I remember lying awake for hours that night. I had mixed emotions. In some ways I was glad he was gone. He was hard work to have around. He didn’t pull his weight around the farm and was always trying to get out of work. At least without him we could take on a couple of hired hands who would actually do the work properly. But I knew Dad was broken hearted.

The night after Joe had gone, I found Dad on the roof of the house sitting in the darkness. He was waiting for Joe.

“He’s not coming back Dad,” I said. “He needs to do this. He’s never been happy here. And maybe we will be better off without him.”

Dad looked at me sadly, hugged me and smiled. He didn’t say anything and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

Dad was very quiet for a few days and the farm seemed to be quiet too. I thought I would like it, but I did sort of miss the drama of having my little brother to complain about. Everything ran smoothly. There were no hiccups and the work got done.

But, the rains didn’t come when we expected them to. Some of the crops failed and we were worried about the harvest. Our best cow died. It was a worrying time. For weeks there was no rain at all. Fortunately we had had a bumper harvest a number of years running and had plenty of grain set aside. No-one on our land would go hungry and Dad was very generous to all the servants and their families. But soon, the ground began to dry up almost entirely. It was hard to carry water from the river to the fields. The river soon began to look as though it was drying up too.

But then miracle of miracles it rained! It rained so hard that the drops bounced off the dry earth and formed huge puddles. The animals drank greedily from the troughs and we….we breathed a sigh of relief.

Each night after dinner it was my father’s habit to go and sit on the roof. He would just sit and wait. He wouldn’t come down until he was almost asleep. Some nights I sat with him, just to keep him company, although I always turned my chair towards the fields and not the road. I knew that my brother was not coming home.

One day we had a friend of ours – a merchant – come to buy some grain. He told us that the rains had affected many of the crops in surrounding cities and towns. Many people were hungry and had been growing desperate. The price of grain was high. Just as we loaded up the last of the sacks of grain onto his camels, he beckoned me over to the barn. He clearly had something to tell me.

He waited until my father was out of earshot and said,
“I have seen Joe. He is in the big city near the mountains. I saw him in a”¦ a sort of hotel. I was feeding the camels outside and there he was, drunk as a skunk and surrounded by laughing women. It made my heart sad to see it. But I thought I should tell you that at least he is still alive.”

I didn’t know what to say. I was not surprised. But I was angry. The anger boiled up inside of me. I KNEW he would waste the money! I knew he would… but now that I had heard he actually was, I felt so cross.

I had earnt that money with years of sweat from my brow! I had watched my Mum earn that money selling cloth that she had dyed and spun herself. I had seen my Dad spend hours in the fields working out how many crops to sow, when to harvest and what price to sell. This was hard earnt money and it was being WASTED. I felt sick.
I didn’t want to tell my Dad. I didn’t want to tell him about the waste, but I had to tell him what I knew. I couldn’t hide it.

That evening as we sat on the roof, I told him I had heard news of Joe.
“Is he coming home?” He asked, suddenly excited and beaming.
“No Dad, no… I am so sorry, Reuben the merchant saw him in the big city. He was drunk and he was surrounded by women, the kind of women who perhaps weren’t, you know, all that holy”¦”

My dad was quiet.

“Thank you for telling me,” he said simply.

“Lets go to bed.”

He patted me on the shoulder as we parted.

I was so angry. Joe wasn’t even here and he was still hurting Dad. How dare he?