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***My little problem became impossible to ignore one night when Teagan skipped dinner. That wasn’t all that unusual. She wasn’t always at the family meals, and neither was I. But on this particular evening, the reason behind her absence caught my attention.
“Teagan’s on a date,” Shelley announced.
I stopped chewing my chicken and perhaps a bit too urgently, asked, “How do you know?”
“I saw her getting ready to go out. She wouldn’t tell me where she was going, so I got suspicious. I looked out the window and saw her get into a car with some guy.”
Some guy?
“Interesting,” Maura said.
“Yeah, interesting,” I muttered.
Lorne sighed. “Well, Teagan doesn’t have to tell us everything. I just hope she’s not getting into cars with the wrong people.”
Maura gave me a slightly sympathetic look. I suspected she’d picked up on my feelings for her stepdaughter some time ago.
To my knowledge, Teagan hadn’t been on a date the entire time I’d known her, aside from the bowling night with Archie—if that even counted. It shouldn’t have surprised me that she’d gone out. You know, the whole coming out of her shell thing and all. That had certainly backfired, hadn’t it? Anyway, I needed to get over it.
My chair skidded against the hardwood floor as I got up. “Dinner was delicious. Thank you, Maura,” I said before excusing myself.
In my room, I did several repetitions of pull-ups to try to expend my nervous energy—anything rather than having to deal with my feelings.
My phone rang, interrupting my workout. It was my mother.
I wiped the sweat off my forehead with a towel as I picked up the phone. “Hey, Mum. It’s late there. Everything okay?”
There was a slight delay in her response.
I started to panic. “Mum?”
“Hi, honey,” she finally said.
“What’s going on?”
After another short delay, she said, “Your father’s been drinking again.”
My stomach felt like it had been punched. My father had been sober for the past ten years or so. He’d started drinking after Emma’s death, and the problem got progressively worse until my mother and his brothers staged an intervention. Everyone in the family had saved money in order to send him to rehab, and by some miracle, after those months away, he seemed to have left drinking behind all these years.
“How did you find out?”
“He’d been staying out a lot more than usual, and tonight he came home smelling like beer and slurring his words. It was the first time I noticed it, but I’m sure it’s been going on for some time.”
Sitting down on my bed, I rested my head in my hand. “I’m so sorry, Mum. What can I do? Do you need me to come home?”
“Don’t you dare. I’ll handle it from here. I’m not telling you this to interrupt anything. You’ll be back home before you know it. I just needed to let you know.”
“If things get out of hand, you have to tell me. I need you to keep me updated.”
“Well, right now, he’s asleep. So nothing is out of hand yet. But I imagine I’m going to have to figure out a way to get him back into a program.”
“I’ll send you money.”
“No,” she insisted. “I’ll see if your uncles can help.”
Back when Dad’s drinking problem first came about, I was obviously too young to earn a living. But I remember feeling helpless, because I believed the whole thing was my fault. If Emma hadn’t died, my father wouldn’t have started drinking. Now that I was older, I had to find a way to help pay for it.
“I don’t care what you say, Mum. I’m going to request more hours or get another job so I can send you something.”
“You need to pay for school. Your loans are big enough already. We’ll figure it out.”
I didn’t know what else to say, except, “I’m sorry.”
She knew my apology had more than one meaning.
“Caleb, I don’t want this to get you off track. That’s not why I’m telling you. Please stay focused on school. That’s how you can help—stay focused so I’m not worrying about both my boys at once. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said reluctantly.
After I hung up with my mother, I couldn’t rid myself of the terrible feeling her news had brought me. I wished Teagan were home. But of course, she was out on a date—where she should’ve been. Emotions ran through me: jealousy, guilt over my father. At the moment, I didn’t want to feel anything. But turning to alcohol wasn’t an option. My mother didn’t need me developing a drinking problem, too.
I finally took a shower to calm my nerves, and then I ventured down to Teagan’s room to see if by some chance she’d returned from her date. She hadn’t. Blowing out a long breath, I lay on her bed and kicked my feet up. I longed for her company. I knew she would’ve said something to make me feel better, at least for a moment.
