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“I mentioned to you before that you need a sponsor. I guess I’m stepping in to be that until you find someone you’re more comfortable with. We need someone to talk to, Michael. It’s even better if that someone is a person who's been through it.”
“I want you to talk at the next meeting.”
Michael kicked a rock down the side of the road as he walked back home. What the hell was he going to talk about? An ex-con still on parole? A deadbeat dad who would have to fight for the rights of a son he didn’t know anything about? How he was the product of prostitution, never knowing his father?
Guilt settled in the pit of his stomach. Or maybe it wasn’t guilt. Maybe it was more like sorrow. Life was not how it should be. And how could that woman stand at those AA meetings and spout off her positivity? She admitted she had her own story… from how she acted, he figured it wasn’t near the trouble he had gone through. She seemed too pure and wholesome to have a backstory close to his.
He stopped at the edge of the driveway, looking toward his brother’s house. His truck was there, along with a small sedan he’d never seen before. He worried it was Marilyn, but she drove something different. And if she was there, she waited for him on the porch.
Making parole wasn’t what he thought it would be. The only difference between his life now and how it was behind the razor wire is that he didn’t have to sleep in a small cell with another man. He didn’t have the guards telling him what time to wake up or when and what to eat. In that sense, making parole was a great thing. He was now facing a different type of prison – temptations with nothing to stop him. Meeting with people and expecting him to spill his heart and soul out to them.
The people in town already knew his story. They had already formed their opinion about him. What good would it do to tell his story when he was on the brink of relapsing? Some role model he’d be, getting his parole revoked in a matter of a few weeks, sent right back to intake in a flashy jumpsuit and handcuffs.
Relapse could mean so many things. He technically had already done it when he decided to mess around with Marilyn, though having sex wasn’t exactly something they could revoke him for. How could he have been so stupid with her? Sexual frustration was one thing – but he should’ve had that internal radar telling him to stop. He was a man of desire, his judgment clouded by her beautiful body and his lack of connection while he was locked up.
Excuses, excuses. He had made the decision. The deed was done. And he had fucked a married woman. He still had no idea who the guy was, but since he was trying to steal Michael’s parental rights, he figured he’d meet him soon. He already hated him.
Strolling up the driveway, he pulled out the house key and stumbled in on his brother lying on the couch, a naked woman on top, straddling him as he groped her large breasts. Michael froze in mid-step and quickly went back out onto the porch, unsure of what he had just witnessed. Loud footsteps thudded across the floor and Mitch came outside, in the process of pulling up his boxers as he did.
“I thought you were at a meeting.” He was out of breath, the strong scent of whiskey on his breath.
“I was.” He couldn’t fault his brother for getting laid. He was also a man of desire, raised in the same household, exposed to sex, drugs, and partying long before he should have been.
“That ended fast.”
“Not really.”
Mitch glanced over his shoulder. “Sorry. I can take her back to my room. She has a sister.” He arched his eyebrow. “Let her come over and ease some of that tension, Mikey.”
“No, thanks. I’m good.” He used to be quick to hop at the idea of sex with a random woman. The anonymity, the thrill, the release with no expectations when they were done. “Finish up. Do what you gotta do.” Michael slid a package of cigarettes from his pocket and tapped one out. “I’ll go take a walk.”
“Mikey… it’s not a big deal. I was about to finish… Her sister would be more than happy to…”
Michael held his hand up. “Don’t. Go back in and enjoy.” He took the steps down to the yard, lighting the cigarette, and inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs. It wasn’t necessarily the sex that bugged him. His brother was also an alcoholic, though not in recovery, and Michael was fragile at that moment. If he stepped into that house, the chances of him taking a drink were high.
The door slammed behind his brother, and he heard the woman giggle. Along with the cigarettes, the woman at the AA meeting’s phone number came out with it. He ran his finger over the writing. Her name was Haize. He wasn’t sure why he was having such a hard time remembering it. It was different, just like her. An uncommon name for an uncommon personality. She saw something in him, though he wasn’t sure what.
It was too soon to call her, though he could use a good conversation. Pre-prison times, he would’ve stopped off at the bar and talked with the regulars over a stiff drink. He’d get good and buzzed and find out where Marilyn was to ease any ailments he was experiencing. Neither were viable options anymore, both leading him straight back to prison to finish up his sentence like a caged animal.
Weaving through the wooded area, he finished the cigarette and threw it to the ground, extinguishing it with his boot. The winding trail led to the back of the neighborhood where the river winded through to a nearby lake. Stopping on the edge, he studied the trickling water, the sound calming to his growing anxiety.
He felt alone. He didn’t belong there. A minimum-wage job cleaning up a mechanic shop was not going to be his ticket out. And now he faced being a father. He wanted Jace to be his. But then he didn’t… could he afford it? Or should he sign away his rights and not poison the kid to the man he was?
Marilyn certainly wouldn’t be mother of the year. The poor kid was damned from conception, formed from two adults who got lost in their addictions, escaping their realities while bringing another life into them.
Fifteen minutes had passed since he had walked in on his brother divulging in his guilty pleasures. Mitch needed just as much help as he did, only he wasn’t required by the state to get it done. Counseling, meetings… addiction ran in their blood, and it made him think of his mother, apparently living in a town about thirty minutes from them.
She knew he was sent away. She wrote him a few times but never visited. He never took the time to write back and was glad she never came. He moved out of her house when he was a teenager and never had much to do with her since then. Always high, always with a random man, he shivered at the thought of who she exposed her boys to. What hurt the most was she never believed him when he told her what had happened. He resented her from the moment she chose men over her own sons. He’d never get over it or the problems it had created… the problems that would never go away.
When he got back to the house, the car was still in the driveway. He sent a quick text to his brother, asking if they were done. He immediately got a response that it was safe to go inside. They were both on the couch, fully dressed, drinking whiskey from tumblers. The woman’s hair was disheveled, makeup smeared as she smiled at him.
“Mikey Brennan! How are you?”
He didn’t recognize her. “Am I supposed to know who you are?”
“No. But I know a lot about you!” She pointed at him, a cigarette poised between her index and middle fingers. “I got a sister who would love to take you for a ride. And she’s gorgeous. Definitely your type.”
“What’s my type?” He opened the refrigerator. He was starving, but all he saw were shelves of beer and no food.
