Page 80 of Summer Holiday Lifeline

He had half a thought to call Steven but decided against it. He’d been at the man’s house every day that week. While Steven hadn’t seemed to mind, it smacked a bit of that obsessive behavior Ozzy had always pushed back against.

Lucky still insisted he deserved to be happy, but at what cost? If he replaced his obsession with drink with one for Steven, was that being happy? Or was it giving himself a panacea for the void Nat had left in his life, just when he’d thought he was getting her back?

“Uncle Myles?” Jet’s sleepy voice almost startled him off the couch.

He grunted and sat up. “Hey.”

“Sorry. You want your bed?”

“Nah, you’re good.” He could see Jet’s head silhouetted in the window of the dormer where his own bed was shoved. Outside, the branches of one of the oaks in the yard tangled up the light from the streetlamps, turning the night sky into an abstract mirror of Jet’s drawings.

“Didn’t mean to take your spot,” Jet whispered.

“Yours is a mess anyway. I’m good here.”

“Bed downstairs,” Jet reminded him.

“I know. I’d rather stay here tonight.”

“Mmm.” Jet flopped back. “’Kay. Thanks.”

“Sure.”

“It was good. Today, I mean.”

“Yeah, Jet. It was.”

“Invite Steven next time.”

Myles sighed. “He won’t come.”

Jet’s yawn could be heard across the room. “He might. For you.”

Would he, though? Myles had his doubts.

“Y’should try, My-my. Y’never know.”

Myles snorted, almost told Jet not to call him that, but didn’t. “Maybe.”

“Never know if y’don’t try.”

“Go back to sleep.”

“Yeah. Night.”

“Night.”

For a while, Myles listened to the kids’ breath in the otherwise silent room. He watched the oak tree’s shadows move across the ceiling. He imagined a world where Steven’s face showed up in pictures like the ones he’d sent today.

He wondered, again, if he was reaching for Steven instead of a bottle, and still didn’t have an answer. Now he’d had the thought, he could practically watch sleep fade into oblivion.

He lay back down, fingers clenched around his blanket. If he focused on breathing, one long breath in, one long breath out, he could keep his hands from shaking. If he had a sponsor to call, he might have done that, but the sponsor he’d had in Calgary had suggested he find another the day she’d checked herself into a residential rehab center.

People were human, and Myles got it. Setbacks happened. He didn’t fault her for it, but her timing had sucked. He’d been too busy worrying about Natalie, the kids, hospice, her estate, lawyers, just trying not to drown every day, to go looking for someone else to listen to his problems.

Maybe he wished now that he’d taken the time. He couldn’t decide which he wanted more, a drink or Steven. The drink he knew wasn’t healthy. He had no idea if his relationship with Steven was.

“You used to know how to deal with this shit,” he whispered into the dark.