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“BOYS!” Mom raised her voice, something that rarely ever happened. Aiden and I stopped arguing, mostly out of sheer shock. “I will not have you two arguing and ruining Christmas. You best learn to get along as long as you’re under this roof together.”
“This is bullshit,” Aiden muttered, heading toward the door. “Jackson insults my character, and yet I have to learn to get along with him? No one in this family fucking believes me.”
Aiden left and Nathan stared at me, his arms crossed in front of his chest.
“What are you staring at?”
“I’m staring at my brother, wondering how someone so confident and smart could turn into such a mean drunk.”
“Fuck off, Nathan.”
Nathan was always the calm one, having taken after Mom. I knew I had poked him, hoping he might react.
He shrugged. “Whatever, man. I just think you need to get help.” He pulled out his phone and started tapping on the screen, his sign that he had no interest in engaging any further.
Mom was silent sitting at her spot at the table. She was looking at me, and I didn’t like the look on her face at all.
“Jackson, I know it’s hard being back here. But I thought enough time had passed that we could get back to acting like a family.”
Out of all of us, Mom was the one who had been hurt the most. She was also the one person in the entire world that I couldn’t raise my voice at, I just couldn’t.
So I let her continue. “Please go easy on Aiden. You may not see it, but he’s not the same kid he used to be, he’s grown into a really good man. The military really straightened him out.”
“I hope so,” I said softly. “He needed to be straightened out.”
“He did. He got into a lot of trouble in high school, and there were nights I feared that the police would call, telling me he had been arrested or worse. ButthisAiden, he’s different, and it would mean a lot to me if you at least listened to him, to see if you can help him.”
“I’ll try,” I said after a long silence and a sigh. Aiden and I had our issues, but he was still my brother.
“I’m going to talk to Aiden now,” she said. “And I really would appreciate it if you two could at least try to get along. If anything, for my sake.”
She slipped from the room before I could answer her, and my eyes once again fell on the empty seat where our dad used to sit. I finished my whiskey, imagining the sound of his booming voice telling me to make him a drink. The same drink I now enjoyed. I stared at my empty glass.
“I think I’m going out,” I said, speaking to Nathan.
“Where?”
“Somewhere in town, just to get a drink.”
We had plenty of alcohol in the house, anything you could ever want. But it wasn’t about the alcohol, it was about getting out. Why did Mom think it was a good idea to bring us back to the same house we had spent every Christmas as a family when Dad was still around? Couldn’t she have picked another location besides this one?
“Mind if I come along?” Nathan asked.
I placed the glass on the table and shook my head. “No, I need to be alone. I need to get out of this house and away from everyone in it.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?”
“Yeah, I have a driver, I’ll be fine.”
I headed for the door, stopping at the coat closet and glancing into the formal living room all decked out with the Christmas tree covered in glowing, flickering lights. A stocking for each of us hung from the fireplace, even Harper had one.
I opened the big, heavy door and stepped out into the snow, the cold hitting my face and making me feel better almost instantly.
How am I going to survive this trip? I asked myself. I had to make it through Christmas and into New Years, with my family in this house.
And they wondered why I drank so much.
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