I slung my purse across my chest for the short walk home from the station. I had set out across the commuter parking lot when I heard a car honk its horn. I ignored it, and it honked again. I turned, to make sure I wasn’t about to be run over, and saw my own car, with Jake sitting inside. I changed my course, picking up steam as I crossed the lot.
“How did you—” I sputtered, then realized I should be glad he wasn’t on the way to trade it in.
“I went by your place last night. I saw the car out front, and knocked and knocked, then I realized you weren’t home. So I let myself in with my spare, and decided I’d come pick you up this morning for breakfast.”
I inhaled to be angry at him—I hadn’t told him he could make a spare key for my place, but him having one was the least of my concerns. “Well—thanks.”
“Well, you’re welcome.” He pulled us out of the lot. He looked clean, physically and bloodstreamily. Maybe he’d taken a shower at my place. His hands on the wheel were solid, competent. “What happened to you?” he asked, glancing over at me. I used the rearview mirror to check out my lip. It was as swollen as it felt.
“Last night was long.” I tilted the mirror back toward him.
“Uh-huh. When’d you start taking German?”
“What?”
“That broken CD player. I tried to get the disc out, but it wouldn’t open for me.”
“Heh.”
“I figured you’d learn Spanish for work. Or French—you’ve always been a mushy romantic. But German? Odd choice.”
I crossed my arms, unaccustomed to being a passenger in my own car. He was lucky Grandfather hadn’t exploded, or shot out laser beams, or done anything else that angry German ghosts tended to do. “It was the right price at the store. Where are we going?”
“Molly’s.”
“Nice.” I knew the place; it was close to my house. They made a mean chicken-fried steak and eggs. “How’ve you been?”
“Pretty good.”
“Where’ve you been?” I pressed.
“Around.” He glanced over at me, briefly, then continued to drive. Did I even really want to know the honest answers to those questions? Probably not. We sank into the easy silence of people who love one another—or at least one person who loved the other, and the junkie who loved her back as long as it was expedient—and who really have nothing left to talk about anymore.
Our silence lasted until after we ordered breakfast. He had coffee, I stuck to iced tea, keeping the ice cubes against my lip with my tongue, and we pretended to catch up on things.
“So really, Jake—how’ve you been?” I wanted to reach over and roll up his sleeves to see for myself. Then again, right now, he looked so clean-cut—at least clean-shaven—that I was ill-inclined to break the illusion. I was the one who looked beaten down—hell, I had the busted lip to prove it. If everything was going to go to shit in my life, I could at least pretend that my brother was back together in his. But the nurse in me wouldn’t let me not ask. “Are you still … experimenting?”
He stared off into the distance, through the plate-glass window, frosted with a mural of fake Christmastime snow. It was a thousand-yard stare, but at least his pupils constricted. “I did for a while.” He inhaled and exhaled. “But I’m broke now.”
He seemed so sad and forlorn. “Do I have a couch left at home?” I asked in an overly teasing tone, to break the mood.
“Not broke as in out of money—well, yeah, that too.” He looked ruefully at me. “I mean I’m broken on the inside.”
“How so?”
“I dunno. The synapses in my head. Edie, I can’t even get all the way drunk anymore. How sad is that?” he asked me, in all seriousness.
“Not very.” Pretty soon he’d have to get a job to lose himself in, maybe a girlfriend. Soon he’d be normal. If only the spell would last.
The waitress brought our food. Molly’s chicken-fried steak and eggs slathered with gravy was as good as I remembered. “Can I tell you something? And you not think I’m crazy?” he asked.
What could be as crazy as death by vampire trial? “Sure, Jake,” I said around a mouthful.
“I think,” he said, looking around, then leaning over. “I think I’m part of some test.”
I almost choked on my eggs. I forced the bolus down, and took a long swig of tea. “Really?”
He studied my face. “You think I’m crazy.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I opted to cover my tracks. “Well, you have done a lot of drugs, Jakey.”
“Seriously, Sissy—you and I both know that this is weird, right? I mean, not even booze.” He sighed, staring into his unadulterated coffee. “Not even booze.”
“Maybe it’s a chance for you to start over?” I suggested. “I mean, now that you’re clean, you can get a fresh start.”
“I’m twenty-eight, Sissy.”
“So? It’s never too late to start over.” I tried to sound like I meant it.
“Have you been reading church signs lately or what?”
If I had, they would have all been of an apocalyptic bent. They were right—the end was fucking nigh. I swirled a piece of steak in the gravy on my plate to buy myself time to think. “I just want to see you happy, Jake.”
“On the drugs, I was happy. I never had a bad minute while I was up on heroin. Some people see things, crazy shit, and talk to God. On heroin I was God. That’s hard to beat.”
“Heh.” I studied his face, around the downturned eyes, and the full yet frowning lips. Handsome, but deeply sad. For a moment I was mad—I’d bought him this second chance, maybe at the cost of my very soul, and for what?—but I could never be mad at Jake for long. He was my brother.
“Who do you think would be experimenting on you?” I asked him, as neutrally as I could.
“What do you care?” he said, and shrugged. I waited for the waitress to refill his mug before I tsked at him.
“I’m your sister. Of course I care.”
He stared into his cup before answering. “I don’t know who. But I think I know where. The Armory.”
It was the name of a large homeless shelter downtown, where you could catch a warm bed and a hot meal, if you stood in line long enough and kept your head down. It was where Mr. Galeman’d been staying, before he’d met Anna. Jake continued, “They’ve had a change of ownership, or guardianship, or whoever the hell runs the place. It used to be casual, now it’s almost militarized.”
I knew the recent economic downturn in the county’s affairs had had an effect on the number of homeless people in the city; I’d heard Emergency Department nurses complain. “How would they do that?”
“I don’t know. The food there? Maybe. And they’ve got a needle exchange program—they could fill them up with some sort of Narcan ahead of time—”
“Jake, don’t be an idiot.” I set my fork down with a clatter on my plate. “For God’s sake, if you need clean needles, I’ll fucking get them for you,” I heard myself say. Jake looked as surprised as I felt by my vehemence. But even as I offered now—what would happen in just two short days? I reached over, grabbed his mug, and took a gulp of his coffee. It burned the top of my mouth and scalded all the way down.
“Sissy—”
In that moment I wanted to tell him everything. Everything from the beginning. From our parents’ divorce to the first time my mom kicked him out. I could forgive him the pot, the acid, and the E—teenagers did those all the time and were fine. But from the very moment, the very first moment, when I’d seen a track mark on his arm, I’d been trapped, trying to save him from himself. Now was just one more fucking time.
I stood up, eyes hot. “I’ll be right back.”
I almost ran into the bathroom. I made fists for strength. I should tell him everything. All of it.
But then what? Things don’t work out, I die in two days, and then he’s left knowing that? Forever?
I’d done it to myself. It wasn’t my fault entirely, for damn sure, but I’d done it to myself. I could have ignored him. I could have gone in for tough love. I washed my face before looking at myself in the mirror.
“You did this to yourself, Edie,” I told my reflection. “You cannot lay that on him.”
He did deserve to know that his enforced sobriety might come to a screeching halt in two days. But that was it. Not how or why. But when? Yes.
I stalked back out to my half-eaten breakfast to find the table empty.
“I’ll get it next time,” Jake had written in his neat handwriting on the bill, right under the waitress’s “Thanks!” with a smiley face. My car keys were left in a tangle on top of my purse.
“Dammit, Jake,” I muttered under my breath and looked around. Our waitress appeared anxious, like she’d feared a dine and dash, and flashed a nervous smile at me for noticing. I pulled out cash from my wallet and left her a hefty tip.
Couldn’t take it with me, anyway.