Upstander by James Preller (free ereaders .TXT) 📕

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About the Author

Copyright Page

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This book is dedicated to all the Jonnys in our world, and to the people who love them.

1[gravel]

Plink, tick, tick. It was raining in Mary O’Malley’s dream. Soft water splashing rhythmically somewhere. Or summer rain tapping against glass.

No, not rain. Handfuls of gravel tossed against her second-story bedroom window. Dragged from her dreams, Mary reached for her phone on the floor beside her bed. The time read 3:27.

She rolled over, rubbed her eyes in the darkness.

Down below, Jonny tossed another handful of small stones scooped from the driveway. They tapped like buckshot against the aluminum siding. For a star athlete—correction: a former star—his aim wasn’t what it used to be. High as a kite in the dark of night. Locked out again.

Mary went to the window, looked out, and there he was down below, back arched, hands on his hips, looking up. And it was raining, as a matter of fact, a soft August drizzle. From Mary’s vantage point, her older brother, her only brother, looked like a lost boy. Small and soaked and, in this case, shirtless and razor-thin. Why isn’t he wearing a shirt? All ribs and pointy elbows, he smiled goofily, performed a daffy, loose-limbed shuffle, and acted out a nearly incomprehensible pantomime. Mary knew what he wanted. She could lip-read as he mouthed his request: Let me in. Didn’t apologize, didn’t ask. Maybe he thought he was cute. He probably wasn’t thinking much at all. The old charmer had attempted to enlist Mary as his co-conspirator. Well, that ship has sailed, dear brother. Now you’re just annoying.

Fed up, her mother had taken to bolting the front door, a desperate move that didn’t quite make sense to Mary. Her mother’s boyfriend, mild Ernesto, didn’t get involved in Jonny’s antics, kept a place two towns away. He might have been here that night or maybe not. But Mary couldn’t leave Jonny out there, and never would. It was the same old dance. The small, fractured family all playing a game of pretend.

Careful not to wake their mother, Mary tiptoed downstairs, slipped back the lock, and opened the door. Jonny swayed a moment, then reached out to steady himself against the doorjamb. His head lolled gently, his eyes unfocused, his skin pale gray in the lambent light, and he offered Mary a two-fingered salute. “You’re a lifesaver,” he said before he stepped dreamily into the house. “A cherry, berry, raspberry, snazzleberry…” He dropped the thought as he reached the stairway landing, caught himself with a grip on the railing, and began the great ascent. The effort required more focus than he was able to muster. Mary walked behind her brother, her outstretched hand shadowing his movements, ready should he fall. Jonny clomped and lurched and climbed bent forward at the waist, murmuring almost inaudibly, leaning heavily on the railing, giggling softly, sometimes pausing for long moments before taking the next step. Mary followed her brother down the hall and stopped at the threshold of his room. Jonny had already forgotten her, stumbled through, pushed the door half closed, left her behind.

They would not speak of this, ever.

On her way back to her room, Mary noticed the light leaking from beneath the door of her mother’s bedroom. She was up, had undoubtedly heard it all. Probably had been sitting up on the edge of her bed, brain blazing with worry. Mary climbed into bed, reached for her phone, sent her mother a text: He’s home.

Her mother had replied instantly: k.

Minutes passed. Mary rolled, flipped her pillow, strained to hear sounds in the silence of the house. What she wanted to hear was beyond her capacity, the sound of air pushed past lips, the liquid thrum and swoosh of a heart pumping in a room down the hall of this house of secrets. So Mary rose and went to her brother’s room. She pushed open the bedroom door. It was too dark to see, so she flicked on a closet light, opened that door a few inches, the weak light spilling across the carpet. Jonny was sprawled on top of his bed, designer sneakers still on his feet. He hadn’t bothered to crawl under the covers. Dead to the world. Zonked, stoned, high, toasted, wasted, whatever. She approached him, bent down, and listened: ah, he’s alive. Mary felt an urge to kiss him on the cheek. She brushed damp hair from his face. One arm, his right, was extended out and hung off the bed. She untied his shoes, rolled the socks off his feet. She found an afghan in a sailor’s trunk at the foot of the bed and pulled it over her brother’s bruised and ravaged body. His jeans were slung low, beltless, half falling off his narrow hips.

When did all this happen? When did she become the caregiver and her nineteen-year-old brother the hapless, helpless, damaged child? Mary yawned. A sad story, years in the making. It had been happening long before Mary realized it. Jonny in trouble at school, injury, pills, depression, rehab, relapse, promises and broken promises, tears and accusations and more drugs. Always more drugs. Where was it going to end?

Oh, how she hated and loved him so.

Mary drifted back to bed, and soon merciful sleep shut her eyes. Good thing it was summer. She could sleep in as late as she liked, dead to the world.

2[triangle]

The searing August sun streaked