Too Much to Think About, Part III

Listening to: Primal Scream, Xtremity

The hospital staff helped me bundle up the kids and load them into the car. When we arrived home, my brother greeted me in his driveway with, "You and your kids are no longer welcome here." Not, "How is Zeke?" or "What can I do to help?" but kicking us to the curb. He'd obviously seen the blood, the paperwork from Animal Control, saw the dog was gone and added it all up. For having his dog taken away, he was kicking us out.

As furious as I was with his disregard for my son's welfare (it wasn't until I blew up at him, "Look what your damn dog did to my son!" that he asked how Zeke was), he almost brought me to violence, which would have ended my career as a therapist right there. He told me that the only way I could get my things out of his house would be to do it with the cops as a "friendly escort". And then, there, in the chill of that late-November night, insisted that the blanket (a cheap $5 Wal-Mart blanket) that the paramedics had wrapped Zeke in was his and Zeke could not have it. Never mind that Zeke had nothing on beneath the blanket. I threw the blanket at him, "Take it, you cheap, heartless sack of shit!" and wrapped Zeke in my my blood-stained jacket.

As a sick aside, my brother and sister-in-law attempted to file assault charges for me throwing that blanket at him. I assume the cops rolled their eyes on that one.

My brother had invited me to stay with him after X moved back in with me while we were still separated and things between X and me had gone badly. The offer was that I'd stay there for free (not that magnanimous an offer considering my parents were paying his rent and the rest of his bills for almost five years), hopefully to save money to get my own place. However, not a week into the arrangement and he and his wife were asking for money.

Not only that but, in my aversion to filth, I was also cleaning their house. Working 60 - 80 hour weeks at the mental health/detox unit, then coming home to a pig sty for which I was paying almost half my pay was not what I'd signed on for.