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Sometimes Jimmy remembers exactly who he is. That he’s not Saul the sweet-tongued lawyer, not Gene the pathetic Cinnabon manager, but Jimmy, the charmer, the family screw-up, the center of his mom’s universe. They’re thoughts that only come out to attack him in the night or when he’s sick, unable to chase the high of what could be or beat back the memories that haunt him.
He’s sick now – fever, nausea, sore throat. He leaves work in the middle of the day, something he never does, because he can’t stay on his feet. He spends three days in bed, unable to move. When he thinks he’s about to finally give in and die, he hears the voice.
“Jimmy, after everything you’ve been through you’re going to roll over and die now?”
Jimmy cracks one eye open. And it’s Chuck. Not the gristly visage he last saw at the scene of his death, where he’d been forced to identify his only brother’s body, but implacable Chuck, younger Chuck. His brother at his very strongest –in a suit, posture erect and arms crossed over his chest.
“Shut up and let me die, man,” he groans. Jimmy would never have said this to Chuck were he alive, but he was just sick enough not to care about saying it in death.
“You’re not going to die, Jimmy. Though you might wish you’d die this way instead of the way you’re supposed to.”
Jimmy yanks one open. Chuck stares at him, impassive, implacable. “There is ginger ale and crackers on the bedside table. Start there. Slowly.”
Jimmy moves carefully. Somehow the pain in his joints have fled. He tests the crackers, the ginger ale; his stomach rumbles, but doesn’t reject them. And his throat no longer feels like it’s coated with shards of broken glass. “Huh,” he says.
“Why are you so surprised?” Chuck wonders. “You’re made of Teflon. You’ve escaped worse,” he points out.
“I…” Jimmy shakes his head. “I’m getting a little tired of running away from it all the time.”
“You’ll have plenty of time for regrets when you’re dead,” Chuck says, and settles down at the edge of his brother’s bed. His big, warm hand and those long, elegant fingers press themselves to Jimmy’s forehead. “Trust me, I know.”
“You don’t regret things. You never make mistakes.”
Instead of answering him, Chuck’s palm covers Jimmy’s forehead and lies there. Why does he feel warm? “See? You’re burning up. Take your medicine.”
“I don’t wanna take my medicine…”
“Jimmy, shut up. Take the medicine, and don't forget to down them with bread. Text in sick for work. If you run yourself down to the bone you won’t be strong enough for what happens next.” He is staring down from on high, a disapproving God, and Jimmy trembles underneath Chuck’s judgement. He reaches for the nightstand.
Jimmy reaches out and his fingertips collide with and then grasp a bottle. He swallows the aspirin down, the antibiotics, and then a piece of bread to make sure they'll work. He waits to make sure everything stays where it is before texting his leads, telling them they’re on their own for Monday.
This small effort exhausts Jimmy, and he collapses into the cheap mattress. Chuck, however, seems mildly impressed. “Good. There’s bread for toast in the kitchen, and there’s canned soup. Tomorrow, start eating again.”
“Fine. Just let me sleep.”
He closes his eyes and feels the heavy undertow pull of exhaustion yanking at him. But he can’t resist opening his eyes, Chuck is leaving, he realizes, fading away. He has to say it before he goes.
“So I guess you do care about me, huh?”
There is a beat, two.
“If I didn’t care about you, I wouldn’t have tried to stop you.”
When Jimmy wakes up twelve hours later in his sweat-soaked sheets, his fever has broken and he’s never felt hungrier in his life.