Raveling (20 page)

“I know what you mean.” My brother set to work on his steak now, knifing away large pieces and wolfing them down. “I was hungry,”
he said. “Is yours good?”

“It’s all right.”

“What about you?” Eric said. “You must go to the city all the time.”

“I haven’t been there since I left,” Katherine said. “I lived there all my life, and now I haven’t been there in more than
four months.”

“Is that weird for you?”

“Very,” Katherine said. “I feel like I’m in exile.” She looked at the large piece of underdone duck on her plate. She didn’t
want it now.

“Plus, our mother still believes that Fiona will return.”

“I imagine any mother would hold out hope for that,” Katherine said, “forever.”

“And she couldn’t bear it if Pilot or I left the area. Permanently, I mean.”

“I understand.”

“It’s more than the ordinary empty-nest syndrome.”

“I really understand. It must have been—”

“You do, I can tell.” Eric smiled at her, and now he glanced at her plate. “It’s bad?”

“I need you to tell me something,” she said, ignoring her food.

“Anything.”

“I need you to tell me this isn’t a conflict.”

Eric put his fork down. “This is not a conflict.”

“And that we’re not doing anything wrong.”

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Katherine,” he said firmly, “there are people who would think this is a conflict because Pilot is your patient and he’s my
brother, but if it’s not a conflict to me—or to you—then that’s all that matters.”

She held her gaze on him, looking for a sign of guilt, for any indication of insincerity. But his eyes remained steady, unblinking,
and his mouth curled faintly into a smile. “I have to be honest,” she said. “I hate this restaurant.”

Hannah seldom dialed my father’s number, but right now her long, bloodless fingers found each hole in the rotary-dial, black
telephone on the living room end table, and she dialed from memory, as if she called him all the time. She saw two of them,
of course.

“Hello,” the answering machine said. It was my father’s voice. “Can’t come to the phone now, so leave a message.”

“James,” my mother began, “it’s Hannah.” She touched one finger to her forehead, and she told him everything.

When he opened the door to let her out of his Jaguar, Eric said, “Do you like pasta? This place has the best anywhere, even
better than Little Italy.”

Katherine smirked. “We’ll see about that.”

Inside, a woman with wide hips and long black hair, about thirty-five years old, smiled broadly. “Nice to see you as always,
Dr. Airie.”

Eric smiled back. “Joannie, this is Katherine. Katherine, this is Joannie, a very, very old friend of mine.”

“Hi,” Katherine said.

“I’m not so old,” Joannie said to Eric, and then she burst into too-loud laughter. “Unless you are, too.” And then, just as
quickly, she said to Katherine, “We went to high school together, Kathy. Now he’s a big-shot doctor, but he still has time
to visit his old pals.” She burst out laughing again, too loud, too large. “At least when he’s hungry.”

“How’s your sister?” Eric said this as if by rote, as if it was part of a routine.

“Still missing you.” Joannie looked at the ceiling in an expression of cartoonish longing. “Still wasting away.”

My brother rolled his eyes. “I used to date Joannie’s sister.”

“They were high school sweethearts.”

“I see.” Katherine smiled weakly.

Joannie led them to a table by the wall. “So,” she asked sarcastically, “you two just come from the opera?”

“I took Katherine to that new French place off Sky Highway,” Eric told Joannie, shaking his head. “A big mistake.”

“I’ve heard about that. Extremely fancy.” Joannie wagged her wrist.

“Too fancy. Katherine was starting to think I was a snob.”

Katherine leveled her gaze at him. “You don’t know how close you came.” She felt an urge to watch the television affixed to
the corner of the room, but she forced herself to pay attention to Eric and Joannie.

“Did I save myself?”

She narrowed her green eyes to little slits. “We’ll see.”

Joannie burst into that enormous laugh. “Well, Kathy,”
she said, “you’ll like the food here, at least.” She cracked herself up completely, saying, “At least we know you’ll like
the food.” When she calmed down, she said, “So, what’ll you have?”

“Spaghetti, right?” said Eric. “Marinara sauce? A bottle of red?”

Katherine nodded. “That would be great.”

A family was sitting nearby. The boy was twirling his noodles around inside a large spoon. His parents were arguing openly.
Behind them, a television played a rerun of
Mork and Mindy
. Robin Williams pulled on his suspenders and spoke in a high-pitched baby voice. Pam Dawber sighed heavily, rolling her huge
television eyes. Katherine felt odd in her black velvet sleeveless dress watching a pair of teenagers coming in to pick up
a pizza at the counter, a grown man playing a video game in the corner. She tried to think of something to talk about.

“You—you knew her in high school?” she said finally.

“Joannie?” Eric said. “Yeah. Her sister was my high school girlfriend.”

“What was her name?”

“Dawn Costello, of course.”

“Of course. What happened to Dawn?”

“She married the guy that manages the Amazing Drug Discounts just down the road here, actually. His name is Bobby Westering.
They’ve got four kids now, all boys. They’re a really nice family, you know, churchgoing, active in the community.” His smile
was full of irony.

“What’s so funny?”

“It could’ve been me.”

“What saved you?”

“Medical school.”

When Joannie brought out the food, Katherine and Eric
ate almost entirely without speaking, only smiling at one another from time to time between mouthfuls of pasta and gulps
of the cheap red wine.

Every now and then my brother held up a forkful, saying, “Good?”

Katherine couldn’t help but laugh. “Didn’t you just eat an entire steak?”

From the bottom of my tank, I monitored the progress of their evening. I let the water flow through my gills and listened
to the bubbling sound of Harrison’s apologies. From my position under the water I could feel every vibration of my brother’s
speech, every inflection of Katherine’s responses. I could feel him moving in, and I could sense Katherine’s welcoming gestures,
her glances feeling more and more familiar as they fell across his face.

The branch tapped on the window. Harrison begged for forgiveness.

His car was insanely luxurious, Katherine noticed, with buttery gray leather seats and a mahogany dashboard. Eric put his
hand on his stomach. “I’m so full,” he said. “Way too full.”

Katherine leaned toward him. He turned his head. She tasted his lips, the red wine, the onions and garlic. He was delicious.
She put her hand behind his head, touching the smooth little hairs on his neck, and pulled him even closer. He was nothing
like Mark, she thought. They were in the parking lot in front of some little Italian place off a suburban strip mall, kissing,
something that never would have happened with Mark, for some reason. Katherine breathed in.

“That was nice of you,” my brother said.

She smiled. Did she really just do that?

“Time to take you home?”

“I guess so.” She wondered if she had just made a mistake.

No, she told herself. No.

Eric pulled out of the parking lot and onto the turnpike. He pushed a button and the stereo came on. It was Miles Davis—quiet
and complex. My brother would have been prepared for this. He would have had everything ready.

Katherine looked out the window. It was dark, and the road became a series of highway lights flashing by, the reflective tape
on the guardrail flaring up in the wake of the Jaguar. “Do you ever regret it?” she said. “I mean, that you didn’t marry Dawn?”
It was a stupid question, she thought. As soon as it came out, she realized it was idiotic.

“I don’t want a family. Not right away.”

“What do you want right away?” Katherine wanted to touch him, to put her hand on his leg, on his shoulder, her lips on his
neck.

“This is nice,” Eric said. “This is what I want right now. With you, anyway. The other stuff—”

“Good,” she cut him off.

“I’m sorry about that French place.”

“Too stuffy.”

“I didn’t know. I really didn’t.”

“I’m glad we went to, to Joannie’s, though,” Katherine said. “It was really good. Thank you. What is it called?”

“Costello’s.”

Katherine repeated it. “Costello’s.”

At that moment they pulled into the parking lot of her building. She could see the window of her
enclosure
staring out into the lot like a stupid yellow eye. She had left the light on, obviously. Eric parked right next to her blue
VW Rabbit. She opened the door to get out, pushing the front of her dress down with one hand.

He waited, gripping the steering wheel.

“It’s not a conflict?” she asked again.

He shook his head no, and she waited until he got out of the car.

In the beginning, before her eyes became so bad she couldn’t drive, Hannah came to see me every morning, saying, “How are
you, sweetheart? Are you feeling better?” her hand on my forehead, as if I had a temperature, as if I would be going back
to school soon.