Page 5 of Drowning Erin

Sean asks if Rob and I have set a date yet, and when I tell him we haven’t he offers—just as my father did—to come beat a little sense into Rob. Everyone assumes it must be Rob dragging his heels because women are supposed to be giddy over the prospect of a wedding, as if we’ve just won the lottery. No wonder my reluctance bothers Rob so much.

I ask him if he’s registered for class, and when he sighs heavily, my heart sinks. Sean has more bad news than anyone I’ve ever met, most of it entirely his own fault. But when he emerged from rehab last month determined to become an addiction counselor, I really believed he was turning things around.

“I don’t think it’s going to work out,” he says. “It was too late to apply for financial aid. And I probably wouldn’t qualify anyway. No one’s gonna bank on a convicted felon paying them back.”

I hate that defeated quality to his voice, especially because it always seems to precede the manic quality his voice gets when he starts using again.

“There must be a way,” I urge. “Did you talk to Mom and Dad?” It’s only desperation that makes me ask. I know for a fact that my parents don’t have the money. I’ve had to help them with their mortgage twice in the past year.

“Right,” he laughs. “They can’t even help themselves. It’s okay. I’m waiting tables, and they said I can move up to tending bar at the end of the month.”

I feel panic rising in my chest. “You must know that’s a bad idea.”

“I’m not an alcoholic, Erin,” he says testily.

I press my palm to my face, trying to rein in all the things I want to say. Spending time around people drinking inevitably leads to spending time around people who are doing coke and meth and every other thing he’ll wind up doing. He knows this. But reminding him of his failures will get me nowhere. In many ways, he’s a lot closer to 13 than 29.

“How much do you need?” I ask, desperation leaking into my voice. “For tuition?”

“Like 20 grand or something,” he says. “It was a crazy idea. You know how long it would take me to pay it back?”

“I’ll pay it,” I say impulsively. I’ve been saving ever since graduation. It’s money that’s given me a feeling of safety I never had growing up. But I guess I can learn to live without that feeling for a while.

He asks if I’m sure Rob will be okay with it, and I feel slightly queasy. No, Rob will not be okay with it. If it were up to Rob, I’d have written Sean off entirely by now. But Rob has no siblings, and he certainly doesn’t get to determine how I treat mine.

“It’ll be fine,” I tell him.

The second I hang up the phone, Harper is leaning over my cubicle wall. “Did you just give away all your money to your brother?”

“I know we can hear each other’s conversations,” I reply primly, “but we’re supposed to at least pretend we aren’t actively listening.”

“Shouldn’t you have spoken to Rob first?”

Shit. Yes. Probably. “If he can invite someone to live with us without asking me, I guess I can give away 20 grand without asking him.”

“To a recovering addict,” she reminds me.

“I’m not an idiot. I’m not going to give him the money directly. I’ll just pay his tuition.” I sense, based on the look she gives me, that it doesn’t help my case.

We both hear Timothy’s tuneless whistling in the hallway, which means today’s meeting with the chancellor was woefully brief or didn’t happen at all. He appears at my cubicle a moment later with his standard look: dour and suspicious, with a dollop of resentment on top.

“Erin’s cubicle isn’t a water cooler, Harper,” he says. “Don’t you have someplace to be?”

She shrugs, because unlike the rest of us, Harper does not give a flying fuck about Timothy’s opinion. Sometimes I think she wants to get fired.

“It’s after 4:30, Tim-O. I’m off the clock.”

“There is no clock, because you are salaried,” he says. “So if you are truly done for the day, which I doubt, please move along and let the rest of my employees get their jobs done.”

She, naturally, doesn’t move a muscle, just stares at him until he walks away.

“You know what I dream about sometimes?” she asks. “Working in a factory.”

I tilt my head to the side. “Huh?”

“Think about it.” She pushes away from the wall and comes around to my desk. “Some job where you just push a button or something every three minutes—without Tim coming around to suggest ways you could push the button better, or waxing poetic about what it means to push the button, and where there’s a union telling him he’s not allowed to let you push the button even a minute after you’re off.”

“That still sounds sort of tedious.”