“I’m going to bring Dom back. And then I’m going… I’m going to Idaho.”
“Idaho,” he says flatly. “I hear it’s nice this time of year.”
“I have to go.”
“Do you?”
“I think so.”
“But you don’t know for sure.”
“No. I know. I have to.”
“There’s nothing for you there.” I know he’s trying to keep calm, keep his voice in check, but I hear the strain behind it.
“Probably. But I have to find out.”
“Why?”
“So I don’t ever wonder in the future what could have been.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“It’s for me. But it’s also for him.”
“Him? Who? You mean….” He sighs. “Him, huh? I wondered. If. When.”
“Yeah. But not like you think. It’s… I don’t know.” Understatement, that. One thing at a time, though.
“Come home,” he pleads. “Drop him off and pick me up. I’ll go with you. This isn’t something you have to do alone. We’ll do it together, like we always do. I’m begging you.”
“No,” I say. “I’m going to do it by myself, and then I’ll come home and we can laugh and we can talk and we can decide what to do with the future. And it will be good because everything bad will be behind us. Finally.”
“Can’t talk you out of this?” he asks. His voice is thick.
“No, Papa Bear. Not this time.”
“You little shit.”
“Yeah.”
“I love you, you know,” my brother says. “With everything I have. With everything I am.”
I almost break. “You too,” I manage to say. With everything I have. With everything I am.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”
The phone is shuffled. “Ty,” Otter says. “We’ll be here. When it’s done. You call us so we know when you get there. You call us so we know it’s over. You call us, and I swear to you, if you need us, we’ll come running and we’ll take you home and remind you what real family is. Do you understand me?”
“Yeah, Otter. I understand.”
“And I love you too,” he says. “And we’re so very, very proud of the man you’ve become.”
“Back at you, big guy.” This man. My almost-father.
I hang up the phone, and for the first time in a very long time, I allow myself to cry.
THERE’S STILL an hour until we’re supposed to leave. Maybe I can get a bit of sleep.