Ripples Through Time (14 page)

She shot Adam a lascivious grin as she said the last. Beth
nodded, trying not to look too disgusted.

Adam waited until she was gone. “Sorry,” he said.

“You look terrible,” she said. “When’s the last time you
slept?”

“You aren’t exactly the picture of health yourself,” Adam
said, then shook his head. “I just finished my math exam. I think I might have
slept sometime last year.”

“Adam…”

“Jason called.”

Beth coughed. “He what? Jason what?”

“He called about twenty minutes ago. I went to your dorm but
you weren’t there and—“

“Why did he call?” Beth interrupted. Her mind was buzzing.

“He called the University,” Adam said, an uneasy expression
on his face.

“They could have found me,” Beth said, shaking her head. “No
one came by. I’ve been in my room all day.”

Adam was silent, staring at the wall behind her. “He asked
for me…”

Beth narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

Adam hesitated. “He didn’t think you would accept.”

She couldn’t help it. She winced. “He knows its finals week.
He might be right. I might have had them tell him to call me back later.”

“That’s the problem,” Adam said, grimacing. “He only gets
the one.”

“Prison?”

Adam nodded. “Marijuana.”

Beth groaned. Suddenly her headache was much worse. “That’s
the second time,” she said. Her stomach sank. “Why didn’t he call mom?”

“He begged me not to tell Emily,” Adam replied. “Or you. He
said you would worry.”

“Of course we would worry! He’s doing drugs!” Beth said
angrily, her voice a white-hot whisper.

“I know,” Adam said.

“Did you tell her?”

“Not yet.”

“You should have called her first.”

“I—”

“Are you trying to defend him?”

Adam cringed away from her, refusing to meet her eyes.

“I came straight here,” he said, his voice low.

She let out a deep breath. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“No,” she replied. “I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.
I’ll call her.”

“Okay,” he said. She started to stand up, then realized Adam
wasn’t done talking. He was still staring at the table. “What?”

“He begged me not to tell you,” he said, “but he also asked
me to come bail him out.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” he lied.

She sighed. “Adam…” she intoned with as much disapproval as
she could muster.

“Money,” Adam replied quickly, finally looking up at her. He
hated this, she knew. “He knows you and your parents don’t have enough money to
bail him out and he didn’t want to burden you.”

Beth sunk back into her seat. “This can’t be happening,” she
mumbled. Jason had already been to prison once for drugs. He’d promised to quit
a dozen times and that he would get help twice. Lies, half-truths, and deceits.

He didn’t care what this would do to his family emotionally.
All he cared about was that they couldn’t afford it.

“What do you want me to do?” Adam asked, his voice quiet.

Beth glared at him, reminding herself—without success—that
he wasn’t the one she was mad at.

Her anger flashed. “Let the weasel rot,” she said, picking
up her fork. Adam stared at her for a second and then started to stand up. “Wait,
no.”

He stopped, hovering between sitting and standing. She let
out a deep sigh. She felt lost and confused. She was angry—so angry—at her brother.
Her selfish little bastard of a brother…

But…

He was still her brother. And he needed help. She wouldn’t,
couldn’t,
just ignore him. Not if she really loved him.

Damn it.

“He’s right,” she said. “Emily and Calvin don’t have any
money. I don’t have much either. How much was the bail?”

“Two-hundred,” Adam said.

Beth groaned. “Two-hundred?”

“He’s a repeat offender,” Adam explained.

“I don’t have that kind of money,” she said. “I barely even
have fifty!”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I have enough.”

“No, Adam, I can’t—”

He reached out and gently took her hand. “Beth, he called
me
.
I want to help him. I really do. But I came to you first because you’re his
sister and I l—” he started to say something, then stopped himself and shook
his head “—it’s the right thing to do. If you want to do this then money isn’t
the problem. I just need to know, do you want me to go get him or not?”

She chewed her lip. “Yes,” she admitted. She didn’t want to
leave him there. Asshole or not, he was still her brother. Her family. “Yes. I
would like that.”

Adam nodded and squeezed her hand. “Alright then. You go
finish studying for your test, and I’ll go get your brother out of jail.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m going too. I won’t be able to
study now. Not with this on my mind. I’ll just bring my books. We’ll need to be
back by tomorrow at three.”

They drove in silence. Adam didn’t dare turn the radio on. Beth
tried to study a couple times, opening the book and scanning a few pages, but
it was useless. The words blurred together and she found her mind continuously
wandering back to her fear and anger.

She also tried looking out the windows at the landscape
around her. Trees and fields rolled into the distance, broken by the occasional
farmhouse and power line. There weren’t a lot of cars on the road this late at
night. Just them.

She wasn’t surprised. By any of it. Jason was unreliable,
full of self-pity and self-loathing. ‘The world was against him’ had become his
mantra. Arguing contrary to that opinion was an exercise in futility.

He tried to go to college. Twice. The first time on their
parent’s dime and the second time on loans. Both had been a failure, and both
times he ended up living with some new woman he cared nothing for who was twice
his age.

And, now, both times he also ended up back in jail.

The countryside flitted past, unnoticed.

The only thing—at all—that set him above Rickie in Beth’s
estimation was that he still talked to the family. He used them and took
advantage of their generosity, but at least he loved them. Once in a while he
even stopped being a self-absorbed little prick and showed it.

Rickie, on the other hand, had disowned them all. He moved
to New York five years ago and cut all ties. The last she heard he got a job at
a prestigious law firm.

It was because of a woman, Beth knew. Rickie’s
girlfriend—wife, Beth reminded herself…they were married now, even though she
hadn’t been invited to the wedding—poisoned him against his family. She was
controlling and manipulative, making him pick between her and his parents. He
finished his law degree, got hired into a firm, and hadn’t spoken to them
since.

But at least he wasn’t in jail…

“How much farther?” she asked, her voice cracking. She
cleared her throat, not sure if she’d been crying or not.

“Ten minutes,” Adam said, eyes forward. This was killing
him, she knew.

“I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”

He smiled. His eyes were exhausted and he let out an
exaggerated yawn. “
He
dragged me into this. You’re just the beautiful
woman I get to ride up here with. And, to be honest, this was the
perfect
excuse to spend time with you before your test. I couldn’t have planned it
better if I tried.”

“No offense,” she said, “but I would have much preferred to
finish my exam in peace and spend time with you this weekend.”

“None taken,” he said, yawning. He glanced over at her and
grinned. “You look terrible.”

“Me,” she asked with a snort. “You keep weaving back and
forth on the road.”

“Then let me apologize now,” he said, “for when I crash and
get us both killed.”

She punched him lightly on the arm.

“What?” he asked. “I might not get the chance after!”

She smiled. She was glad he was here, despite the
circumstances.

They pulled into the lot in front of the police station and
Adam parked his VW next to a police car. The station was a squat one-story
affair made of brick and mortar. It was fading from too many frigid winters but
still strong.

He flipped the ignition off and they sat in the silence.

Her smile faded.

“He’s going to get himself killed,” she said. “If he doesn’t
stop using.”

Adam didn’t reply.

“I don’t know how,” she said into the silence, “to stop
him.”

“It was just a little marijuana,” Adam said. “I don’t think
it’s going to—”

“I found him a few months ago,” Beth interrupted. “Passed
out in my parent’s bathroom.”

“When you went to visit?”

She nodded. “I found a syringe next to him,” she said, “and
a bag of powder. Cocaine.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t want to admit it,” she said, “even to myself. I
cleaned him off, got him in bed, and flushed the drugs. I didn’t tell mom or
dad.”

She was staring down at her hands.

The silence grew oppressive.

“I don’t know how to help him,” she said. “I’ve said
everything there is to say. I thought he was doing better, then I found the
cocaine. I…” she said, her voice trailing off. She shook her head and looked up
at Adam. “I don’t want to watch him die.”

“Bethany,” Adam said gently, taking her hand in his. “It’s
not your fault.”

“I know…”

“You can’t fix his problems. He has to want to quit or
nothing will change. Until then, the only thing you can do is be there for him.
Support him, love him, and just be there. When he wants help, he’ll find you.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“He will.”

“But what if he
doesn’t?”

Adam smiled at her. “He will. In either case, there’s
nothing we can do about it today. We need to take our problems as we get them:
one at a time. All we can do today is solve what’s in front of us. Do you want
me to go get him?”

Beth shook her head. “No. I would prefer to go in alone. Is
that okay?”

Adam nodded. He leaned across the seat and gently rubbed his
thumb across her cheek under the left eye. It was a tender, loving gesture. When
he pulled his thumb back she saw it was moist from her tears. “I’ll be here if
you need me.”

She nodded and opened the door, stepping out before she
could stop herself. Suddenly she didn’t want to face Adam. All of her
self-consciousness, her stress, her anxiety, was pouring in on her.

She wasn’t mad with Jason, she realized. She was scared for
him. She hadn’t admitted it to herself, but when Adam came into the commons,
she hadn’t thought of prison. Prison was bad enough, especially after he lied
and manipulated away all of his good will.

She’d expected Adam to tell her Jason was dead.

And that terrified her.

She angrily brushed away another tear and strode to the
front door of the police station. This was a small town station out in the
middle of nowhere. They’d have a single cell and maybe two people inside it.

Marietta lived here: Jason’s newest thirty-five year old
live-in girlfriend. She had two children over ten. Marietta was a nice enough
woman when Beth had met her, but it was always awkward talking to her knowing
she was only four years younger than Emily.

A welcome bell tinkled overhead as she walking in, alerting
the room of her arrival. Not that anyone cared: all of the waiting seats were
empty.

Beth strode up to the counter. An overweight blonde woman
with a frumpy face and huge glasses was talking on the phone, leaning back in
her chair. She held up a finger for Bethany to wait, but otherwise ignored her.

The only sound in the room—other than the blonde woman’s
conversation—was a grandfather clock ticking on the left wall. A set of double
doors led to Bethany’s right and a single door led farther into the station
behind the woman. The décor was brown and drab and about five degrees colder
than comfortable.

“So that was when we headed to the store…uh huh…uh huh…oooh,
that sounds pretty…uh huh…what did he say? …mmhmm…”

Beth fought the intense—painfully intense—urge to reach across
the counter and push the lever down on the phone. Pissing the woman off,
though, didn’t seem like her greatest of plans.

Nevertheless, her patience was tested when it took another
five minutes for the woman to finally hang up. She dropped the phone in the
cradle and turned to Beth, jowls shaking. She smiled through her teeth. Beth
didn’t punch her, but she did decide that she didn’t like her.

“May I help you?”

“Yes, hello, I…um…I received a call from my…brother…earlier
today—” she started.

“You’re Jason’s sister?” the woman interrupted.

Beth nodded. “Yes, I’m the one he called.”

“It’s a good thing you’re here. Sheriff Dennison just picked
up two D and Ds and is going to need the tank.”

“It’s two hundred, right?”

The woman nodded. “That’s what the judge set it at. Let me
get you a receipt.”

The woman got up from her chair—a laborious task—and
disappeared through the double doors. She was gone a few minutes before she, a
young man in uniform with a bushy brown mustache, and her brother reappeared.

Jason looked terrible. His face was smothered in the patchy
growth of a few days’ beard, his clothes stained and full of holes. He smelled
of body odor and something that reminded her faintly of cat piss, and his eyes
had the strung out look of a junkie looking for a fix.

Beth had seen that look a lot in the last few years.

The frumpy woman held out her hand and Beth passed her the
stack of bills Adam had given her. She counted it—thrice—and then deposited it
into an envelope. Then she filled out another form, tore it from a perforated
booklet, and handed Beth a copy.

“No skipping out of the city or we’ll put a bolo out on
him,” the officer told Bethany. “Jason’s nice enough so we’d hate to have to do
that.”