Raveled Read Free Page B

paranoid corner and babble sweet nothings to an imaginary lover.
    I checked my face in the rear view mirror. Still me. I’d given up on make-up six years ago. No matter what I tried, people noticed my eyes. Enhancing them was like putting a banana split on top of a hot fudge sundae, and minimizing them meant overdoing everything else. With no desire to make any part of my existence conspicuous, I settled for a thin layer of moisturizer and a pinch of the cheeks. Besides, it was my brother in there. No matter what I did, I’d still remind him of Dad.
    A male guard with dirty fingernails and the odor to match searched my purse. A female guard with stubby fingernails and a butch haircut patted me down. I mused as to why a metal detector couldn’t replace them. Perhaps because it couldn’t grunt and give directions with dismissive head nods. After another dozen layers of security, including locked doors, sign-in sheets, an actual metal detector, a relinquishment of the package I’d brought, and a verbal confirmation that I wouldn’t pass Kevin any illegal substances, the visiting room proved underwhelming. For all that trouble, I should have been wheeled in on a throne and offered a platter of hand-peeled grapes while Kevin sat on a velvet cushion at my feet. The fold-out tables and metal chairs would have to suffice.
    “Hey,” I said to my fatigued-looking brother, the only guy in the room aside from the bored guard. Kevin’s eyelids looked heavy enough to sink a ship, and the usually erect posture that added power to his six-foot frame seemed defeated. I performed jazz-fingers to show off my empty hands. “Brought you some brownies and those gross hard candies you like, but some dude with a wonky eye is giving them a CAT-Scan. Making sure I didn’t slip an alternate life in there for you.”
    He gave his usual half-grin, the one where the right side of his mouth curled up to meet the far end of his right eye. When we were younger, I made it a challenge to make Kevin laugh. I mean really laugh. It was the only way to see his teeth. And he was handsome as hell when he flashed those choppers and let loose with an unguarded reaction to life. These days, those teeth had to be in deep hibernation , hidden behind pale lips on a face that desperately needed some sun.
    We’d never been the hugging type, at least not as adults, but he did stand up and lift his chin as I approached. “Hey, Allison. Thanks for coming.”
    “Didn’t have much of a choice. You kinda played the I’m In Rehab card.”
    We sat down across from each other, the chairs scraping loudly in the cold, high-ceilinged room. No noise-reduction optimization from the architect here as the only soft thing around was the guard’s gut. The cavernous quality of the place made me feel like one of those mountain climbers who appeared as a mere dot in a panoramic shot of sheer rock. I should have packed some spare oxygen for this meeting.
    “Mom doing okay?” he said.
    “Sometimes. On my last visit, her caretaker hinted that my presence brings on more of her spells.”
    That made Kevin chuckle. “You and me. We bring out the best in people.”
    We discussed the assisted living community Mom was considering as her next residence. It would be quite a leap to go from a homey, inviting, four-bedroom house to a pre-furnished, pastel-colored community where walkers outnumbered strollers and her current acre of grassy hills would morph into a professionally maintained spit of sod. Kevin expressed his disgust with her desire to stay in Lavitte. I expressed my disgust with the housing market. With the family business out of the way, I gave him the floor. He was the one who’d called for this meeting, after all. I let him ramble on for ten minutes about everything in our dad’s case that bothered him, like the lack of a clear motive for my father to shoot Bobby Kettrick in the middle of the night in his own auto body shop. Or why Dad claimed to have screwed on a