in front of my new friends makes me feel physically sick. That having Aurora look at me with pity when she learns that while her dad prioritizes the billion-dollar industry he’s part of, mine prioritizes a very different kind of race track.

“I didn’t want you to be alone, but I didn’t drive four hours to fight with you,” I say, rubbing my fingers against my temples.

She reaches over, taking my hand in hers. “I wouldn’t have married him if he was a bad man. People don’t wake up one day and decide to become addicted to something. They don’t choose to hurt the people they love.”

My entire body is aching from the adrenaline of being here and I’m exhausted. Every feeling, every resentment, every sliver of hurt is on the surface like an open wound.

“Did you know he asks me for money?” I know before she opens her mouth the answer is no. She’s never had a good poker face, much like Dad, ironically. “And when I don’t give it to him, he tells me I’m a fuckup and I’m not his son.”

Tears fill her eyes instantly, but she doesn’t let them fall. “I’m so sorry, Russ.”

“He makes me feel like I don’t deserve the good things in my life.” It’s something I’ve never said out loud before and the words practically hack their way out of my mouth. “He makes me feel like no one could ever want me, because if my own dad won’t pick me over a poker game, why would someone else?”

“That’s the drink talking, the desperation. He loves you so much. We both love you so much.”

I know her words are supposed to soothe me, but all she’s doing is making more excuses for him. I don’t think she even knows she’s doing it.

“I don’t know how to fake it like you, Mom. I shouldn’t have come, I’m sorry.”

“Tell your dad how you feel.”

“Sorry?”

Mom stands, brushing herself down and fixing her hair, preparing herself to head out there and pretend things aren’t a fucking mess. “You don’t think he can get better, right? You want nothing to do with him. Us.” Her voice cracks. “So go in there and tell him how you feel. What do you have to lose?”

I’m in a daze as I walk slowly toward Dad’s room under Mom’s instructions. I’ve never talked to her so honestly before; I don’t think I’ve talked to anyone like that before. The doctor is leaving as I reach the door to Dad’s room. “Family?”

“Son.”

“Your father is very lucky,” he says, patting me on the back as he passes.

Lucky.

Dad doesn’t say anything as I enter the room and sit beside the bed. The machines he’s hooked up to beep rhythmically, letting me know that somewhere in there, there is a heart.

The silence is deafening. It makes me think of Aurora and how she’d never stand for it. She’d fill it with something ridiculous and her cheeks would flush pink and I’d watch her, soaking up every single drop of her sunshine. I wish I hadn’t answered Ethan’s call. I wish I were playing tetherball or football or something, anything, in a place where I don’t have to deal with this.

“You look like you have something to say,” Dad says, his voice hoarse. He looks like shit; he’s bruised and scratched, wires everywhere.

I have so much to say. Every bad thought I’ve ever had about myself. Every risk I didn’t take because I was scared. Every conversation I cut short, too anxious for people to see the real me. Every relationship I didn’t chase because I didn’t want to mess up and let someone down.

“You’ve broken our family and I don’t know how we can fix it.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long time, and the man I know to be angry and bitter looks small beneath the harsh hospital lights. “I know.”

“For a really long time I hoped that the dad I loved was in there somewhere, trapped, but there. I don’t think he is anymore. You’re not the man who taught me to skate or ride a bike. I don’t know you.”

“I know.”

“I’m scared to have the things I want in case I fuck them up, because you’ve made me believe I’m a fuckup—and I hate you for that. I hate you for being everywhere and nowhere all at once.”

“I understand.”

“You’re like a weed. There isn’t one aspect of my life you haven’t invaded and ruined. I couldn’t even get through the summer without you corrupting it. I don’t speak to you. I don’t even read your messages anymore and you’re just there in my head constantly.”

It comes out fast and frantic, but I mean every word and I’m pissed at myself for holding them in for so long. My chest eases with every syllable, the weight holding me down for so many years lightening.

“You deserve better, son.”

He looks so weak in the bed, listening to me vent. “Yeah. I do. So does Mom. Sort your shit out.”

Dad doesn’t shout after me as I stand and leave. My body works on autopilot, muscle memory kicking in to get me as far away from him as possible. Ethan can say I’m burying my head in the sand, but I’ve been more honest with Dad in one conversation than anyone has been with him in years. Our family is broken right now, and papering over the cracks doesn’t help any of us.

I don’t register what’s happening or where I’m going until my truck stops in front of my house on Maple Avenue. The familiarity is an immediate comfort and I decide to take a break and process before getting back on the road to camp.

The door isn’t locked when I try it, and when it swings open, the last thing I expect to find is Henry’s bare ass while he’s balls deep in someone on the living room couch.