My Brother

I always knew there was something off about my brother and his new job. He had way too much free time. He had never been a work-a-holic, but always had a steady job just so our father wouldn’t bother him about anything. If he could avoid any unwanted conversations with our father, having a stable income was the best way to accomplish that goal. Our father had started working at an early age and having a steady income had helped bring his family out of poverty, but not until he was in his early twenties. Having not had a great chance at an education, he put priority on both working and getting the best education we could. 

Fortunately for my brother, he never had to work very hard throughout high school, so maintaining a 4.0 GPA and having a part-time job had never been strenuous for him. I, on the other hand, had to study to barely pass classes and work as much, if not more, than Jason. Jason had never seemed bothered by being so busy for most of his waking hours and actually seemed happy to be out of the house most of the time. Which made it all the more interesting he seemed to be home the majority of his days. Maybe it’s because I was jealous. Jealous that he had more free time and was doing nothing productive with it. 

I had so many plans and ideas for the rest of my life and having a full-time job was just getting in my way. I hate commuting, I hate having someone else tell me what to do, I hate not being able to have the time to take my dog out on the walks she so deserves. The only thing holding me back from what I know I deserve is my want of health insurance. Working full-time in a library also gives me the resources and sometimes the time to snoop on my brother. I just need to indirectly find out how he is doing what he is doing. I need to know how and why he is staying home so much. I thought his last job had been pretty stress free as he was working in IT for a large company, but had many employees to manage and seemed to like his coworkers as well as his boss. As far as I was concerned, liking your coworkers as well as your boss made up for a lot of the inconveniences that came with the job. 

As my brother spent more time at home, I became more suspicious. I could find nothing online about what he could possibly be doing. His name was seemingly almost completely gone from the world wide web. All I could find were a few recently written articles about restaurants with his name attached to the byline. When I finally couldn’t contain my nosiness anymore, I finally called my brother and demanded to know what was going on. I needed to know what he was doing and how he was getting away with being at home so often. How could he afford it? And how was his wife dealing with it? Was she all right when him being at home with her so much? I know she had been used to having the house to herself during the day and now Jason was home all. The. Time. 

“Well, I have found a job writing. The best part of it is the fact I can go to all my favorite restaurants and some of my not-so-favorite restaurants, eat the food, write about the food, get reimbursed and paid to do all of it!” Jason seemed so enthusiastic about his writing food critiques, I almost forgot to ask him any follow-up questions. 

“But, how did you get this job? Where did it come from?” Jason had never been a prolific writer and had often tried to bribe me to rewrite his English papers when his teachers would hand back the rough drafts. 

“It kind of just fell into my lap. Megan and I talked it over and thought it would be a little less stressful for both of us if I was home more often to help with the kids.” Was he deliberately being vague? Or was he closely guarding his opportunity in case it didn’t work out so well? 

“Do they have any openings? Are they hiring?” I instantly regretted asking because he immediately clammed up. 

“Oops, I hear Megan calling. I better go,” and Jason was gone before I could even say goodbye. 

I had to know what was going on. I had to know what Jason was up to. Was Megan involved in this charade as well? Because a charade was what this had to be. There was no way Jason was writing critiques about local restaurants. And there was no way Megan would let him lose their health benefits. Especially with two small children and another on the way. There was no way they could afford to have three children and no consistent money coming in.  

The only way I knew how to get a straight answer was to call in sick to the library so I could have a day to myself without causing too much suspicion or interruption. The library had not yet returned to full force since the pandemic so I knew no one would miss me too much. After I called out to work, I began to plan my day and how I was going to find out what Jason was really doing. Was he really writing online food reviews or was something else happening? I knew I should leave him to his own devices because he is an adult after all, but being the overbearing (and nosy) older sister, I just had to know. 

By the end of my day of snooping and undercover work, I wished I had just left well enough alone. I had found out what Jason was actually doing and was wishing I had not. I also was wishing I could erase all the images from the last eight hours out of my head. I wanted to let Megan know what her husband was up to, but how could I tell her without letting it slip that I had followed him around town for an entire day just because I was nosy and maybe a tiny bit jealous of his new life? She probably wouldn’t believe me anyway. She probably wouldn’t believe me that the love of her life had lost his job because of his gambling. That he was still gambling, but this time he was gambling with his life instead of just their money.