Chapter 3 Falling Off The Wagon

She watched King as he watched Linkoln standing outside. "King?" She called to him, noticing the solemn stare on his face. He looked down at her, recovering with a small smile. She could see right through it, however. "What's going on in that head of yours?" She asked.

Her older brother shook his head. "Just thinking...few things on my mind, I guess."

"Ha," She replied. "Like our brother trying to stuff whatever that was in his pocket?"

King looked at Dallas, slightly surprised for a moment before he chuckled dryly. "Of course. you'd notice."

Dallas shrugged. "Naturally," She replied in a teasing manner before her smile faded. "How is he, King?" She asked.

Dallas was very concerned about their oldest brother. Linkoln was an extremely intelligent guy but just like any other person, Linkoln had his demons that he had to work through. The worst, by far, however, was the strong drinking habit that he'd fallen into when he was a teenager.

It took three interventions and months of therapy to get him through those times. As far as she knew, he had still been attending AA meetings but with all that had been going on of late, she didn't know if he still was.

"Has he been drinking again?" She asked. Dallas could sense that King didn't want to answer this question. This in itself, was confirmation of her fears. With great exasperation, she leaned over the second-floor balcony looking over the foyer and part of the living room. Her gaze stared out for a moment in silence as she thought about what this could mean.

"Dallas," She heard her brother say. "Everything is going to be alright. Linkoln is-"

"Is what, Ki?" She cut him off. "Because he's certainly fell off the wagon!" She exclaimed. She dropped her head again in further consideration, her golden-green gaze staring out of the window in the distance at her brother as he welcomed their aunt and uncle. She sighed. "How long has it been going on?"

When King didn't answer right away, Dallas looked up at him, her intense stare alone seeming to force him to respond. "Just since dad left,"

"And how long has that been?" Dallas asked.

"Not too long," King quickly retorted.

Dallas knew that he wasn't being completely truthful and to be honest she was too emotionally drained to drag it out of him. Her concern at the moment was the fact that her oldest brother was drinking his sorrows.

"We have to get him back on track, King," Dallas expressed. "You know how bad it got the last time this happened."

Linkoln-even though he was a jack-of-all-trades in terms of intellect, always had a tendency to get into trouble as a kid. He was very attractive and always had a way with words, naturally able to charm his way out of or into anything, and because of this, he was quite popular. With that popularity came very questionable decisions, and it didn't help that Linkoln started hanging around other guys whose choices were just as if not worse than the decisions that he had started making.

Dallas could think of one friend, in particular, that was worse than the rest of them-one that he was still friends with to that day-or at least as far as she knew.

"Dallas, I think you're-"

"Overdramatizing?!" She cut him off. "King...I...this...this is a terrible time for Linkoln to be drinking like this. It'll only make things worse and...and the last time he went down this rabbit hole of destruction," She looked at King. "He nearly dragged you down with him."

King touched Dallas's shoulder and smiled. "Well, then it's a good thing that I am not the same guy that I was back then."

His words were an attempt at reassurance for Dallas. It worked a little as Dallas did realize that King wasn't the same as he was before she left. He always followed after his brother when they were younger, this making it easier for Linkoln to drag King down a dark hole of alcoholism with him. Dallas knew that it wasn't intentional; Linkoln was lonely on his path to destruction and it was nice to have his little brother ride along. He just didn't realize that he dooming King as well as himself and he admitted this in one of the family sessions.

"Listen, Dallas, we're going through a very tough time right now-Linkoln particularly. He's been doing good for five years now-"

"And this trigger could lead to bad things King-"

"No, it won't because I won't let it," He said. "I have been keeping my eyes on Linkoln."

"Then why haven't you stopped him, Ki?" Dallas asked.

"Because at the end of the day, he's a grown man and I cannot fully control what he does, Dallas. The only thing that I can do is be his conscience."

"And what if being his conscience doesn't work?"

"Then I will intervene where I can, but I can't be there all the time. No one can, jellybean" He replied. "Dallas, Ko may be tipsy but this hasn't been his norm since pop left." He continued down the hall toward the last room on the left. "It only seems to be when he's trying to open a line of communication and the man refuses that he becomes triggered."

"Then I guess we know what we have to do," Dallas replied.

"Keeping our big brother from the frontlines of problems with dad will definitely be harder than it sounds,"

"I know," She sighed. "Then again, it actually sounds as hard as it's going to be," Dallas laid her head on her brother's arm, wrapping hers around his as they started for the room. "We need to get that letter from him, King,"

"That'll make things worse,"

"How?" Dallas asked.

"Because then he'll never know what pops had to say."

Dallas expelled a frustrated breath and started to tear up again. She was so tired of crying so much over the last few days but the dark cloud of grief looming over her would not let up. "I should have been here," She whispered. "I should have been here when she...before she-"

They stopped outside of the closed bedroom door and King wrapped his arms around his sister to comfort her.

"You were exactly where you were supposed to be, Dallas. I know you feel guilt, and I know that you think that you should have been here but everything happens for a reason. It may not seem it now, but you will come out of this stronger. We all will."

Dallas stood there for a moment, weeping, yet comforted by her brother's words as well as his warmth. After a few deep breaths, she calmed down a little and when saw the damp spot on her brother's shirt, touched it.

"I'm so sorry," She exclaimed.

"It's okay," King said. "Time calls for it, so I'll let it slide this time,"

Dallas chuckled, still wiping at the spot as if it'd make it any better. "I'm such a sloppy crier," She said.

"Well, I'd like to see a put-together crier," King teased. "Speaking of sloppy criers," He opened the door to the room in which they were standing in front.

Dallas looked through the threshold of her parent's room, and beyond that, she noticed a crib, brown with pink and purple accents surrounding it. There was a small sound coming from the cradle and immediately, Dallas's heart skipped a beat. She'd fell in love with the baby in that crib before she even met her.

"Sounds like someone is awake," King said in a low voice. "Guess she's anxious to meet you,"

Dallas walked towards the crib and peered over and immediately noticed a small hand aimlessly reaching out into the air.

There she was, a honey-colored baby, hued in that rich red that her father's side carried stemming from their Blackfoot heritage. Her hair was thick and dark in its wavy curls. Dallas touched her hair and noticed a blonde patch of hair near her temple.

"Olá garota Bonita," She cooed, calling her a pretty girl in Portuguese. "She has the birthmark," She smiled looking back at King before returning her attention to Reina.

All of the females in the family seemed to come born with a hue of platinum blonde in the front right panel of their hairline, and while this little genetic write never changed, there was always another platinum blonde mark to be found somewhere in their hair. Beatricia's grew on each side of the nape of her neck, and while it took about a year for Dallas, she came into her birthmark as well, now having a tendril of blonde hair on the lower left side of her head and another mark in her crown.

"Yeah, she's definitely a Black," King smiled as he too found himself ogling and cooing at his baby sister.

Dallas chuckled and leaned against the crib. "I'm happy to meet you pequena. My little Reina," She cooed. Dallas picked up the one-week-old infant and held her close to her heart, closing her eyes as she did. "King," She said lowly so as not to startle her little sister.

"Yes?"

"Don't let him be alone when he opens that letter,"

This seemed to catch King off guard at first, but he didn't ask why she so randomly requested this of him because Dallas knew that King was well aware that it had never left her mind. Dallas always gave things a break before returning to the subject again. It wasn't in her to leave a matter such as this unresolved.

"I swear I'll be there when he opens it."

She looked at her older brother and smiled. "Thank you,"