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SILAS

TWO YEARS AGO—AGE TWENTY

S itting in a hospital waiting room in the middle of the night was a universal experience. At one point or another, we all end up here.

Usually, I was waiting on someone else. There was nothing to do but wait. Wait and worry.

At least I had a stale cup of coffee to keep me company.

The emergency department was overcrowded and in bad need of renovation, the pea-green paint peeling from the walls.

The longer I sat there, the more those walls closed in on me.

Harried doctors and nurses scurried by as new arrivals crowded into the space, the sharp echo of watery coughs and someone puking nearby making me reach for my headphones.

I slid them over my ears, closed my eyes, and hoped that the music would distract me.

Hope was a word I was barely clinging to at this point.

I’d repeated this trip so many times that the triage staff knew me by name.

First, it was because of my mom. She had inflammatory breast cancer six years ago.

There was an initial misdiagnosis, a clinical “error” as her doctor claimed.

When the truth of her cancer was finally brought to light, it was too late.

The disease had spread, and she died in this hospital a couple of months later.

Then there was my dad, who had a life-altering stroke eight months ago.

He was only forty-nine. I rode with him by ambulance and stayed for hours in this very room, until the attending physician told me that my father would never make a full recovery.

Dad was discharged and sent to a long-term care home and would probably be there for the rest of his life.

And now, I was back here again, this time with my younger brother, Josiah.

He was only fifteen and recently diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. His bowel flare ups had him losing blood, losing weight, and making me fear the worst.

I couldn’t lose anymore.

Not Josiah, not my dad. No more.

There was no way I could do it.

I’d been fighting like hell to keep what was left of my family.

I was twenty years old on the outside, but on the inside, I felt like a hundred.

Grief and loss made me grow up quick. When my mom passed, I skipped all the usual teenage shit—sneaking out, goofing off, getting into trouble—and became an adult overnight.

I moved through days, months, and years like a zombie, the grief gradually getting less intense, but strangely enough, no less painful.

I reminded myself that if I could survive that, I could survive anything. Josiah was depending on me.

I’d grown up here in Sutton, Vermont, and had never been anywhere else, except the occasional bus trip out of state for hockey games.

Hockey was my lifeblood, my one and only passion.

My dream was to go pro, but lately I could barely keep up with my team, never mind playing good enough for the scouts to notice.

I’d accepted admission to Sutton U, the local college, to save money, and it turned out to be the right choice, especially now that I was Josiah’s legal guardian.

He’d been through enough, and it was important that he stay in the same school with his friends.

Plus, the partial athletic scholarship I received, thanks to hockey, helped pay for some of my student bills. Some, but not all of them.

In addition to my accounting classes, weekly practice and games, I worked thirty hours a week managing Verdant Ink, a tattoo shop in Burlington.

It took me almost an hour to drive there, but the pay was good, I got to work with cool people, and they didn’t mind my sarcastic mouth.

Bonus, I got free tatts. My obsession. The pain of the needle was addictive; my way of dealing with stress and emotions I couldn’t talk about.

The loss that haunted my days and dreams. I needed release, since I had no time for a social life. Or sleep. I was always working.

Working or worrying.

Either way, I couldn’t stop. I kept chugging along like a rusty car with a bad muffler, coughing, sputtering, but still moving. And I wasn’t ready for the scrapyard yet…

Someone tapped my shoulder, startling me, and I opened my eyes, yanking off my headphones.

“Oh, hey, Cora.”

Cora was a nightshift nurse in her forties, always kind and calm despite the chaos around her. The last time I brought Josiah here she told me that she had a soft spot for my brother, saying he reminded her of her own son.

“Josiah’s resting in room 6A,” Cora said to me with a warm smile. “You’re good to go on back to stay with him for a while. He’s being admitted for the night until we can get him rehydrated.”

“Thanks,” I replied with a nod and stood up.

Being a big guy, six-four, with long hair, a beard, plus the tattoos, most people gave me a wide berth.

I looked older than my age, but I didn’t see that as a negative.

It was kind of ironic that I didn’t mind looking older, just feeling it.

On the ice, I was tough and aggressive, but off the ice, it was usually my mouth that got me into trouble.

The only people who weren’t intimidated by me were my family and my friends at Verdant.

I stalked down the packed hallway, trying to ignore the sound of a baby screaming and the acidic scent of vomit. The longer I walked, the less crowded and thankfully, quieter, it got. I turned right and stopped short at the doors that barred the entry, waving my hand in front of the sensor.

When the door finally creaked open, I kept moving until I hit room 6A.

It was one of the more private rooms here in the emergency department.

Private. Right. Josiah was sharing it with four other patients, one of whom was coughing up what sounded like an entire lake’s worth of water.

I was greeted by the usual hum of machines beeping, and the metallic odor of blood and alcohol cleaner.

Without pause, I headed for my brother’s side.

Josiah’s eyes were closed, his face pale, nearing on gray, and dotted with sweat, his blond curls sticking to his forehead.

I tried to tread lightly—not easy for a hockey player of my size— but I wasn’t as stealthy as I thought, and suddenly Josiah’s eyes opened.

They were a deep chocolate brown, like mine, but his were bloodshot and glassy.

It wasn’t only fluids he’d been given, but something for the pain.

“Hey bud, how’re you feeling?” I asked as I plunked down in the one and only chair by the bed.

“Like shit.”

“Language.”

“Look who’s talking.” My brother gave me a wan smile. “Every other word out of your mouth is a curse.”

“That’s different,” I countered and reached for his smaller hand.

It was colder than ice.

“I think I deserve to swear, don’t you?” Josiah replied.

Yeah. Yeah, he fucking did. I nodded and squeezed his hand.

“Just here,” I admitted. “But don’t tell Dad.”

“Deal,” Josiah whispered.

My father was strict about stuff like that growing up, and he’d instilled a strong work ethic and a no-quit attitude in both his sons.

Dad was nonverbal after the stroke, but his eyes told me he understood every word I said to him.

He was going through therapy to learn to read, write, and speak again, but it was a tough battle, and writing—or speaking—one letter for him was like churning out a whole book.

Dad didn’t care what the doctors said. He wouldn’t give up. And I wouldn’t either. Not on him, not on myself, and not on Josiah.

My brother had a baby face but the oldest soul; a disposition that was funny, kind, and sweet.

Unlike me, Josiah was outgoing and bubbly, and he laughed.

A lot. Or, he used to. Between everything that happened with our parents, and now this disease ravaging his body, the sunshine that was Josiah was starting to dim.

Lately, he’d missed school days and outings with his friends, and worst of all, he became withdrawn.

When Josiah was first diagnosed, he’d vent his frustration at being at home all the time.

Now that his pain was worse, conversely, he was quieter, sometimes not wanting to talk at all.

I couldn’t let that happen. There were new treatments and surgeries, many of which cost a fortune, but I knew that something had to work.

Enough was enough.

I swallowed down the bitter taste of fear, like I’d done many times before, and forced myself to put on a brave face.

“They’re keeping you in overnight.” I smiled at him. “And then, tomorrow, when you’re feeling better, we’re going back to your doctor to talk about surgery.”

“I can manage fine without it, Si,” Josiah returned. “We can’t afford it.”

“I don’t care what it costs, Jo. You need it. End of.”

His condition was getting worse, the bleeding was happening too often, and I wasn’t going to stand by and let his quality of life be destroyed.

The surgery wasn’t covered by our insurance.

Meds yes, but surgery, no. Fuck that. I didn’t care what it cost. Staring at him now, looking at how gaunt Josiah was, his cheekbones sharper than my blades, I made up my mind.

No matter what I had to do, Josiah was getting that fucking surgery.

I’d figure out a plan. I’d take a year off school and work full time. Fuck that, I’d take two jobs. I’d do whatever was needed. No matter what, even if I had to be ruthless, the surgery was happening. The only thing that mattered was Jo’s recovery.

“You rest up and let me take care of things, okay?” I reassured him.

Josiah didn’t say anything in response. Instead, his clammy hand squeezed mine.

Ruthless, it is.