“DUI?” he guessed, though it didn’t take any particular detective skills.
“What else? Third one in four months.” She swore again. “It’s like he’s been on one long bender since he lost his job.”
Marcus was the brother just younger than he was, with barely two years between them. He was also the Emmett brother who seemed determined to follow in their father’s wobbly, drunk-off-his-ass footsteps.
Until a few months earlier, things had been going well for Marcus. Though his brother had only graduated high school by the skin of his teeth, he immediately moved to Boise and went to work in construction and eventually made a good living driving a cement truck.
He and Christy had a rocky start, marrying young after she got pregnant, but seemed to be making things work and had even added a few more kids to the mix.
Earlier in the year, Marcus’s company had run into financial trouble and he was laid off and everything seemed to implode.
“I can’t do this anymore, Cade. I just can’t,” Christy said. Her voice wavered and he could hear the tears just below the surface. “When he’s here, he just mopes around doing nothing but snapping at me and the kids.”
“Being unemployed is tough on a guy like Marc, who’s used to taking care of his family.”
“I get that. Believe me, I get it. But instead of going out to find another job, he goes out and buys more booze. What is wrong with him?”
Cade didn’t know how to answer. Christy wanted him to fix his brother. He felt as if he’d spent his entire life trying to duct-tape together the jagged pieces of his broken family in one way or another. Hell of a lot of good that had done over the years. He hadn’t been able to prevent his mom from getting sick when he was eleven and he couldn’t keep anybody else out of the hot mess of trouble they always seemed to land in.
“What do you need from me?” he asked.
“How about a phone number for a good divorce attorney?” she countered.
That would be a disaster for their three kids, who adored their father. On the other hand, living with an unreliable, unstable, angry drunk wasn’t a great alternative.
“I can’t help you there, Christy. He might be an ass but he’s still my brother. He would be devastated to lose his family. You know he loves you.”
“Does he? Really? He’s losing his family right now. He’s just too plastered to notice!”
Was she only calling to complain or did she really think he had some power to change his brother’s behavior? He couldn’t decades ago when they were kids. He certainly couldn’t now.
“I’m not bailing him out this time,” Christy went on. “I’m dead serious. I’m working my fingers to the bone, trying to keep food in my kids’ mouths and shoes on their feet. I’m not going to use my hard-earned money to bail him out of jail one more time. As far as I’m concerned, he can rot in there.”
Maybe that would be the wake-up call his brother needed, the stimulus to get off his butt and make a change. Or maybe Marcus would perceive Christy’s inaction as proof she didn’t love him, which might send him slipping further into the depression that seemed to have caught hold.
“I understand where you’re coming from.”
“Do you?”
Yes. Hell, yes. After his mother died, Cade had tried his best to help his father but had finally had to accept his father loved Johnnie Walker far more than he could ever love his sons.
Marcus wasn’t Walter. He was a good man going through a rough stretch.
“I can try to talk to him, see if I can convince him to go into rehab.”
Christy paused and he heard more sniffling on the line. “Don’t you think I’ve tried that? Only about a thousand times. He won’t listen.”
“It’s worth a shot.”
“Maybe you’ll have better luck. He respects you more than any other man he knows.”
“I can’t make any promises,” he warned. “Any change has to come from him.”
“I appreciate the effort anyway. You’ve been a good brother to him.”
He would beg to disagree. A good brother would have been better at keeping his siblings out of trouble.
“It might be a few days before I can get over there. I’ve got to work double shifts for a while since I’m short an officer this week.” He grimaced at the reminder of Wynona Bailey and her foolhardy stubbornness.
“That’s fine with me. Let him stay in there and stew about the mess he’s created.”
“I should be able to squeeze out a few hours toward the middle of the week to drive to Boise.”
“I hope you can talk sense into his hard head.”
“So do I.”
She was silent for a moment and he heard more sniffling on the line and a muffled sob. “Why does he have to make it so hard to love him?” she finally burst out.
If his brother had been there, Cade would have had no problem pounding him, badge or no badge. Idiot. He had a good thing going. A wife who loved him, kids who needed him. Why would he throw all that away?
Cade’s own beer—the bottle from the single six-pack he allowed himself per week—suddenly tasted flat and bitter.
None of them had been given much of a chance, with an abusive drunk for a father and a weak mother who didn’t take care of herself and ended up with liver disease because of it.
With such a screwed-up childhood, it was a wonder Marcus had been able to maintain a good relationship with Christy all these years.
“You take good care of yourself and those kids.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do. But you know Marcus won’t see it that way.”
He feared she was right. “Do you need help with bills?” he finally asked quietly.
Christy was silent for a long, awkward moment. “You’ve done more than enough, Cade.”
He didn’t mention to her that Marcus had come to him asking for help paying the mortgage the last few months. He had a feeling she knew and was too proud and stubborn to ask for more.
He would send a check anyway and hope she accepted it, for the kids’ sake. Losing their home wouldn’t help the situation right now.
“I’ll talk to you later in the week to see how things are going,” he said.
“Thanks, Cade. I didn’t know what else to do but to call you. I needed to vent to someone else who loves that idiot as much as I do.”
“I’ll do what I can,” he promised.
After they said goodbye, he leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, exhausted suddenly from the crazy day. Marcus and his latest DUI seemed like just one more thing he couldn’t fix.
The world was filled with problems he couldn’t solve, which sometimes seriously sucked.
The doorbell rang while he was still trying to figure out how he could slip Christy the extra money for her mortgage—which happened to be the one problem he could remedy.
He might get to that steak at some point that evening, but he was beginning to wonder.
“Coming,” he called out.
He headed to the front door and pulled it open. All thoughts of Marcus and Christy, DUIs and mortgages, flew completely out of his head.
Wynona Bailey stood on his doorstep with her wheat-colored hair pulled