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But she couldn't see Randy asking their mother for that privilege. Especially not after the way he had spoken on the phone last night.
Dean rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Somehow, I'm not surprised. He'd have probably called and let you know if he had shown up for work today. He didn't even remember I was supposed to come pick it up."
"He didn't come to work?" Holly asked, her brow rising in surprise. He had seemed fine on the phone last night, so why wouldn't he have shown up for work today?
"Nope. It's not the first time either. Knowing him, he's probably on another one of his wicked benders," Dean said with a shrug. "It's becoming more and more frequent these days. No idea what's gotten into him. But hey, now that you're here, maybe you can get through to him since I can't."
Holly blinked and nodded, lost in thought. She had known for a while Randy had a bit of a drinking problem, but she'd never known it was that bad. From the way Dean spoke, Randy was frequently missing work because of his drinking. If that was true, then he had a serious problem, and someone needed to intervene.
And yet, Holly wasn't sure she had any right to. Yes, she was the oldest. Yes, it was her job to try to look after her siblings. But it had been years since she had even attempted to be there for them. What right did she have to come and swoop in now, after all these years?
Besides, Randy was a grown man. He wasn't the dorky little kid he had been years ago when it really had been Holly's responsibility to keep him out of trouble. If she tried to confront him about his drinking and mother him, then he was likely to just buck against her and fight any help she offered.
But what else could she do? If his problem was that bad, she couldn't just sit by and let him run his life into the ground. Drinking wasn't going to make whatever problems he was going through any better. It was just going to make things worse.
Especially if he kept missing work, how long could Dean run the business with an unreliable partner? How long would it be before the business either went under or Dean decided partnering with Randy just wasn't going to work anymore?
Holly stood to the side as Dean loaded a handful of boxes onto his boat. She was so lost in thought she hadn't asked him what they had stored in the boathouse. And by the time she did think to ask, he was waving goodbye to her and was long gone.
Confused, Holly stood out in front of the boathouse, arms crossed in front of her chest. As if she hadn't had enough on her plate to deal with, now she had a hundred other questions rushing through her mind.
Life in the Keys used to be simple, she thought. It was Miami that had been fast-paced and complicated. So why was it, now that she had finally gone back to her childhood home, that it seemed like she was more lost here than she had ever been in Miami?
She needed to talk to Randy. That much was obvious. There were too many questions that only he could really answer for her. But, after the fiasco of a call they'd had last night, she was hesitant to reach out to him again.
Maybe it was better to wait a couple of days, give him some time to cool off. For all she knew, if he really had gone on a bender last night, she'd been the source of it, drudging up old memories he had been trying to keep buried.
Besides, she had enough on her plate right at that moment, and her little brother would just have to get in line.
