“I’m only going because it’s the cushy place with the masseuses and the hiking and the chakra realignment in Malibu, not the mean boot camp in Tahoe where they check your orifices for drugs,” Hudson said when my dad told him that he’d secured him a bed at a live-in treatment center and that he was going whether he was ready or not. That we weren’t going to sit around and wait for him to die.

We are all done waiting.

“What’s that famous expression? ‘Fifth time’s the charm,’ ” Hudson said, and we all laughed, like he was joking. And maybe he was. A little.

According to my dad, the short drive to Malibu was uneventful. Hudson stared out the window and mumbled the Serenity Prayer. My dad said he felt hopeful when they said goodbye, like maybe there was a chance he’d get Hudson back whole at the end of all of this, like something good might come from our nightmare day yesterday. Like maybe a near-death scare might be exactly the thing that he needed to be set straight. And then he caught sight of Hudson eyeing the door, as if he was going to make a run for it the second my dad turned his back and drove away.

“I don’t know. What does rock bottom even mean? Things could totally get way worse, and then you’ll be like, Wait, that wasn’t rock bottom, this is. And then they could get even worse again, and then you’d be like, ‘Wait, this is it?’ ” I say.

“Helpful, thanks, Chlo,” my dad says. “I spoke to the counselor this morning and she said they’re giving Huds meds to help manage the withdrawal. So for today at least, or for this hour, I’m going to be optimistic, because the alternative is unimaginable.”

My mom rests her head on my dad’s shoulder, kisses his cheek. Hands him the ice cream container. I don’t correct my father, though unimaginable is the exact wrong word. I’ve had nightmares where we’re all dressed in black at Hudson’s funeral. Just yesterday, we took a test run.

Of course we can imagine it.

Just like I can now imagine my mom going to prison.

I can’t stop imagining both scenarios.

“You picked out all the cookie dough,” my dad says. “Maybe this is truly bottom.”

“Hudson’s going to be okay,” my mom says. “I know it.” I wonder if she actually believes this or she thinks this is what my dad needs to hear. I don’t believe it—why would rehab stick on the fifth try if it didn’t on the fourth?—and yet I hang on to the thought with white-knuckled desperation. Maybe my mom, like Isla, knows things the rest of us don’t.

I might hate my brother, but I also love him.