Starting Over (Treading Water Trilogy) Read online

  “Brandon?” she said, her inquisitive pale blue eyes trained on him.

  Dr. “Call me Sondra” Walker-Smith was a babe. The big diamond she wore on her left hand said she was someone else’s babe, but that didn’t stop Brandon from feasting his eyes on the best-looking woman he’d seen in longer than he could remember.

  “What?” he asked sullenly. Even for her, he couldn’t pretend he was happy to be there.

  “Nothing to say today?”

  He shrugged.

  “How’s group going?” she asked with a sigh.

  “Bunch of cry-babies. I’ve never seen so many tears in my life. It’s pathetic.”

  “Most people think crying is cathartic. Don’t you cry?”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  “Not that I can recall.”

  “Surely there had to have been something in your life that’s moved you tears.”

  Just one thing, but you’re not getting that out of me. No way. “No.”

  “Hmm.” Sondra stroked her chin and sized him up, her gaze full of wisdom, as if she had all the answers and wasn’t about to share them with him. “You’ve told me about your family, but you haven’t spoken of any other relationships. Have you ever been in love?”

  Brandon hadn’t seen that one coming and kept his face neutral to hide the burst of pain that exploded inside of him. He never had learned how to brace himself for it. More than any time in the last week, he wished for a drink—something—anything—to dull the pain.

  “Brandon?”

  “No. I’ve never been in love.” His expression dared her to challenge him.

  “You know, if you lie to me, you lie to yourself.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “You’re thirty-eight years old, a reasonably good-looking guy, and you’re going to tell me you’ve never had feelings for a woman? Or a man?”

  He laughed. “I’m not gay, so you can cross that off your list of issues to explore with me.”

  She smiled. “There’s no list.”

  “So I’m only reasonably good-looking? That’s somewhat disappointing.”

  “He has a sense of humor. Another facet is revealed.”

  “I’m very complicated,” he said with mock seriousness, enjoying the banter despite his desire to stay detached. He’d forgotten how much fun it could be to go a few rounds with a hot-looking woman.

  “Part of our treatment program involves our patients’ families,” Sondra said, changing gears on him. “People come to us at different points in their addictions. Some are so weary and so tired of being ruled by their demons that they immerse themselves in the program and commit fully to their recovery. Others, for whatever reason, resist. They’re not ready to admit they’re powerless over drugs or alcohol, they don’t see their lives as unmanageable, they don’t think they need help. They see themselves as victims of a conspiracy by disgruntled family members.”

  “Gee, which group do I fall into?” Brandon asked with a smirk.

  “I think you know.”

  “So are those of us in Group B untreatable?”

  “Far from it. They just take a little more convincing.” She got up to retrieve a pile of paper from her desk.

  “What’s that?”

  “Letters.”

  “From?”

  She sat back down across from him. “Your family.”

  Something that felt an awful lot like fear twisted in Brandon’s gut. He wanted to get up and leave but was frozen to his chair. “I don’t want to read them.”

  “Then I’ll read them to you. Where shall I start? I have letters from your brothers, your sister, your parents, and your ex-girlfriend Valerie.”

  Brandon exhaled a long deep breath and finally managed to push himself out of the chair. He had reached the door before she spoke.

  “Brandon.”

  He turned around and was stunned to find steel in her usually compassionate eyes.

  “Sit down.”

  He held her gaze until he realized she wasn’t going to let him escape. She wasn’t his mother, his father, his sister, or any of his brothers. She didn’t love him and wouldn’t make excuses for him. This woman had nothing to lose by playing hardball with him. When he couldn’t bear the disappointment on her pretty face any longer, he returned to his seat.

  “We’ll start with your brother Declan. What’s the age difference between you?”

  Brandon cleared his throat and took another deep breath in an attempt to slow his racing heart. “He’s three years younger than me.”

  “Are you close?”

  Brandon shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Maybe you used to be?”

  He looked down to study one of the old Nikes at the end of his long, denim-clad leg.

  “Dear Brand,” she began. “I hope you’re doing all right in there. Colin said it’s a nice place, and I hope they can help you. When you get back, I want us to go fishing like we used to. Remember how we’d go out all afternoon and then fry what we caught on the beach? Those were some of my favorite times with you. Why did we stop going fishing?

  “When we were kids, everyone thought of me and Colin as a pair and you and Aidan as a pair. I guess that was because you and Aid came first and looked alike, and I looked like Col. But to tell you the truth, Brand, I always liked being with you the best. I used to love going to your swim meets when you would totally kick ass, and I’d get to say: that’s my brother! You tried to teach me how to swim like you did, but I wasn’t born with whatever it was you had. None of us were.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about this drinking thing of yours, trying to figure out when it got so out of control. I can’t really decide when it happened. All I know is when I watched you almost drop that load of gravel on Simms and Lewis (and couldn’t get there in time to stop it), I knew we couldn’t ignore it any longer. Then Da had the heart attack, and the whole thing with Clare happened. Well, I guess Aidan and Colin saw to it that you got the help you need. Please get better, Brand. I miss my fishing buddy. I love you. Dec.”

  Brandon sat riveted to his seat and struggled against the tears he claimed to never shed.

  “This one’s from Valerie.” Sondra moved on without skipping a beat. “Dear Brandon, When Colin called to tell me you were in treatment I was so relieved I cried all day. Even though I’m happily married now with a little girl and another baby on the way, I still think of you almost every day. I loved you so very much, and leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But after five years of hoping you’d one day love me even half as much as I loved you, I couldn’t put your needs ahead of my own any longer.

  “You always kept me at arm’s length, and no matter what I did, I could never penetrate that wall you keep around your heart. The four years we lived together were some of the happiest and most difficult years of my life. When I think of you, I remember the nights we’d make dinner and then snuggle together on the sofa to watch a movie. I don’t think I’ve ever been as content as I was at those times. But then you’d disappear for two or three days, and I’d be terrified that something had happened to you. I reached a point where I couldn’t live like that anymore, but that doesn’t mean I stopped loving you. I hope you know that.

  “Somewhere deep inside of you, there’s a source of pain that keeps you from giving yourself fully to another person. I think you drink to dull the pain so you can pretend to live a real life. You know as well as I do that it doesn’t work. Do yourself and everyone who loves you a big favor, Brandon. Take down that wall around your heart, and get the help you need. Find the Brandon we all know is in there and let him out. I will love you and miss you for the rest of my life. And I’ll pray you get well and find it in you to give away the love I know you have inside of you. I’ll always be sorry you couldn’t give it to me. Take good care of yourself. Love, Valerie.”

  Tears ran unchecked down Brandon’s cheeks, but he didn’t notice as he stared out the window.

  Sondra continued wi
th an almost relentless determination. “This one’s from Aidan. Dear Brandon,” she read. “This isn’t a good time for me to be writing to you, but Colin said it’s part of the program, so here goes. I’m so furious with you that I seriously wonder if I’ll ever be able to forgive you for what you did to Clare.

  “I haven’t told any of you the whole story of what she’d been through before I met her. I’ve already told you and Colin that she was raped. What I didn’t mention is the guy who did it said if she told anyone he’d kill one of her kids. She has three beautiful daughters, and keeping them safe was her only concern, so she told no one. Not even her husband. She was hit by a car a few months later. Her daughters said she let the car hit her on purpose, but no one could understand why she would do that. She was in a coma for three years after the accident. A few months after she recovered, she realized she’d let the car hit her because she couldn’t live anymore with what’d happened.

  “It hasn’t even been a year since she recovered to find her husband of twenty years had fallen in love with someone else and was expecting twins with her. Clare came to Vermont looking for some peace after the hell she’d been through. That’s when I was lucky enough to meet her. She hasn’t even been able to work up the courage to tell me all this yet. Her daughters told me. I’m hoping one day she’ll be able to tell me herself, but even if she never does, I don’t care.

  “I love her. For the first time since I lost Sarah and the baby, I’ve found someone who fills the empty spaces inside of me. For ten long years, I walked around like a zombie, and the day I met Clare, I felt better. It happened that fast. I wanted you to know, really know, the woman you backed into a corner and terrorized in Mum’s kitchen.

  “You’ve done damage, Brandon, real, serious damage—to her and to your relationship with me. Not that you probably care about the latter. We haven’t exactly been close since we were kids, have we? I don’t remember when it happened, but you suddenly stopped wanting to hang out with me the way we used to. Why was that? What happened to the closeness we’d always shared? I’ve never understood it, but now I’m not even sure I care. I do hope you get better, though, because I can’t stand the way your illness (and it is an illness—I believe that) affects Mum and Da. Think about them and accept the help I’m sure you’re resisting. Do it for them. Aidan.”

  Sondra folded Aidan’s letter and put it at the bottom of the pile. “How do you feel?”

  Aidan’s letter had dried up Brandon’s tears. “Great.”

  “It’s a lot to swallow all at once.”

  “You’re on a roll. Why stop now?”

  “Let’s talk about some of what they said. I think we could spend a whole session on Aidan’s letter, but first I want to know if Valerie is right. Do you have a secret source of pain inside of you?”

  He’d carried the pain around for so long he didn’t even recognize it as pain anymore. It was just a part of him. “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

  “You didn’t love her?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “How did you feel when she left?”

  Should I admit she was gone for two weeks before I even noticed? “Things between us had gone downhill in the months before she left. I wasn’t surprised when she finally moved out.”

  “You didn’t care at all that your girlfriend of five years had left you?”

  Brandon decided to be honest for once. “No. I didn’t care. I liked her—a lot. But I never loved her.”

  “Did you tell her you did?”

  “No. I’ve never said that to anyone, because I’ve never felt it. I don’t believe in saying something I don’t feel.”

  “She must’ve loved you an awful lot to stay with you for five years without ever hearing the words in return.”

  He shrugged with indifference.

  “Were you ever sorry you couldn’t love her?”

  “All the time. She’s a terrific girl, and she deserved better than what she got from me. I’m glad she found a nice guy to marry and have kids with. She always wanted kids.”

  “Do you?”

  “What?”

  “Want kids?”

  “Not really. I’m not much of a kid person. I have three nieces and two nephews, but they don’t like me very much.”

  Sondra shifted through the pile of letters. “Want to know why? I have your sister Erin’s letter right here.”

  Brandon was hit with another sharp stab of fear.

  “Hi Brandon,” Sondra read from Erin’s letter. “How are you holding up? I hate that we can’t have any contact with you for the first ten days. We all hope you’re hanging in there—and getting better. Oh, Brand, how did this happen? It makes me so sad to see what a mess you’ve made of your once-promising life. You had it all—athletic ability the rest of us could only marvel at, great grades, and every girl in school falling at your feet. Where has that boy gone?

  “You’re so angry all the time that my kids are afraid of you. I know that’s a terrible thing to tell you, but you need to know it. You make them nervous, so I keep them away from you. On the other hand, Colin and Dec babysit for me all the time. Did you know that?

  “I’ve been blessed with a wonderful husband (who truly likes you, by the way) and five amazing kids you barely know. My hope for you is that you find a way to live without alcohol so I can bring you into my children’s lives. I want it for you as much as I want it for them. I want my big brother back. I love you with all my heart. Erin.”

  Brandon leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and shook with sobs.

  “I’ll let you take your parents’ letters for when you’re ready to read them, but there’s one more I want you to hear now.”

  He wiped his face. “I’ve heard enough. If you want me to admit I’m an alcoholic, then I’ll do it. I won’t argue anymore. That’s what you want to hear, right?”

  “It’s not about what I want, Brandon. It’s about you finding the truth within yourself. It’s about step one, admitting you’re powerless over alcohol and your life has become unmanageable, and step four: the fearless and searching personal inventory. You need to hear this last letter. It’s from Colin.”

  Brandon kept his elbows on his knees and his head bent.

  “Dear Brandon, I’ll cut to the chase and keep this short and sweet. Da’s been paying your mortgage for the last year because you never got around to it, and the bank was going to take your house. Mum has cleaned your house for years and does your laundry. If you’re wondering where all your secret stashes of booze disappear to, she can tell you.

  “I’ve paid your bar tab more times than I can count and bailed you out of jail twice—once for a fight you had at Louie’s and another time for public drunkenness. Da made the charges go away both times, so you didn’t even know about them. Declan has taken it upon himself to cover your ass at work—so often that you would’ve been fired a long time ago if you didn’t work for your father. So you see, I blame us as much as I blame you. We’ve created an environment where it’s possible for you to be a drunk—a falling-down, irresponsible, dangerous drunk.

  “But we’re done now. You’re going to have to keep your life straight on your own from now on. While you’re in there, you might want to get sober so you can handle the responsibilities of an adult life. I love you as much as I love anyone in this world, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. But our efforts to clean up your messes have helped you to create an even bigger one. You can lean on me, you can call on me, and you can count on me. Always. As long as you stay sober. Colin.”

  Brandon was reeling. How could all of this have happened without him knowing about it? How much money did he owe his father? Thousands. How much did he owe Colin for posting his bail? Twice? He’d been arrested twice? Jesus Christ, Brandon thought as he frantically tried to process Colin’s letter. He had no memory of it—any of it. How many days, weeks, months of his life had been lost to alcohol-fueled blackouts? Nothing in the other letters had hit him
quite as hard as Colin’s cold assessment of how his drinking had affected the rest of his family. He looked up to find Sondra waiting for him.

  “Are you all right?”

  He shook his head. “No,” he said softly. “No, I’m not all right.”

  “We can fix it, Brandon. We can help you, but first you have to help yourself. You have to take the first step.”

  Understanding settled over him like a warm blanket, giving him the courage he needed. “My name is Brandon,” he said haltingly. “And I’m an alcoholic.”