Coping Struggles

Written in collaboration with Nick Savage
Nick Savage's contributions are written in indigo, and Platinum Wordspell's contributions are written in magenta.

Vincent reaches for the small glass in front of him. Again. Filled with whiskey and rocks. The squint in his eyes of unwelcome familiarity shows as he brings the drink to his lips, emptying it into his mouth. His lips are still pursed from the old oak flavor, sour mash, and self disdain as he pours another from the bottle onto the ice. Before slamming the bottle down onto the table, the man takes a swig. Papers strewn about in front of him rustle from the wind as the bottle settles back down. A small, leather-backed book lay open. The unlined pages had been filled with sloppily written journal entries. Vincent flips the page forward. The dim light in the curtained room provides little illumination for reading. He picks up the diary and brings the open pages close to his face. It wavers slightly in his unsteady hands.

March, 15, 2017 - It's back and more aggressive this time. They're saying this is it. No more operations, no more chemo, nothing. Just a new waiting game. How do I tell the kids? How do I tell them that this time isn't the first?

Behind him a door to the outside world, a place he hasn't seen in weeks, opens. He drops the diary as his hands instinctively react to cover his eyes from the light bursting through. His sister, the pure white angel to his damaged black sheep, enters through the light.

"Shut it! Too bright!"

Vanessa gently shuts the door so as not to add more noise to his busy head. She sets the bags of groceries down next to the door and immediately starts tidying the table. Pausing, she leans down and picks up the diary. Quickly, Vincent tries to grab it from her, but she is too nimble for his intoxicated state.

"What's this?" she asks, flipping to the first few pages.

"Nothing. It was Dad's."

Vincent reaches for it again, but as usual he lacks the sobriety to stand and argue. With a stony side glance, Vanessa sidesteps his attempt to disarm her of it. She stops flipping and lands on a tear-stained page.

January 1, 2016 - The doctor says he removed it all, and a mastectomy isn't necessary. Now it's a waiting game to make sure it doesn't come back.

She looks at him with slight accusation squinting in her eyes. "Did you know?"

"No, they didn't tell either of us. Not until the end," he says, finishing off his glass of whiskey before finally snatching the diary from her hands.

Vanessa sighs, walking to the old cuckoo clock above the kitchen sink. Her pointer finger reaches to the big hand, moving it from its position to the right, going back ten minutes, twenty, thirty, forty, before she left him alone to get the groceries without checking the cabinets, the drawers, the bookshelf, anywhere the current drink had been removed from an unanticipated hiding placed before her departure. She almost reaches the hour, when the little door would open and the little bird would exit, tweet cheerfully, accusingly chipper, as if there was anything left in the world to sing about.

After all, she always had to eventually leave the house sometime. "Waiting for you to do the right thing for once is the only waiting game now, little brother," she murmurs.

"Yeah, well, you can't go back no matter where the hands are pointing," he grunts, reaching for the bottle again.

"I know," she responds. Her finger heads for the small hand, brushes the length of it, stroking the tip before returning to her side without a push. "But thinking about moving ahead is even scarier than thinking about what happened yesterday, isn't it?"

Sliding to the left, Vanessa turns a knob on the gas stove, and the momentary hiss of gas and click of the spark set a burner to low. Grabbing a well-seasoned cast iron skillet from the hanging rack above, she places it on the burner. She snatches the bottle of olive oil next to her and drizzles a little into the skillet. She silently heads back to the door and grabs the briefly abandoned groceries. Her brother watches her, moving only his eyes, while his hand grabs the bottle yet again. The ice melting in the forgotten glass he'd already poured.

"Sorry I'm ever the disappointment, lil' sis."

She takes a carton of eggs out of the bag and sets it on the counter. Her hands shake with the knowledge she has to deal with this again.

"Stop with the martyrdom, self loathing, woe-is-me crap. We are both in the same situation. The only difference is how we're handling it."

She reaches into the other grocery bag and pulls out frozen, pre-cut potatoes. Her shaking hands struggle to open the packaging.

"No self loathing here. Just callin' it as I see it. Me the disappointment and you the good child. Always been that way. Even now."

He opens the diary to the first entry. He sets it on the table to steady it from his unsure hands.

"Listen to this. 'Dear Diary, why do people address you? I don't know. Maybe I'll stop doing that and just write,'" he reads aloud, watching his sister start to tear up. "'Anyway, I worry about my boy. Sometimes he seems like life isn't worth it all. He hides from the world. From his girl, from us. Just hides in his room doing who knows what. God forbid something should happen, how would he handle it? There's a part of me that wishes Vincent could be more like my angel, Vanessa...'"

She rips open the bag of frozen potatoes, and the pieces go flying everywhere. Sighing, Vanessa throws the remaining bag onto the counter.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Do you know when that was dated? 2005. I was fifteen years old! He wanted me to be more like you! He wanted his son to be more like his ten year old daughter!"

Vincent pauses for a moment, watching as she began to clean up the mess by herself. He stands up from his chair and wavers for a moment. He takes a few deliberate steps and helps her pick up the frozen potato chunks. "I'm not doing this to you. At least, I don't mean to."

"Just like you didn't mean to trick me with fake throws every time we played "Hot Potato" as kids?" A momentary smile flickers across her face, like the light from the strike of a match before a heavy breeze blows.

He laughs, tossing a piece of potato in her direction. "Well, the potatoes are frozen now!"

"You always seemed to know the exact moment that the music would stop," she responds, neatly catching the potato slice in her empty hand before reaching for the last of the pile remaining on the floor.

"Just call me Houdini." He stood and with exaggerated flourish, bowed, held out his right arm, and swayed his hand in mock gentility. "At your service, Madam."

The smile on her face fades, but there is still a glow about her. A glow that whispers hope.

Vanessa sets down her handful of food and heads to her brother. He watches her, one eye on his bottle, wondering her next move. She pulls a chair from the side of the table and sets it next to him, seating herself in it.

“I know it’s been hard. For each of us. In our own way,” she says in an almost after school special delivery.

“Now, Vanessa, don’t start getting all-” he starts.

Quickly, she jumps in, “I’m not. I just think it’s time we start moving forward together. “

She stops, and the siblings both look at each other for a moment. A contest of wills to see who moves first. Without blinking, Vanessa’s eyes squint as a sad smile crosses her lips. She watches as he slowly grabs the bottle without breaking eye contact. He holds it in both hands. His sights shifts down to stare the demon in the eyes. His hand slowly climbs the half-filled bottle. Her eyes squint slightly more as the smile fades. She holds her silent stance, trying not to budge. He twists the cap, though this time in a new direction: to tighten it.

“Vincent, it’s not that easy,” she says placing a hand on his knee.

He shoos her away gently but repeatedly with one hand, a scrunched look on his face.

“I know,” he says, still too intoxicated to think quickly of an eloquent response.

Vanessa sits back in her seat, slouching down as she waits for his next reason why he needs to drink.

“This isn't something I like. Or enjoy. It’s something that just is. Yes, it wasn't always. I made it this way,” he begins, while his thoughts trail off once again.

That look of desperate hope in her eyes fade. She slides even deeper in her chair as if she were trying to meld with it, to disappear from this moment.

Vincent takes the bottle of whiskey that has been his longtime friend and looks at it for a moment, trying to rediscover what he first found so comforting inside of it. His right hand raises to his ear and his index finger scratches inside of it for a moment. His left arm raises, bottle in hand, and he throws it against the wall, glass shattering and whiskey splashing throughout the room.

Vanessa gasps. Vincent had once said wasting alcohol was the only sin he recognized.

"I won't be like Dad. I won't do what he did to himself, because she's gone now," he says, staring her seemingly deadpan in the eyes.

"Don't!" she cries, but it's too late, because he has to finish what he started.

"I'm going to rehab. I know I've never said that before. I hate thinking fixing my problems requires help. I want to do everything myself. But this... this is something, I know I can't beat on my own."

She stares at him, the small smile of hope tugging at the corners of her lips again. "You promise?"

"Yes. And you'll be there until it's all over, won't you?" he answers, both brows on his face furrowing deeply.

"Of course! I'll always be there for you, big brother. As long as I'm able to, I will stand by your side," she vows, closing the distance between them with the all-encompassing embrace that only an angel could offer.
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1,750 words

Prompt 3 for "Invalid Item"  contest (June 2017)
(Adult brother and sister have to deal with the passing of their parents.)