At exactly 7:01, someone knocks on the front door with firm certainty, and I already know who it is before I open it. My older brother Aaron Collins stands there in a dark jacket, his hair damp from the early morning mist in Franklin Ridge, Ohio, and his jaw tight with things he has not said yet.
He looks at my face and heartbreak reaches his eyes before anger has time to arrive, and that nearly breaks me more than last night did. “You should have called me sooner,” he says quietly, and I nod because there is no version of the truth where that is wrong.
He steps inside and asks, “Is he awake,” while glancing toward the stairs, and I tell him not yet. Aaron studies me carefully, then says, “We do this your way,” and that matters more than I expected because nobody has said that to me in years.
We move into the kitchen together, where morning light falls across the worn table that has seen too many quiet humiliations. He looks around and asks, “What do you need from me,” and the answer rises immediately without hesitation.