The Voice inside My Head by S.J. Laidlaw Page A

they’re still in high school, and she doesn’t cope well with her life not working out like she’d hoped, but she can be really thoughtful. Dad’s never made much money and Mom’s never worked at all, but every year she manages to get us something really special for Christmas. This year she got Pat a top-of-the-line laptop to take to college. I don’t know how Mom ever pulled enough money together, but it was the perfect gift at the perfect time. Just when you think she only cares about herself, she does something like that. The drinking’s gotten worse over the years, though. She’s tried to stop a few times, but she always goes back to it. I think she’s just disappointed with herself, and drinking makes her feel better.”
    I don’t say that it does the same for me. Maybe that’s why Pat and I take such different views of it. “Pat fights with her all the time. It doesn’t help.” I pause, take a deep breath and rush on. “Mom tried to kill herself a few weeks before Pat came down here.”
    “Wow, man, I’m really sorry. That’s brutal.”
    “At first Pat was furious. She acted like Mom did it deliberately to hurt her, which might have been true. It
was
the night of Pat’s graduation. It should have been Pat’s perfect night, her reward for all her years of hard work and clean living. Pat gave the valedictory address, and Mom was there in the audience, clapping louder than anyone. Then thatnight she took sleeping pills. She said it was an accident; she was so overexcited by seeing Pat up there on the podium that she couldn’t sleep. But we think she took at least a dozen, with her usual booze. It’s hard to imagine how that could have been an accident.”
    “She sounds a bit whack. Did your dad put her in a mental hospital?”
    “Nah, she got her stomach pumped and was home in a few days. Nothing was the same after that, though. I’d always told Pat Mom would try to kill herself someday and we needed to be more careful around her. I’m not blaming Pat. Mom made her own decision.”
    “That’s heavy, dude. Is that why Tricia came to Utila, to get away from all the stress?”
    I stare at my feet, lifting them just in time to escape a crab scuttling toward my bare toes, claws outstretched. It launches itself up the side of our perch, following my retracting feet. I break off a twig that’s been jabbing my butt for the last several minutes and hold it down to the crab to try to distract it. It latches on with a claw that’s obviously designed for combat, being at least three times larger than the other.
    “Pat needed to get away.” I’m glad of the darkness to hide the guilt in my eyes. “But that’s all in the past,” I continue resolutely. “The important thing is, I’m going to find Pat, and we’ll talk this all out and be a family again.” I suddenly realize what I’ve said. “Geez, Zach, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” he says, but when he runs a hand across his eyes, I think he’s crying.
    “Of course it doesn’t matter,” I say, clapping him on the back. “Because we’re brothers now, right?”
    He turns to me, his eyes glistening in the moonlight, and throws both arms around me in a hug that knocks us both into the muck.
    “Damn,” I mutter.
    “AAAAAIIIIEEEEE!” he screams.
    We both struggle to get our footing. My heart is pounding again.
    “What is it?” I demand.
    “Something bit me,” he whimpers. “It hurts, man, it really hurts.”
    He’s cradling his mud-covered hand. I try to get a look at it in the moonlight, cursing our lack of planning. Would it have been too much foresight for one of us to bring a flashlight? I can’t even tell if he’s bleeding. I use the last bit of the water in my water bottle to wash off the mud. I still can’t make out a bite mark, but even in the limited light, I can see it’s starting to swell.
    “It’s going to be okay.” I hope he can’t hear the panic in my voice. There could be any