CW: Vomiting blood, addiction, medical emergency, brief joke mentioning suicidal ideation
“Mom said we’re starting—” Harsh retching, a splash of liquid hitting liquid, and a fit of deep wet coughs cut Silas off as he entered the bathroom. He winced and took a step back. “Anson?”
Silas saw the soles of his brother’s worn black Converse low tops and baggy jeans ripped at the knee sticking out from under the only stall. He rolled his eyes and sighed. He was no stranger to the sight of his brother hugging a toilet. He had stayed up many nights clenching Anson’s hair in his fist to keep him from falling face first into his own mess, shining a flashlight on his lips and fingertips to make sure they weren’t turning blue, and stripping his bed and washing the sheets before their parents could find them in the morning.
“I thought you were sober,” Silas said, trying to hide his disappointment. He ran his hand through his jet black curls, folded his arms behind his head, and pressed his lips into a thin line. “This whole wedding isn’t even going to have alcohol just for you.”
Anson took several deep breaths interrupted by hiccups and a few burps. “I am sober.” He panted and swallowed. “Three months. You wanna see my chip?”
“If you’re lying…” Silas hated to suggest his brother might have fallen off the wagon. He felt like his mother.
Silas laughed. “The atheist swears to God, in the house of the Lord, no less. You’d better hope there’s not a Hell.”
“I’m not lying.” Anson’s voice lacked the performative conviction Silas had learned to detect over the years, the forced emphasis and noticeable effort to keep it from wavering. It also lacked the furious indignation Silas expected at his accusation. Anson was pleading.
“Then what’s wrong?” Silas asked. He frowned and stepped toward the stall door until his face was about an inch away from it.
“I don’t know.” Anson shifted to lean his head and shoulder against the wall and groaned. “It feels like I’m being stabbed by, like, twenty knives.”
“Was it something you ate?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Anson whined through sharp, ragged breaths.
Each exhale sunk into a weak, desperate moan. Silas’s breathing and heart rate quickened at the sound echoing off the walls and ringing in his ears. He held his hand to the stall door. “Do you need me to come in?
Anson gagged. A heavy belch erupted from his throat. A watery stream splashed into the water below him, swirling dizzily. The force sent droplets flying back up into his face like a bitter sea breeze. A trickle of saliva dripped down his chin. He raised a trembling hand to wipe it and vomited onto his knuckles.
Silas listened with wide eyes and started toward the doorway. “I’m gonna go get Dad.”
“No,” Anson whimpered. “Don’t leave.”
“My phone is dead. Do you have yours?”
“I left it in the pews.” The last word broke off into an airy squeak and Anson lost the grip he’d had on his tears.
“I’ll be right back, okay? I promise. I’m gonna get help. I’ll be back in a minute.” Silas was gentle and assuring but Anson sobbed breathily and continued to heave and cough. Silas did not want to leave his brother. As he rushed into the foyer, he cursed himself for thinking his phone battery would last a full day at thirty-eight percent.
Silas pushed past his grandparents and Uncle Walton standing in the aisle between the smooth, honey brown rows of wooden pews sitting on a deep crimson carpet. They exchanged bright, excited glances that shone harmoniously with the setting sun through the vibrant purples, yellows, and blues of the stained glass windows in stark contrast to Silas’s furrowed eyebrows and blank, panicked stare. They noticed his distress, followed him with their gazes, and trailed off into whispers.
Silas approached the altar where his father, Joe, a burly, six foot three man with broad shoulders and a thick frame was talking to his mother, Mary, short with an auburn bob that clung to the edges of her tight, pointed face. His oldest brother, Lee, the groom-to-be with dark, glimmering shoulder length curls concealing his eyes and inner turmoil stood next to them nodding along and wringing his hands.
“Did you find Anson?” his mother asked, cutting a sharp, disapproving look.
“He’s in the bathroom.” Silas turned to his father. “He’s really sick, Dad. You have to come help him.”
His mother’s smile fell and her eyes became stormy and dark. She shook her head slowly, the corners of her mouth dipping as her lips parted to release the words heating up on her tongue. “It’s his brother’s wedding rehearsal and he couldn’t even, just for one night, after all we’ve done, after all we’ve been through—”
“He’s not drunk. He’s really sick.” Silas’s voice rose. The other cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends milling about turned to look. “Please just come—”
“—He’s lying to you,” his mother continued. “He’s done it to all of us, and we are not falling for it again. Not tonight. Tonight is about Lee and Isolde.” She folded her arms. “We’ll start the rehearsal without him.”
Silas was almost hysterical. “Dad, please. He was crying! Just come on!”
“He was crying?” Dad asked.
“Yes,” Silas begged, “please just come on!”
Silas grabbed his father’s arm and pulled him back through the aisle. Joe almost tripped and he asked his son to let go of him, but he refused and rattled incoherently about how Anson might have already died before they could reach him. Lee followed and tried to keep his brother from spiraling out while his mother walked behind them wearing a pruney scowl.
Silas charged into the bathroom first, dropped to his knees, and peered under the stall. Anson was curled up, shivering and making little pained noises from the back of his throat. A puddle of dark red liquid was pooled under his head and some was dribbling from his mouth.
Silas gasped. “Is that blood?”
“Move.” Joe nudged Silas out of the way and began maneuvering into the stall. He grunted and swore as his back scraped the bottom of the door. He pressed his torso as flat as he could to the tile and squeezed in.
“Anson, can you hear me?” he asked, reaching up to undo the lock. He held the back of his hand to his son’s forehead. “You have a fever,” he muttered. “Anson?” he asked again, shaking his son’s shoulder. “Lee, call 9-1-1.”
“Oh my God,” Silas cried despairingly. “Is he dying?”
“He’s gonna be okay,” Lee said, squeezing his younger brother's shoulder and pulling his phone from his pocket. “Dad’s got him.”
“Silas,” Joe called, “go tell your mother what’s going on and look out for the ambulance.”
Silas swallowed and peaked fearfully into the stall.
“Go on.” Lee grabbed his shoulders and urged him toward the door. “Ambulance please…Saint Peter Church on West 24th Street…My brother is sick. He…”
“Dad?” Anson asked faintly.
“Yes, buddy, I’m here.” His father brushed his bangs off of his forehead.
“I feel a lot better, actually,” he strained out through gritted teeth. “You can tell the ambulance,” he gulped, “not to come.”
Anson put his hand to his mouth. His stomach lurched. Joe reached down, thrust his hands under Anson’s armpits and hoisted him up to the toilet a split second before he threw up a cascade of red and black. Joe rubbed his back with one hand and held his chest steady with the other. Anson coughed and screamed, clutching his stomach. Between gravelly howls, he insisted he did not need to go to the hospital. He scratched at his father’s hands and tried to stand, yelling and collapsing in on himself. He finally slumped over and crumpled into his father’s arms, crying weakly.
Everyone was listening uneasily from outside of the bathroom. Silas was running in and out of the church doors every few seconds asking where the hell the ambulance was. His mother was wiping her cheeks furiously on the sleeve of her blouse. Isolde swiped some of the tears away with her thumb while Grandma dug around in her purse for tissues. They both told her everything would be okay; Isolde in her soft, flowery voice and Grandma with her gruff, wise certainty. Grandpa assured her that the ambulance would be there soon and in the meantime, Joe would know what to do.
The ambulance pulled up at the curb. A tall, lanky man stepped out of the driver’s seat and unloaded the stretcher alongside a stocky woman with long, thin brown braids wrapped into a bun on top of her head. Silas and Uncle Walton held the doors open and directed them into the bathroom.
Joe stood up and made way for the paramedics to reach Anson. “Male, twenty-three, birthdate 3/26/02. Fever with severe abdominal pain; vomited about two pints of blood. No preexisting health conditions besides a history of alcoholism, opiate addiction, and bipolar 1. He’s on five hundred milligrams of depakote and one thousand milligrams of lithium. He has an allergy to eggs.”
“Thank you,” the woman said without looking up as she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Anson’s arm and clipped a pulse oximeter to his finger.
“You work in healthcare?” the man asked Joe in a weaselly voice while he tapped with a stylus on a tablet.
“BP: eighty-three over forty, pulse: one-fourteen, O₂: ninety-seven,” the woman called out.
The smell of copper and stomach acid hovered humidly in Lee’s nose as he watched his father and the two paramedics lift Anson’s wiry frame onto the stretcher and strap him in. His brother floppily thrashed and kicked, reaching to unbuckle the belts with fingers clunky and uncoordinated like a baby’s. The paramedics easily pushed them out of the way and they fell limp.
As Lee looked on, his arms twitched up a bit and his foot stepped forward as he decided between going over to help or staying put. He worried he’d be in the way or further overwhelm his brother. Lee felt helpless but not afraid. He always believed everything would be alright up until the moment it wasn’t.
“We just want to help you feel better, bud,” the man said, rebuckling a strap Anson had somehow managed to undo.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” assured the woman, her flat, slightly condescending tone lacking the sentiment she attempted to express. “We just want to help.”
“It’s okay, Anson, I’m right here,” Joe said, running his hand up and down his son’s arm calmly and steadily. “I’ll be right here with you the whole time.”
Anson’s mind raced with thoughts of escaping. The hands pinning him down were rough and lethal. They would shove him into the side of their cruiser. He’d fight to get away before they reached for their holsters. They would slam his head into the pavement. Next came the thick taste of blood in his mouth and black and blue exploding across his head and chest. Then the taser would jolt him into a haze of agony, his heart pounding through his rib cage ready to blow like a ticking bomb. He had to get out. His life depended on it. But his limbs moved like they were disconnected from his brain, like he was in a dream. He was going to die.
The paramedics wheeled Anson out and loaded him into the ambulance. His father climbed in the back with him and the woman. Mary, Lee, and Silas ran to the parking lot, hopped in Joe’s Lexus, and followed them to the hospital. Lee drove and his mother did not release her grip on the handle above the passenger seat window until they parked in the ER lot.
An X-ray confirmed what Joe had silently suspected: Anson had a perforated stomach ulcer and needed to be rushed into emergency surgery. He was too delirious from the pain and the fever to fully understand what was happening, but he knew he was in a hospital from the eerie fluorescent lights bombarding him behind his eyelids, the freezing cold air pricking his skin, the faint smell of cleaning chemicals, the disembodied coughs and wails, and the cacophony of monitors beeping around him that seemed to grow louder and louder. He squirmed around and whimpered, anticipating a tube shoved down his throat or a cup of activated charcoal smothering his tongue. His mother hushed him and hummed a made up tune like she did when he woke up with nightmares as a child.
A man with thinning brown hair combed over his scalp knocked twice and entered the room dawning a comforting smile. “I’m Dr. Capracian,” he said with enthusiastic compassion. He shook both Mary’s and Joe’s hands then turned to Anson. “I’ll be performing the surgery to repair your ruptured ulcer.” He saw that Anson was barely conscious so he turned back to face his mother and father. “The surgery will take about two hours. Basically what we’ll do first is give him antibiotics through his IV. Sepsis is the complication we’re most worried about with a perforated ulcer.”
Joe nodded. Mary looked over at him then back at the doctor. She watched her husband’s reactions to what the he to keep track of which parts were the most important.
“We’ll prep him, give him a sedative and then administer general anesthesia. I’ll be entering laparoscopically so it’s just a small incision. Once I’m in, I’ll suture the opening and place something called an omental patch which is a patch made of fatty tissue from the upper abdomen.” Dr. Capracian smiled again. “I’m optimistic about his recovery. He’s young and in pretty good health. Do you guys have any questions?”
“What pain meds are you giving me?” Anson mumbled into his pillow.
Mary and Joe held their breath. Dr. Capracian squinted and lowered his eyebrows.
“I don’t want to fuck up four months.”
His mother and father looked at each other and chose to cling to hope.
A team of nurses and doctors came and began hooking Anson up to various tubes and machines. He didn’t put up a fight aside from nervously asking what the chances were he wouldn’t wake up and joking that he wished they were higher. His mother rolled her eyes but this troubled her. Once they gave Anson the sedative, he was out quickly. When they finally wheeled him down the hall and turned the corner, Mary and Joe joined the rest of the rehearsal party in the waiting room.
The waiting room was modestly sized with chairs lined along the faded orange walls and in rows of five or six across in the middle. It was quiet aside from low chatter from a couple of other families and a toddler occasionally fussing. Joe sat next to Silas in one of the chairs that managed to be both cushioned and hard, put his arm around him, and gave him a kiss on his forehead. Aunt Chrissy and Uncle Walton were talking to Isolde about how excited they were to see her dress. They’d heard it was absolutely gorgeous. She smiled bashfully.
“Maybe we ought to wait until Anson is better,” she said. “I really don’t want him to miss it.”
“That’s true,” Lee agreed. “It might be a bit before he’s fully healed up, but we can wait as long as it takes.” He pursed his lips and glanced shiftily to the side.
The evening pressed on and energy dwindled. People began to lean on shoulders, tap their feet, bounce their legs, and check the time. Silas started to pace, so his father sent him to get everyone’s vending machine orders one at a time. Grandma told him about how scared she was during Grandpa’s hip surgery but he made it through just fine. He was there to tell his grandson such without looking up from yesterday’s newspaper. Silas pretended that the story put him at ease, but he couldn’t scrub the image of his brother lying in his own blood from his mind. It was the worst he’d ever seen him and he’d seen him awful.
Joe was the first to notice Dr. Capracian walk through the double doors. He tapped Mary’s shoulder. They both stood up as he came over in long, swift strides.
“He did great,” Dr. Capracian said. “Everything by the books. He’s in recovery now. You guys can come back and see him.”
The back of Joe’s throat began to ache and Mary’s bottom lip trembled at the sight of their son lying thin and frail under the crisp white sheets. They sat down in chairs on either side of him.
“How do you think this happened?” Mary asked.
“My guess,” Joe began, “is that he was using ibuprofen for his hangovers and ignored the early symptoms of the ulcer.”
“Why would he take ibuprofen and not Tylenol?” Mary asked.
“He always swore ibuprofen worked better for him.” Joe shook his head. “I always told him not to take it.”
Anson inhaled sharply. They both turned to him.
“Hey, champ,” Joe said encouragingly. “You with us?”
His eyes fluttered briefly before falling shut. His breaths returned to a deep rhythm.
“It might be a while before he fully wakes up,” Joe said, watching him sleep with a wistful expression. “Do you think he’s been staying sober?” He flicked his eyes to his wife.
“I’d like to believe he is,” she said, still watching her son. “I hope he’s taking his medication at the very least.”
“Yeah,” Joe sighed. “That’s the other thing.”
“I worry about him so much,” she said, “but I just get so frustrated. I don’t know what to do.” She reached for Anson’s hand and cradled it in hers. She held it to her mouth and spoke softly into it, shaking her head and rocking back and forth. “My baby,” she said over and over again. “My poor baby.”
“I’m sorry.” Anson’s sleepy, meek voice startled his parents and tore their hearts to shreds.
“For what, sweetheart?” his mother asked.
“For everything,” he sniffled.
“We love you, Anson,” his father said. “We just want you to get better.”
“Is Silas okay?” Anson asked, struggling to wipe his cheeks and nose. When he couldn’t manage, his mother did it for him. “He was freaking out.”
“He’s doing better now,” Mary said. “He knows you’re alright.”
“Lee and Isolde were thinking about postponing the wedding after everything that happened,” Dad said.
“You can’t really do that with a shotgun wedding.” Anson’s head lulled to the side and he smirked lazily up at his father, eyes still shut. “Timeline will be off. People will do the math.”
Mary and Joe exchanged a look, mouths agape. They recovered and engaged in a wordless conversation.
I don’t think he’s serious. Joe tilted his head and scoffed lightly with a knowing look. You know he likes to play games.
I know when he’s joking. Mary raised her eyebrows and blinked rapidly, shaking her head. He’s not joking.
Just let it go. Joe glared. We’ll talk about it later.
“Shit, I wasn’t supposed to say that,” Anson muttered. “Can you guys forget I said that?” He raised a heavy arm and pointed. “Obliviate.” He tumbled into a fit of raspy giggles. “J.K. Rowling is a cunt,” he slurred. His face suddenly turned stony. ‘But seriously, don’t tell Lee I told you that. He’ll beat the shit out of me.”
Mary bit the side of her cheek and held her tongue at Anson’s foul language.
“We won’t tell him,” Joe assured.
Mary stood up, shot her husband a fiery stare, and patted Anson on the shoulder. “I‘ll be right back, sweetheart.”
Mary briskly approached Lee in the waiting room, a little out of breath, tucking a few stray strands of hair behind her ear and pointing her nose up so she was peering down at him from an angle. “Can I talk to you?”
Lee looked up from his phone. “What is it?” he asked. “Is Anson okay?”
“He’s good. He’s awake, but I need to talk to you.”
“Why just me?” Lee was skeptical.
Mary stood with her hands on her hips, expectant and unmoving. That was enough to raise Lee slowly and silently from his chair. Silas’s eyes darted between the two of them. Isolde watched curiously.
Lee followed his mother from the waiting room out into the hallway decorated with dull colored geometric patterns. They stopped at the end of it next to the vending machine and a window over looking a parking lot and the now dark, night sky. Mary didn’t waste a second. “Is Isolde pregnant?”
“What?” Lee asked, flustered. “What? Why, why would you, why would you ask that?”
“Answer my question,” she snapped. She took a deep breath and repeated herself, deceivingly calm. “Answer my question.”
“Who told you that?” Lee asked. “Why would you even ask that?”
“Who the hell told you?” he demanded.
“Don’t curse at me!” she yelled. “You do not curse at me!”
An older man timidly approached the vending machine. He apologized softly, clumsily rushing with trembling, arthritic hands to push in his dollar bills. They were rejected a few times and he looked almost like he would give up. Once they were graciously accepted, he almost giggled with relief, reached down effortfully to grab his bag of plain baked potato chips, and walked as quickly as he could manage back to the waiting room.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, making a scene in a hospital like this,” Mary hissed.
Lee knew he wouldn’t be able to control himself if he called out her hypocrisy so he clenched his jaw. “Was it Silas?” he asked, balling up his fists. “That little,” he caught himself, “can’t keep a secret to save his life.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He outstretched his arms and scoffed bewilderly. “Why do you think?” He turned and began walking back toward the waiting room. “I’ll kill him.”
Lee stopped and turned back to face his mother, his frown softening. “Isolde?” Mary shook her head.
His fading scowl melted completely into a regretful grimace. “Anson.”
Mary was quiet for a bit. “He’s completely out of it.” Her cheeks burned red. “He might not even remember.”
Lee sighed and rubbed his face defeatedly. “You’re probably the only person on the planet who would care this much about premarital sex.”
Another quiet moment passed. “Would you marry her tomorrow if she wasn’t pregnant?”
Lee looked up in shock. He had expected beratement, Bible verses, or at the very least her usual speech about how she’d failed as a mother, carefully and bitingly tailored to the current situation. He fought for words, growing more distraught with each second he couldn’t find the only one he needed.
“Would you?” his mother repeated, sincerely and soulfully.
“We’ll be fine,” Lee choked out.
She lowered her head. “Is that my answer?”
The pair returned shamefully, carrying a weighty tension that everyone could sense. Mary tried to appear jovial as she announced that Anson was awake and doing well. Everyone smiled unsurely as she spoke, wondering what had gone on when she and Lee left so abruptly before even sharing this news.
“Can I see him?” Silas asked anxiously.
“Yes, you can go back and see him. Room 404,” Mary said. “He wanted you to know he’s alright. Just tell him I’ll be in after. Only two are allowed in at a time.”
Silas had sprung up as soon as he heard “Yes” and ran toward the double doors leading into the recovery area.
Isolde looked at her fiancé somberly. Lee would not meet her eyes.
“What’d you guys talk about?” she asked.
The sweetness of her voice was a dagger through his chest. “I’ll tell you later.”
He turned to her, tears brimming, threatening to fall in a single blink, his voice hardly above a whisper. “Later.”
“Anson?” Silas asked, peeking around the doorway into the dimly lit room. “Is he asleep?” he asked his father.
“I’m awake,” Anson answered drowsily.
“They want me to wake up,” he said, still not opening his eyes, “but I want to sleep.”
Joe grabbed the styrofoam cup sitting on the bedside table. “Have a sip of water.” He held the straw to his son’s lips. “Take deep breaths.”
Anson took a few sips and made a face. “My stomach feels weird.”
“You feel sick?” Joe asked. He grabbed the blue emesis bag a nurse had sat next to Anson on the bed.
“Yeah, kinda,” he breathed.
“Why is he sick?” asked Silas.
“It’s just a side effect of the anesthesia.” Joe leaned toward Anson knowing what was to come after the pallor, slight green tinge to his cheeks, and sheen of sweat beading on his forehead. “C’mon, sit up.” He held the ‘up’ arrow on the side of the bed until Anson was sitting upright.
Anson leaned forward and gulped, taking shallow breaths.
“Deep breaths,” his father reminded.
He burped. His mouth flooded. He gagged and spit a steady flow of saliva into the bag. Chills wracked his body. Drops of sweat poured down his temples. His stomach rolled in waves, cyclically heaving upward. He retched. A bit of water shot from his throat and hit the plastic. He groaned and leaned back feeling as if the bed were a boat bobbing up and down on the sea. His stomach was empty so he could only dry heave painfully. His father rubbed circles in his back and Silas tried to distract him by recounting the drama between their mother and brother.
“It was so weird,” he said. “She came in and was like ‘I need to talk to you’ and they went out into the hallway. They were gone for, like, ten minutes. Everyone was like ‘What the hell was that?’ but neither of them said anything about it when they came back in. I don’t know what happened after that. That was when I came back to see you.”
“They know, man,” Anson croaked, still hovering over the bag. “I told them when I was high on the anesthesia.
“Seriously?” Silas asked. “Wow. I thought for sure it would be me.” He grinned. “I’m so glad it wasn’t.”
Anson coughed and retched forcefully. “I thought they gave me medicine for nausea.”
“They might need to give you a different one,” his father said, standing up and heading toward the door. “I’ll go talk to your nurse.”
Silas said nothing for a while, trying to tune out his brother swallowing back gags. It reminded him of the bathroom at Saint Peter’s. He saw blood every time he closed his eyes and shuddered. He couldn’t take it anymore and spoke. “I thought you were dying,”
“I kind of was.” Anson yawned then turned his neck to face his brother. “I’m glad you found me.” He stretched his arms and rested one on his stomach. “I’m glad you believed me.” He thought for a moment. “You always believe me, even when I’m lying.”
“I’m not going to lie to you anymore.” Anson held out his pinky. “I promise.”
“Dude, I do not want to touch your hand.”
Anson put down his pinky and flipped up his middle finger. “Fine then, deal’s off. I’m lying to you as much as I want. I don’t give a fuck.”
“Fuck you,” Silas laughed.
“I just had major surgery and I’m not out of the woods. You should be nice to me.” Anson shook his head and smiled. Being with Silas like this could almost make Anson forget everything he put him through, but he knew he didn’t deserve to forget. He knew he didn’t deserve his brother.
Their father entered and sat down, serious and solemn. He rested his chin on the tips of his fingers. “I have some news.”
“Well first, Anson, they’re switching you to dexamethasone.”
“Okay?” Anson said. “What’s the news?”
“Well, the wedding is off, at least for now.”
Anson and Silas looked at each other then back at their father, dumbfounded.
“Is it because of me?” Anson asked.
“I don’t know the whole story.”
No one spoke for a stretch. Anson stared at his feet; Silas at the wall; Joe at his phone for more updates from Mary, the beeping monitor and squeak of a nurse’s sneakers down the hall a backdrop to their thoughts.
“Did they break up?” Silas asked.
“Guys, I don’t know,” Joe huffed. “I’m going to go talk to them. Your mother should be coming back soon. Just sit tight.” He rushed out leaving his sons behind to mull.
“I was really looking forward to a wedding,” Silas grumbled.
“We should be thinking about Lee right now,” Anson scolded piously, a near-perfect impression of his mother.
“What do you think happened?” Silas asked.
“I’ll tell you what I know happened. He realized marrying Isolde because he got her pregnant and he wants to keep Mom happy is not a good reason to get married.”
“I thought he loved her,” Silas said, laden with naive innocence.
“He does,” Anson said, eyes twinkling playfully, “but love’s not a good reason to get married either.”
Silas stared at the white wall again, pondering what his brother said. Some things, he figured, he had to learn for himself. His mind drifted back to the events of earlier that day, as it had been on a loop for the past four hours. Something occurred to him. “Mom wanted to start the rehearsal without you, but I went to find you,” Silas said gravely. “If I didn’t, we could’ve gotten a funeral instead of a wedding.”
Anson took a sip of water. “I’m really glad you found me.” He held out his pinky again. “I’m going to be better. I promise.” His hand hovered still, unflinching. “No more lies.”
Silas raised his own pinky, clasped it tightly around Anson’s, and pressed his fist firmly into his brother’s. “I believe you.”
