Raveling (10 page)

There was a crashing sound that came from the patio. I opened my eyes. Eric’s head turned.

“What was that?” He got up and walked to the window.

“What was it?”

He slid open the patio doors and stepped through, turning on the porch light. I got up from the couch and followed him. The
flagstones were covered with broken glass. “One of the pitchers fell off the table,” Eric said. There was wind in the treetops,
a faraway rustling sound. There was a ripple on
the surface of the pool. “Can you feel the winter?” he said. “It’s far away, but I can feel it.”

And I knew just what he meant.

The sky had gone gray, and the sun’s rays were spiking over the trees. It must have been six in the morning. There would be
mixed clouds that day, and the tiniest chill would invade the air, the infant beginnings of a new season.

It was coming.

“I’m going back to my room,” I told Eric. “And by the way, you’re a jerk.” I walked upstairs. In the hallway, when I passed
Fiona’s room, I noticed that her door was closed. It occurred to me that Fiona never slept with her door closed. She was still
too little. She was still afraid of the dark. But I didn’t do anything about it. I simply went into my race-car bedroom, closed
the door, closed the windows, put on my matching race-car pajamas, and crawled into bed.

In one of the imaginary photographs of Fiona, she is standing in the center of my family for a group portrait. Her hands are
folded together in front of her red velvet dress. A white satin ribbon is tied in a bow around her neck. Her eyes are wide
open, and she is smiling like only little girls who are having their pictures taken can smile—full vanity and joy, a complete
absence of self-consciousness. Her hair has been done, and it curls up at the ends, sweeping down her back the way it did
in the days before she disappeared. Our father’s fingers rest lightly on her head. She is so little next to him that even
with his arms fully extended he can only just touch the top of her head. The rest of my family sort of fades into the background
in this imaginary picture. I am there wearing my Declaration of Independence shirt and white pants. Eric is splendid in a
dark three-piece suit, hair feathered back.
Our father, eyes blue as ice, stares ahead into the sky behind the photographer—who would that have been?—and our mother,
unfocused, turns her head slightly away.

Katherine Jane DeQuincey-Joy was in no hurry to arrive at the small, lightless
enclosure
overlooking a parking lot—a highway in the distance, a strip mall beyond the highway, quiet as the inside of a drawer—that
was her new apartment. She had no furniture yet, anyway. She had no television, not even a radio. Mark had kept all those
things, of course, claiming she’d come crawling back. He’d kept everything he could, even some of her clothing, old photographs
of her parents and sister, and a baby blanket, for Christ’s sake, that her own grandmother had knitted. What did he want with
that? Katherine had brought a few boxes of books and psychology journals, the answering machine, the clothes she could pack
in one suitcase. And there were the things she had collected from her office in the city, things Mark had no access to. Then,
when she found her new
enclosure
, the delivery guys had left her new mattress on the living room floor. And Katherine hadn’t had the energy, strength, or
interest to put it up on its side and slide it into the bedroom.

So her bedroom had become a closet, and the living room had become the room she lived in.

Even though it didn’t feel much like living.

Now, Katherine sat in her office instead, avoiding the drive home, putting off for a few more minutes her nightly visit to
solitary confinement. She sat at her desk with her hands curled like shells and her fingernails, what was left of them, to
her teeth. She touched her tongue to the tip of her index finger and tasted the raw skin.

No, she told herself, flattening her hands onto the desk.

No, she told herself again.

She faced the door and forced the muscles of her mouth into a smile. She knew the very act of smiling, the deliberate contortion
of the facial muscles, could activate the endorphins of contentment. She had faith in this notion, in fact. It just wasn’t
working right now.

There was a faint light seeping into the room, like filthy water filling up a pool. It was the sunset filtering through a
smog-yellow sky over the highway. She looked at the pad of paper in front of her. She had spoken to my mother in the hospital.
She had seen Eric. The only one left to talk to was me.

Katherine had written each one of our names on a single line on the sheet of yellow legal paper, creating a column for each.
There was our father, too—James Airie. But, of course, he wasn’t available. He had probably never been available, Katherine
thought.

A fucking
airline
pilot.

Typical.

Tomorrow she would try to speak with me, see if the medication had taken effect, if my thinking had become any more cogent.
Typically, the response to Clozaril was nearly instantaneous. She wondered what would happen if she took it herself. Her brain
would simply shut down, more than likely. Maybe she would try it someday. Maybe someday she’d have a psychotic episode all
her own.

The telephone rang, and she picked up after a single ring, saying, “Katherine DeQuincey-Joy.”

“Katherine,” a voice said, “this is Dr.—I mean,” he said, “this is Eric.” He was stumbling, nervous. “This is Eric Airie.”

“Oh, hello, Eric.” Katherine exhaled. “I was just thinking about—”

“Listen,” Eric said quickly, “I’m not calling about, about my brother. I mean, I know you might think this is unprofessional,
and if you do, I’ll totally forget about it and completely understand.”

Unprofessional. “Okay.” She knew what he would say next. She could feel it coming like the drop in an elevator.

“Would you like to have dinner with me?”

When had it become so dark in the sky outside the office window? The light in the room was blue. This
was
unprofessional, and not just for Eric. It was more so, in fact, for Katherine. “Like, on a date?” She had to clarify.

“No,” Eric said quickly, “I just—no. I mean, not like a date at all. It’s just that I’m trying to deal with this, with my
family thing right now, you know, and I don’t especially want to go home, you know what I mean, or go out with someone I’d
have to explain myself to, and you seemed like—well, you seemed like a solution. Does that make sense?”

“Half social,” Katherine said, “half therapy.” She allowed a small laugh to come through.

“You’re very understanding.”

She looked at her hands. How would she hide them? “I’m also starving.” Should she be doing this at all? She had never met
socially with a client before. But Eric wasn’t exactly a client, and he
was
a doctor.

“You’re also very nice.”

“I’ll have to put this on my time sheet.”

“Have you—”

“I haven’t spoken to your brother today. I’m waiting—”

“—for the medication to take effect, I understand,” Eric finished. “Pilot’s still pretty irrational, I know. I was going to
ask, have you tried that new barbecue place on the highway?”

“No.”

“Do you like ribs?”

“I love them.” The muscles around Katherine’s mouth contoured into a smile, this time a real one. She wondered if Eric could
tell.

“Would you like to meet me there?” His voice wasn’t nervous anymore.

“All right.” Jesus Christ, how easy was she?

“Are you sure this is okay? I mean, if you think this is, if this is not right, or if you’re not comfortable—”

“You’re not my client,” Katherine said, even though she knew something about it wasn’t right. “Your brother is. Besides, I’ve
been here over a month and haven’t been out with anyone. And I love barbecue, and I’m really hungry.”

“I’ll get us a table by the pit,” Eric joked.

“Great.” Katherine looked at the yellow legal pad in front of her, the columns she’d made for each family member. She realized
she hadn’t made one for the sister, Fiona, and the whole page was used up. “And you can talk about your brother as much as
you’d like,” she said. “I don’t mind.”

My mother had been sitting for most of the day in the green vinyl chair beside my bed. I was too tired to speak, but I’d look
up every now and then and her eyes, somewhat unfocused, would rise to meet mine. She didn’t read. She didn’t look at a magazine.
She didn’t even knit. My mother simply sat at the side of my bed and watched my face. I knew she was seeing two of me, the
image of my face separating in her vision just enough so my ephemeral double lay nearby. And if I seemed aware enough she
would ask if I wanted anything. “Water? A soda? Something to eat, dear?”

“You can go, Mom,” I said. “I’m fine now.”

She shook her head. The room was dim, so the voices were kept behind the hallway door.

“I’m really feeling much better,” I told her. I was sluggish, though. I felt like I’d been sprayed with still-hardening glue.
All the joints of my body were turning to glass.

“I’ll stay a little while longer.”

“Mom,” I said. “Hannah.”

There was a long silence then. Hannah with her hands on her lap. Me lying faceup in the tall bed in the small room. The tree
branch tapping on the window, saying hello to my craziness. And then my mother asking, “Do you want me to leave, is that it?”

“Can you see me?” I wanted to know. “Can you see my face?” Under the covers I had the shoelace.

Hannah’s eyes squinted at me.

“Is it deep?”

“What, Pilot? Is what deep?”

“The scratch?”

“It’s barely there at all, dear.”

The voices in the hallway tittered and squealed, rising and falling. I tried to think of an emotion besides fear. For a moment
or two, I couldn’t name a single one. And then I said, “Love,” finally remembering.

And my mother said, “I love you, too, Pilot,” putting her hand over mine.

I could see the water on the flagstones beneath her little feet. I could see the bright afternoon light reflecting in the
water, shining like gold. I could see the goose pimples forming on her arms. I could see the individual blades of grass poking
up through the cracks in the mortar. I could see my sister’s eyes, mist-green, the color of a pine needle. I could feel the
almost-movement behind her, far back behind the pool, in the woods, a faint rustling in the branches. I could see it, see
her, my baby sister.