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the state of his sister’s living room or the sad dissolution of his own marriage. A time like this was when you most needed the support and guidance of your partner, but Alice was no longer a part of his life. Like Judy’s Brian, she, too, would forever be referred to with the ex prefix. Both he and his sister became single again within just months of each other—how the hell did something like that happen?
    He heard Judy’s car before he saw it, the loud whine of the exhaust preceding the squeal of the brakes. There was a hole in her muffler,and although Kevin had referred her to his mechanic, even offered to pay for it, she hadn’t done it. By the way the car jerked to a stop, Kevin knew she’d put it into park without stopping fully, a terrible habit he’d railed against for God only knew how long. Judy emerged from the driver’s side door and sprinted in his direction without an umbrella, her footsteps splashing up rainwater, like a child running through a puddle.

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    â€œA re you laughing?”
    She knew her brother was getting mad, but Judy couldn’t help it. The more serious and pissed he got—sitting on one of the two chairs in the dining room, his hands slowly curling into fists—the funnier it seemed. Kevin got up so quickly that the chair almost fell over backward.
    â€œWait, no,” Judy said, walking out of the kitchen. She grabbed his arm and turned him around. He’d played the protective part of the older brother on occasion, but surprises threw him. The grimace he now wore looked identical to the one she saw when he received the letter from USC saying he didn’t receive the tennis scholarship he was certain he would get. That was more than twenty years ago, but it was strange how memory worked like that, picking out the scenes from the dusty archives of the brain and making them fresh.
    The news he told of his phone call from Dr. Elias was funny, at least to her. Because the first thing that came to her mind was what her dad used to say to her whenever she screwed up:
    Why you not like your brother?
    The answer now was very simple, and it was fucking hilarious.
    Kevin, after listening to her explanation, disagreed. “It’s not funny at all,” he said, and he sat back down hard, the feet of the chair scraping against the floor. “There’s nothing even remotely funny about any of this.”
    Judy stood behind him and kneaded his tense shoulders until they loosened somewhat. His right was bigger than his left, years of cranking those super-fast tennis serves.
    â€œAre you hungry?” she asked.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI don’t know about you, but I’m starving. It’s like almost three o’clock, isn’t it?”
    â€œI could eat. I guess.”
    She stepped back into the kitchen and announced she’d make a ham and cheese sandwich, but the contents of her refrigerator refused to comply with her plans. The ham was a month beyond the expiration date, and in the side compartment, all she had was spray cheese in a can. A jar of strawberry jelly sat at the bottommost shelf on the door, its mouth crusted with dried-up goo. She still had half a bag of whole wheat bread in the freezer, she knew that much for sure. Outside of a six-pack of beer and an open can of Beefaroni, there was nothing else edible in there.
    Judy handed him a bottle of beer. “How about a nice PBJ instead?”
    Kevin shrugged, twisted the bottle open, and chugged down a third of it with one swig. She placed another one on the table for him.
    After rooting through her cabinets, Judy found no trace of peanut butter. Brian was the one who’d enjoyed the occasional PBJ, so after he left, she had neither the occasion nor the inclination to buy another.
    â€œNo PB, just J,” she said.
    â€œWhatever,” he said. He was already on his second beer.
    Judy pulled the bread out of the freezer and pried apart four frozen slices. If