Page 31 of Like You Want It

Well, every time thatSusiesings it. I’d say I have a fifty-fifty average, at best.

She sings the lyrics a few times over, and when Nell finally dozes back off, I set her gently down in her crib, grab my phone and pop out of the room, leaving the door cracked just a tiny bit.

“She’s out,” I say into the phone as I head back to my room. “Thanks for doing that.”

“Any time,” Susie says. “Anytime. Really.”

I nod, though the gesture is useless through the phone. “A year, Suz. It’s just a year.”

I mean the words to be sympathetic. Empathetic. But it doesn’t seem to have been the right thing to say, because Susie breaks down into tears.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, that point in the center of my chest getting tight at the sound of her sadness as it leaks through the phone. “It’s not fair for you to cry to me and make me feel like the bad guy.”

“I know,” she whispers. “I just miss her, but it isn’t your fault.”

I sit on the edge of my bed and rest my elbows on my knees, letting my phone rest loosely in my hands. But we both stay on the phone with each other in silence.

“You’re an amazing brother, you know?” she finally says. “To put up with me after everything I did, and take care of my daughter. Change your whole life for us? You have…” she sighs. “You have no idea what that means to me.”

I might not understand what it feels like, but I amveryaware of what it means.

For me to take legal custody of Nell when Susie had to go to rehab? It kept her out of the foster care system. It will keep Child Services from knocking on Susie’s door all the time declaring her an unfit mother as she goes through all of her steps to get clean.

I pulled Susie out of San Diego, away from all of those friends who were doing nothing but dragging her down. She spent six months in rehab. It was the most expensive, thorough, aggressive program I could find.

I could see the determination in Susie’s eyes when we talked about the options she was given by the judge, and I knew it would be worth it to give her every advantage possible.

The court mandated a drug in-patient treatment program and two hundred hoursof community service. But the agreement Susie and I came to was six months in rehab, then one year clean where she finds a solid job and a good apartment and stays out of trouble.

If she can do it? She gets Nell back. If she can’t, Nell stays with me until we figure out the new plan.

She missed Nell’s first birthday while she was in rehab. Her first wobbly steps. Her babbled first words. And a handful of other things that would cause any parent to break down into tears. But she pushed through, fought for not just her own life but a good life for her daughter.

And she’s almost there.

She gets to see Nell once a week on Monday evenings. Our agreement is that I come by Sunday, without Nell, to make sure she’s still on the straight and narrow. Then she can come to my house on Mondays to spend the day with her daughter.

It’s a little rigid, but we made those decisions assuming we’d be facing the worst. Facing a very difficult uphill climb out of a drug-altered life.

My hope is that things stay as good as they’ve been going, but it’s hard to know if we’ll be that lucky

When she got out of rehab, we got her set up in an apartment complex with a three-month lease. She left as soon as it was up because she caught wind of somenefarious dealingsin one of the units.

“I don’t want there to be any chance for me to get mixed up with that,” she had told me. “Not even a slim possibility.”

Which is how she came to be in her current place. Above the girl that I accused of being a drug dealer.

I wince a bit, but push the thought aside. “Well, I’m here for you. Always,” I tell her.

Susie sniffles again, then thanks me and quietly gets off the phone. I hit end call and flop down onto my back.

I changed almost my entire life to make this work for Susie and to take care of Nell. I left the military. Moved a few hours away from our old lives. Started to work in commercial real estate full-time.

I love my sister, more than anything. More than anyone, although Nell is right there with her.

I just hope everything we’re doing is worth it.