“Don’t come over to my house and start in on me like this, Mama. I ain’t in the damn mood for it.”

“You ain’t in the damn mood for nothing no more, son.”

“Mama, I’ll go back in the house and lock the door.”

“I’m just worried about you.”

“They ain’t nothing to be worried about. I can quit drinking any time I want.”’

“Now’s as good a time as any.”

“I wish it was.”

We got quiet, and the cicadas filled our silence with their summer chorus. Albermarle Mountain’s radio towers blinked on and shined the way the North Star did for the wise men who searched for Jesus. Mama watched them along with me.

“I talked to your brother yesterday,” she said, looking away from the blinking lights and back at me.

“Yeah? How’s Marshall doing?” The topic of my brother made me want to reach back for the bottle, but I resisted the urge.

“You’d know if you ever called him.”

“He don’t wanna talk to me,” I said, really wanting another drink.

“How long’re you gonna go without talking to him, Mack?”

“Until I’m ready.”

“It’s been months now.”

“And it’ll be a few months more.”

“You two’re just as damn stubborn as your Deddy,” she said. “I’d choke him to death if I could get my hands on him.” Mama wrung her hands together like she had Deddy’s windpipe in her fists now.

Hearing Mama’s idle threats finally sent me back to the bottle. I reached down, grabbed it by the neck, and took a hard pull from it. The bourbon burned going down and brought tears to my eyes. I wasn’t entirely sure if they weren’t just from my depression, and it was the only way they could get released. Mama did speak after I started drinking again. She sat with me until the horizon got dark and then left without saying goodbye.

If I were being honest, I saw my brother’s face every time I reached the bottom of a bottle of Woodford and thought about calling him every time I took another swig of beer. More than once, I found myself standing over the house phone with the receiver in my hand. The dial tone brought me into the present each time, and the phone felt like holding a burning piece of coal. I’d slam it back onto its base and go back to drinking. I didn’t even know what number I’d call. Peanut gave me no way to contact Marshall, and I was too prideful to ask Mama. There was his cell, but I deleted the number.