Page 108 of Second Alarm
"Okay."
"Don't show up early and don't show up late."
"Okay."
"Six o'clock."
"Six o'clock."
He hangs up.
I stare at the phone. I make coffee and don't drink it. I go for a run, come home, shower, and put on a clean shirt. Then I sit on my couch in the clean shirt for four hours. At five forty-seven I head to the bar.
The Watershed is the Watershed. Big Jim is at the bar. He nods at me as I come in and points, with his chin, at the back booth. Cal is already there, a beer in front of him and a second one untouched across the table. His sling is off. His arm is moving freely.
He doesn't look up when I slide into the booth.
"Brennan."
"Cal."
"Beer."
I drink. He drinks. Big Jim doesn't look at us from the bar. The jukebox is playing a country song I don't know and don't want to learn. Three other people in the bar, none within earshot.
"I'm going to say things." Cal sets his glass down. "I've been rehearsing them. Some aren't going to come out right. Don't correct me."
"Okay."
"I'm going to punch you again at some point in the next six months. I don't know when. It's going to be when I think aboutone of the dinners. Or the time I called you when my dog died. I'm going to think about that one and — the body is going to do what the body is going to do."
"Okay."
"You're going to let me?"
"Yes."
"For the rest of our lives if I want to?"
"Yes."
He drinks his beer.
"I'm angry." He doesn't look at me when he says it. "Specifically, at myself. I'm angry at me first. You're second. My sister is third. My mother is fourth, because she knew and didn't tell me, and I have a specific set of words for my mother I'm saving for her. But you're second."
"Cal — "
"I said don't correct me."
"Okay."
"I wasn't a good man to tell at twenty-three. I was an asshole at twenty-three, Ty. I drank too much. I fought everybody. I picked a fight with a guy at a bar because he stood too close to my sister at the pool table. I had my dad dead for four years and hadn't processed any of it and I was running everyone's lives. Yours. Hanna's. My mother's."
"Cal."
"I know. I'm not asking you to argue. I'm just — " He takes a breath. "I was an asshole. I wasn't the kind of man you could've told at twenty-three. I know that. I'm not saying it to get you off the hook — you're not off the hook. Both of you should've told me anyway. But I get the math you did. I don't forgive it. I'm working on the difference."
"Okay."
