Death Runs in the Family Read Free Page B

dismissive manner. “Where are you staying?’ She raised the shoulders again, this time dropping them in a sad, waif-like gesture.
    “I don’t know. The car, I guess. I don’t have much money left, only enough for gas, about twenty or thirty dollars. I spent the night in your driveway, because I can’t
    afford a motel room. There was four thousand dollars in our savings last week, and it’s gone. All his stuff is still in the condo, but the money’s gone! All I have left is the car and Lady Gaga.”
    “Beg pardon?”
    “Lady Gaga’s my goldfish. She’s in her tank in the car. I can’t leave her out there when the sun comes up; it’ll get too hot. I had to keep the heater running in the car last night, so she wouldn’t get too cold. They’re delicate,” she explained, looking into my bloodshot eyes with the sincerity of a true animal lover. “They need a constant temperate temperature in order to maintain optimal health,” she said, as if reading from a manual.
    She looked at me.
    I looked at her.
    “All rightie.” I stood, resigned to my fate as the world’s biggest chump. “Go get Gaga. We’ll find somewhere in the apartment where the cats can’t get at her. Then we’re going to feed you. I can only make scrambled eggs, so if you want something else, you’re out of luck. You can crash on the couch for a day or two until I make some phone calls and see what’s going on. I’m not promising anything, but I’ll do the best I can.”
    Kelli snatched at my hand and held it to her cheek in an act of gratitude and supplication. If I’d been wearing a ring, I think she might have kissed it. If this is what the pope goes through on a daily basis, you can have it. Wait a minute. It was more like the godfather.
    I opened my mouth to speak when the landline rang. Pulling away from Kelli, I grabbed the phone after the first ring. Few people know this number, and each person who does means a lot to me. I’d turned off my cell and given the hour, I knew the call had to be important. I looked at the incoming number. Richard, my brother. He knew better than anybody what I’d been doing the previous night.
    “What’s wrong?” I said, leaving the kitchen and crossing into the living room for privacy.
    He paused and gulped. “I’m on my way over to the Big House. I’ll be there in about five minutes. Meet me there.”
    Since we were kids, the Big House is what he and I have called the large two-story family home, an ode to the American success story, Palo Alto style.
    “Where are you now?” I asked.
“D.I. I just left the office.”
    “On a Sunday morning? What the hell were you doing there?” Silence. “Richard? What’s wrong?”
    “Lee, there’s some…some news. Vicky just told me it’s in this morning’s Chronicle .” Vicky and he have been married less than a year, but she is the finest addition to a family any one could ask. I adore her. My brother’s voice cracked as he went on.
    “That’s why I’m calling you. Mom didn’t want to wake you after the night you had. But I don’t want you to find out from the papers. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
    “Find out what? Jesus, Richard, you’re scaring me. Just tell me.”
More silence.
    “Richard! The paper’s in the kitchen. Should I go read it, or are you going to tell me right now?”
    He let out air in a whoosh then said, “It’s Stephen. It’s about Stephen.” He hesitated. “It’s bad.”
    “Stephen?” I tried to flip my mind around from Kelli’s mess to Mom’s only living relative, outside of us. My heart began to pound. Something happened to Stephen. Stephen, my older second cousin, who taught me how to ride a bike, play Scrabble, who’d stolen my Easter candy when he thought
    I wasn’t looking, who tipped over our canoe on a disastrous but fun river ride; wonderful, gregarious, sweet-natured, joke-telling Stephen. Although he’d moved to Phoenix thirteen years ago, he was still a much loved, integral part of