Ultimatum

Also by K. M. Walton

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Copyright © 2017 by K. M. Walton

Cover and internal design © 2017 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

Cover design by Regina Flath

Cover image © David Malan/Getty Images; Barcin/Getty Images

Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

(630) 961-3900

Fax: (630) 961-2168

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Names: Walton, K. M. (Kathleen M.), author.

Title: Ultimatum / K.M. Walton.

Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Fire, [2017] | Summary: When their mother dies, two very different brothers become even more distant, but when their father’s alcoholism sends him into liver failure, the two boys must come face-to-face with their demons--and each other--if they are going to survive an uncertain future.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016016735 | (13 : alk. paper)

Subjects: | CYAC: Brothers--Fiction. | Death--Fiction. | Grief--Fiction. | Family problems--Fiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.W1755 Ul 2017 | DDC [Fic]--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016016735

Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Oscar

Vance

Oscar

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Acknowledgments

About the Author

Back Cover

To Christian and Jack:

I couldn’t love you more. You are extraordinary human beings, sons, and brothers.

Oscar

I watch the nurse jab the needle into my father’s arm. He doesn’t make a move. He hasn’t made a move on his own in days. I look over at my brother, Vance, and his head is down, lost in his phone. I close my eyes and just focus on breathing.

I feel a gentle squeeze on my shoulder. That should make him comfortable, Oscar. I’ll be right out in the hall if you need me, the nurse says.

Vance told me that since Dad had this thing called a living will with a do-not-resuscitate order, there are no IVs or breathing tubes or anything else that will help to keep him alive longer. His liver is in failure, and he doesn’t have time to wait for a transplant. He will not be coming home from this place.

I nod. Thank you, I say to the nurse. Why can’t my brother put down his phone and be present?

How long now? I whisper. I read her name tag: Barbara.

She purses her lips into a tight smile. I wish I could tell you. Definitely not today.

Tomorrow? This is the end of day two here at the hospice, and I’ve been told multiple times that he’s not in pain, that they’re doing everything they can to make him comfortable. But I’m not convinced. How do they know he’s not in pain?

Barbara tilts her head and looks back at my comatose father. Maybe, maybe not. He’ll leave when he’s ready.

I want to jump up and shake her. She’s a damn hospice nurse! How can she not know? I want her to know.

I want her to tell me when he will die.

Sitting here watching him fail like this, so close, is harder than watching him live. I want it to just be over. I’m done.

How many times does she have to tell you that she doesn’t know? Vance asks after she leaves.

I turn away and ignore my brother.

I know you hear me, Vance says.

I lift my eyes and stare into his. To annoy him, I put in my earbuds and turn up the volume as loud as my phone allows. He shakes his head, indicating that he can hear the Mozart. Good.

My head fills with the layered richness of Symphony No. 29, and I let my eyes slide closed. While I’m into everything from baroque to classical to romantic, Mozart has always been my favorite. When I listen to his music, I’m taken out of my life.

My life right now consists of being trapped in this damn room with my brother and watching my father slip away one labored breath at a time. If I count the freckles on Dad’s arm one more time, I may start drooling.

I steal a peek at Vance, and he’s still glaring at me. When isn’t he? Having Mozart drown out him and his never-ending dickhead ways is helping right now. I turn and gaze out the window.

Vance has never understood me—and he never will. Even down to the music I listen to. When we were in middle school, he’d make fun of me because of it. I can still see him playing an imaginary violin with wild, insulting movements, doing everything in his power to look weird.

Were Vance and I ever close? I blink and realize the answer. No, we’ve never been close—despite only being ten months apart.

I scroll back as far as I can remember, and my hands tighten into fists.

I think it’s the classic he took my place as the baby situation. Vance resents me—like, my very existence. He couldn’t be any more unbrotherly. In fact, I’d say he stands firmly behind enemy lines. Let’s just say that if I needed saving on the battlefield, Vance would probably let me bleed out.

My brother is an attention junkie, and apparently I robbed him of having our parents’ complete and undivided focus. He has never verbalized this to me, of course—that would involve a deep conversation between us. This is all pure guesswork on my part. But I know I’m right.

Vance

Three years ago

Turn up the music, Dad! I shouted from the landing. I can’t hear it.

Reggae exploded from below, and I knew that would piss off my brother. I counted—one…two…three…door slam. Good. Let him hole up in his room scribbling shit in his sketchbook no one cared about. It was weird and he was weird.

I looked down at my homework and shoved everything into my backpack. I could do it on the bus. It wasn’t right that my dad was down there partying alone.

When I walked by Oscar’s closed door, I pounded on it as loudly as I could. I hoped I made his hand jump and he ruined whatever he was sketching. Put your drawings down and play a sport, asshole, I shouted into the door crack. He didn’t respond because he never had anything to say to me. Sometimes I wondered how we had the same parents. We were like peanut butter and onions.

Playing lacrosse was the best thing on earth. Who wouldn’t like challenging themselves and being awesome at something? Every time I geared up and stepped onto the field, it motivated me to do better, play harder. Nothing beat the smile on Dad’s face when I scored or took a guy out. Lacrosse made me friggin’ happy.

Nothing made Oscar happy. All he did was mope around and make everyone around him miserable. With his grouchy attitude, he wouldn’t survive eighth grade—and major bonus: I wouldn’t have to be in the same school as him until my sophomore year.

I stood in the dining room and watched my father guzzle his can of beer as he danced around the kitchen. Something smelled good, and it was cooking on the stove. I glanced into the recycle bin as I walked to the fridge and did a quick count—nine empties already. My mom was going to freak.

I high-fived my father because the music was too loud to talk. I checked what was in the frying pan—some kind of chicken with mushrooms. He stumbled a bit and grabbed the counter. I ducked as he tossed his empty over my head and into the bin. By the time I turned back around, he was cracking open a fresh one. He was hitting it pretty hard for a random Wednesday night. Usually reggae-and-multi-beer dad didn’t make an appearance till Friday night.

Suddenly, there was abrupt silence. My mother stood near the stove. She wasn’t a fan of loud music. She grabbed the wooden spoon and stirred. Is your homework done, Vance?

Yes, I lied.

Where’s your brother?

I don’t know why she continued to ask that question every day. She knew exactly where Oscar was. The same place. Doing the same stupid thing. His room.

Can you give your father and me a few minutes alone?

Dad mumbled, Whatever you have to say, Peggy, I’m not liss’ning. He defiantly drained the can and slammed it on the counter. Turn the music back on, Vance.

She whipped her head around and looked me in the eye. I need you to go upstairs now.

I took the steps two at a time, and that was the last time I ever saw my mother alive.

Oscar

I unfold the crisp, white sheets and make up the pullout couch. My brother gets the reclining chair tonight—which means he has the horrible job of counting Dad’s breaths till morning.

The nurse is here again. Hey, guys, have you eaten dinner?

Vance answers for us without lifting his eyes off his phone. No, not yet.

If you have money on you, I’d be happy to order something.

Vance ignores her as his fingers continue texting someone, most likely a girl.

I can’t take my brother’s rudeness so I speak up. Yep, we’ve got cash. Thanks, Barbara. That would be great.

Large pizza and fries good? she asks.

With sausage, and make it cheese fries, Vance shouts from my father’s bedside without looking up.

I glare at him and wish I could make him disappear. Thanks, I say to Barbara. She smiles this huge and lovely smile. Her cheeks lift, her eyes shine. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a woman my mom’s age smile like that. I want to capture it in a jar so I can study it. It’s that perfect.

Barbara closes the door behind her, and it’s just the three of us again. It’s tiptoe quiet in the hospice. There are no beeping machines or IV wires in Dad’s room, not like the ER. Here reminds me of the funeral parlor. Whispers, dim lights, sadness.

I leave my sheets till later and walk to my father’s bedside. I assess him head to toe for the ten-thousandth time. He’s still the color of mustard, and his hands and forearms remain blown up like balloons. His normally thick, wavy, dark-brown hair is now patchy and thin. I can see his scalp in many places.

Before he fell apart, whenever my father and I were together, everyone commented on how much I looked like him. I hate resembling someone I’m always so mad at.

My brother and I also share his stature—proudly described by my father himself as studly—which translates into tall, wide shouldered, small waisted, and naturally muscular. Unfortunately, it’s my facial features that are so similar to his. We’ve got the same full lips, big brown eyes, and wavy hair. Even our noses could pass for each other’s. I know it infuriates Vance whenever someone says, Wow, you can’t deny this one, or, He looks like you spit him out, Steve.

Vance looks like our mother: green eyes, straight, light-brown hair, and oval face. Truthfully, and I’d never tell my brother this, he’s better looking than almost every guy at our school. But even his solid good looks can’t extinguish the raging fire of jealousy he has about me being Dad’s twin. Trust me, I’d give almost anything to switch who we look like.

I continue studying our father. What bothers me the most is his mouth. It’s wide open and just hanging there like he’s surprised or shocked. Normally he’s smiling and talking—not to me of course, to everyone else. His breath rattles in and out. It’s the only sound sometimes for hours.

I lift the sheet and inspect his feet and calves. From the chair my brother huffs and chides, I don’t know why you keep checking underneath there.

The nurse explained it to us. But he probably wasn’t listening, as usual. Barbara said they check the legs and feet for swelling, which means the kidneys are shutting down, which also means the person’s body is that much closer to letting go.

I gently lay the sheet back down and stare at my father’s head. Despite being propped up by a pile of pillows, it still dips at an inhuman angle, and I want to fix it. So badly. I begin what Vance has coined rearranging his melon and carefully move the pillow positions so that his head lies normally.

A long sigh escapes from his gaping mouth, and I startle. It’s high pitched and resonant at the same time. It reminds me of a violin.

What the hell was that? Vance says. Obvious terror paints his face: bulging eyes, furrowed brow—the standards. Perhaps if he paid more attention to detail, he wouldn’t be caught off guard so often. My brother lives for himself, lacrosse, partying, and girls. In that order. I fit into none of those categories, which means I don’t fit into his life, and I never have. I figured this out a few years ago after our mother died. However, when I’m in bed staring at the ceiling, when the darkness is thick and blatant, I picture the time when I was six and Vance was seven, and he punched me in the stomach for picking a handful of dandelions for Dad.

I probably should’ve come to the conclusion then.

I place the pillow carefully next to my father’s head. He has resumed his facial stance and is quiet. No more sighing. My heart slows down to a normal rhythm. I grab my sketchbook and pencil and take a seat on the overstuffed chair next to the pullout. I put my earbuds in but don’t turn on music—I just want my brother to know I have no desire to talk to him.

Without Vance’s knowledge, I begin sketching him and Dad. This book is filled with countless moments between them that I secretly captured, mostly at the Blue Mountain Lounge.

Dad named the bar he owned in town after the Blue Mountains in Jamaica. He and Vance were obsessed with reggae—just one more thing we didn’t have in common. I was obsessed with drawing people. I’d draw him and Dad quickly, stealing glances when they weren’t looking, adding details when I was back home in my room. Neither of them has ever laid eyes on my drawings. And they never will.

My sketchbook is for me. I express myself through my drawings without judgment. I don’t need permission, there’s no need for discussion—I can draw whatever I want. The sketches remind me that I’m alive, that I’m present. Here. That I exist. When my hand moves across the page, each stroke and smudge fuels me. It’s as if the graphite has life-giving energy.

Without drawing and my music, I probably would’ve given up by now. I don’t mean suicide or anything. I mean functioning like a somewhat normal human being. Drawing and music remind me that life has the power to be beautiful, that I just have to keep my eyes and ears open.

My brother disturbs my view when he leans in and rests his forearms on the edge of