Exceptions existed for a reason.
Half an hour later, I stood near the tall windows with a TracFone I’d purchased down the street at a liquor store. After entering my brother’s cell number and gripping the cheap plastic tighter, I heard the ring. “Answer the phone, you fucker.”
The call went to Phillip’s voicemail.
Hanging up, I called back.
Same voicemail.
The third fucking time he answered.
“Hello, brother.”
My teeth ached from the pressure. “You’re losing it, Lip. Stop harassing my secretary. Leave me the fuck alone.”
“Like you’ve left me alone? Like how you’ve left Mom and Dad alone? Like you left Madison alone?”
“Water under the fucking bridge. What do you want?”
“Oh, that’s a broad question. Are you granting wishes, brother?”
“What will make you crawl back under the rock you’ve been living under? What do you want?” I repeated.
“I want the life that was stolen. I want the wife that was lost. I want a fucking family.” His volume rose with each statement.
“How is Brooklyn?” I asked.
“Stay the fuck away from her. If you get close to her, you’re going to prison. Lock you up, throw away the key.”
I feigned a laugh. “You’re good at that, aren’t you?”
“I saw the announcement.”
No fuck.
“And you called my office and now my secretary’s private number to congratulate me. Your message has been received. Your rock is waiting.”
“I want to meet her.”
“No fucking way in hell,” I said, my voice steady—the calm, not the storm.
“Leaving you alone with your money was one thing,” Lip said. “I pictured you drinking yourself to death in your loneliness.”
I knew what he wanted me to say, he wanted to hear my loneliness was over. I wouldn’t. That would only bait him. I didn’t care how much he hated me. I hated him too. I wouldn’t allow this conversation to go beyond the abstract subject of Julia.
“Oh, here’s the thing, Lip. I’ve never been lonely. I have got my memories to keep me company. I have a closet full of artwork. I have everything that you wanted.”
“You know what happens when you hit bottom?” he asked.
“No, that’s your specialty.”
“Absolutely nothing to stop me. Nothing,” he said, his words a bit jumbled. “Keep fucking with people’s lives and my list of allies gets longer.”
“Listen to you. We’re not twelve years old and dividing up teams for a game of tag. Grow the fuck up. You’re forty-one years old. Man up for once.”
“Go to hell.”
“You aren’t at the bottom, Lip. You still have Brooklyn,” I reminded him.