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Look out for your little sister. Make sure she’s taking her enzyme pills at school. Keep her amused during her daily treatments. Entertain her when she’s bedridden with an infection.
Even their will favored me. They wanted to be sure I had money for all possible care when my health failed. The bulk of their estate was to be held in trust, and whatever I don’t need for my health will pass to Keith when I die.
Our father died of a stroke six years ago. Cancer claimed Mom almost exactly a year later. When the will was read, I wanted to give Keith half, no matter what our parents intended. Of course, Keith refused. So if he gives that long-suffering sigh at my doorstep, he’s kinda earned the right to it.
My brother has spent his life playing a role thrust on him, however inadvertently. He learned to subsume his own needs and do what was expected. Which is why, even though I’d always suspected he was gay, he did what was expected. Found a woman he cared about, married her, and had two kids.
It was Libby who realized the truth and tugged him from the closet. That doesn’t mean the breakup was easy on her. It can’t be, under those circumstances. But they figured it out, and four years ago, she introduced him to Jin, a radiologist at the hospital where she’s a psychologist.
Keith may not have been born onto the easiest path, but life has made up for it by giving him a loving husband, two amazing kids, and an ex-wife who still talks to him. So I won’t feel too bad for the guy.
“Jin spoke to you, I presume,” I say.
He sighs again.
“Oh, cut that out,” I mutter. “Come in and have a beer. Or should I make it a coffee? You look like shit.”
“I can always count on you to make me feel better.”
“No, you can count on me to be honest. You’re working too hard for corporate assholes who don’t appreciate you.”
“They pay me, though.”
“Not enough. Coffee? Knowing you’ll be leaving here and going home to work for another three hours?”
“Please and thank you.”
I start the machine. I know I’m deflecting by bitching about his job. Doesn’t stop me from doing it, though. Just like feeling guilty about dragging him into my madness doesn’t stop me from saying, “I’m doing this last séance. I know you don’t want me to, but I am.”
He sighs again, and I resist the urge to whip a dish towel at his head and settle for wrapping it around my hand.
“Preparing for battle?” he says.
I look down to see that the dish towel does indeed make me look like a boxer taping up for a bout. I unwind it.
“I don’t want to fight about this, Keith.”
“Neither do I.” He pulls out a table from the breakfast bar and sits. “Which is why I’m not going to try to talk you out of it. I’m just…” He rubs a hand over his mouth.
“Worried,” I say.
“I don’t want you to be disappointed, Nic. If I thought you could contact Anton, I’d have helped as soon as you started hiring these people.”
He lowers his voice, as if we aren’t alone in the condo. “I’m worried that you keep trying because of what happened the last time. You realize you girls didn’t actually contact a ghost, right? Patrice just… She had problems, and those problems led to…” He trails off, unwilling to fill in the rest.
“That’s not why I expect it to work,” I say.
Liar.
“I don’t even really know why I’m doing it.”
Liar.
“It just feels like something I need to get past. I know that probably doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it does. Losing Anton was…” He sucks in a breath. “Devastating. But all that viral-story nonsense?”
“It messed me up?”
