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"What about Leonardo? How did he end up at the facility if you weren't trying to get rid of him?"
"Don't judge. Living with family isn't always best for someone with challenges like Lenny's. Living with me only agitated him. Hoping to figure out why, I took Lenny to a renowned clinic that specialized in traumatic brain injury."
"What did they say?"
"Lenny's diagnosis wasn't great, but it wasn't awful either. The damage to his brain meant that he would never mature emotionally past his current state, and he would always be prone to outbursts."
"That sounds all not great."
I like that he doesn't say bad because Lenny's condition isn'tbad. Itischallenging though.
"Untreated, his outbursts would grow worse and more frequent." I go silent, remembering how I felt when the doctor told me that. My fear for Lenny, my renewed grief for the loss of my baby, the result of one of those outbursts.
"I knew I wouldn't be able to keep Lenny safe, or the people around him on my own."
"You should never have been put in the position of needing to."
"That's easy for you to say, with your brothers and cousins to back you up." Even if I agree in principle, I don't tell Atlas that. "Regardless, therewastreatment available. Inpatient treatment. The doctors were adamant. There could be no question that Lenny needed supervised living both for his safety and to ensure he got the most out of treatment."
"Did it work?"
"If you mean by work, did his moods and behavior stabilize? Yes. Lenny loves living there. He thrives under the supervised conditions. Lenny gets to spend more time doing things away from the facility than he was ever allowed to leave while living in the Revello home." In Detroit, he was a virtual prisoner.
In his current situation, he goes to the movies with friends. He shops at the game store and goes out to buy his own clothes.
"My brother-in-law is allowed every bit of autonomy he can manage without compromising management of his condition."
"Don't call him that."
"He's my family. I'm not going to pretend otherwise."
"Then call him brother."
"You're offended by me calling him my in-law?"
"It doesn't offend me. It fills me with rage."
The violence of his feelings should scare me. It doesn't. I know to my very core that Atlas will never physically harm me. Break my heart? He's already done that. So, yeah.
But break my person? Never. "Why does it make you angry?"
"It reminds me that you belonged to another man."
"Your caveman is showing again. I belong to myself."
"Yes," he agrees easily, surprising me. "But you are also mine."
And that last claim doesn't surprise me at all. Though it does exasperate me. "I told you, I'm not your girlfriend anymore. If I ever was. Not after last night."
"And I told you: you're something more important."
"Your sun. Your light." I sigh, frustrated with myself more than him because the claim touches me when it shouldn't.
Not after the way he used me.
"Yes." His tone leaves no room for argument.
But I'm good at wedging in places I shouldn't. "Can you use your light like a naïve fool?"
