Then my wife got sick. Nothing life-threatening, thank God, but serious enough to require surgery and a long recovery. She was in the hospital for two weeks, and I was running on empty, juggling work and kids and hospital visits, barely holding it together. One night, sitting in that sterile waiting room at 2 a.m., I thought about my brother. I thought about how, when we were kids, he was the one I'd call when things got hard. How he always knew what to say, how he'd make me laugh even when everything felt hopeless. I missed him so much it hurt, a physical ache in my chest that wouldn't go away.

I didn't call him. I couldn't. Seven years of silence had built a wall too high to climb. So I just sat there, staring at my phone, feeling that hollow space grow a little wider.

A few weeks later, after my wife was home and recovering, I found myself in another sleepless night. She was asleep beside me, finally resting comfortably, and I was wide awake, staring at the ceiling, my brain running in circles. I grabbed my phone out of habit and started scrolling, looking for something to distract myself. I ended up on some forum, one of those places where people talk about everything and nothing, and I saw a thread about online gambling.

I'd never gambled before. Not seriously. A few bucks on a football game here and there, but nothing more. But that night, exhausted and lonely and missing my brother more than ever, I thought, why not? What's fifty bucks? I clicked a link in the thread and ended up on a site called vavada casino. It looked professional enough, lots of games, clean design. I poked around for a while, read the rules, and eventually deposited fifty dollars just to see what would happen.

I had no idea what I was doing. Slots, blackjack, roulette, it was all just noise to me. I picked a game at random, something with a space theme, rockets and aliens and glowing planets. I started playing small, two dollars a spin, just watching the reels turn. Win a little, lose a little, back and forth for maybe an hour. My balance hovered around forty bucks, neither growing nor shrinking, just existing. It was almost meditative, the rhythm of it, the way my brain could finally shut off and not think about hospitals or brothers or any of it.

Then the bonus round hit. The screen went dark, this epic music started playing, and suddenly I was watching free spins rack up while multipliers climbed higher than I could follow. I sat up straighter, heart pounding, watching the numbers in the corner jump with every spin. A hundred dollars. Two hundred. Five hundred. I couldn't breathe. I literally couldn't breathe, just sat there with my phone in my hands, watching this impossible run unfold.

When it finally stopped, when the bonus round ended and the screen returned to normal, my balance was three thousand six hundred dollars. Three thousand six hundred from a fifty dollar deposit. I stared at it for a solid minute, waiting for it to change, waiting for the catch. It didn't change. It just sat there, real and solid and completely unbelievable.

I cashed out immediately. Transferred every penny to my bank account and sat in the dark, shaking, trying to process what had just happened. Three thousand six hundred dollars. That wasn't life-changing money, not really. But it was something. It was a sign, maybe, or at least that's what I told myself. A sign that things could change, that luck could turn, that walls could come down.

The next morning, I did something I hadn't done in seven years. I picked up my phone, found my brother's number, and called him. He answered on the third ring, his voice cautious, uncertain. "Hello?"

"Hey," I said. "It's me."

There was a long pause. I could hear him breathing, could almost feel him processing. Then he said, "Yeah. I know."

We talked for an hour. Not about the fight, not about the estate, not about any of the things that had driven us apart. We talked about our kids, our jobs, our lives. We talked about the old days, the curveballs and the sneaking out, the way he used to make me laugh until I couldn't breathe. It was awkward and stilted at first, then easier, then almost normal. By the end, we'd made a plan to meet for coffee that weekend.

The coffee turned into lunch. Lunch turned into dinner with our families. Slowly, carefully, we started rebuilding what we'd broken. It wasn't easy. Seven years of silence leaves scars, and scars take time to heal. But we kept at it, kept showing up, kept trying. And eventually, the awkwardness faded and the laughter returned.