By now Nate was starting to feel the effects of the wine. He wasn’t drunk, but he was less in control than he should have been. He was there on a job, he reminded himself. He’d have to nurse this glass for the rest of the evening.
“So what do you think of my brother?” Liz asked.
“He seems fine,” Nate replied, as naturally as he could. “I didn’t really spend that much time with him, and I’ve only met him once before. You know how it is, right, meeting a friend of your parents? What do you talk about?”
Liz smiled as she leaned back. She looked comfortable, totally relaxed. She raised her glass to her lips and took another drink.
“When I was a little girl, Jake was my hero. You know, one of those people who can do no wrong. I wanted to hang around him all the time. He was older, he didn’t have to, but he let me anyway.”
Another dangerous topic, but for a moment Nate’s curiosity won out over his caution. “How much older?”
“Eight years.”
“That is quite a bit.”
“Eight years and seven months, actually.”
Nate instinctively knew the next question he should ask. “Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”
She said nothing for a moment. “We did.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” Nate said. “We can change the subject.”
“No, it’s all right,” she said. “We had a brother. Davey. He was in between us. But he died in a car accident when he was five, I think. I don’t remember him.”
“Oh, God. I really am sorry.”
“I was in the accident, too. The whole family was. You want to see my scar?”
She sat up suddenly, a little unsteady from the wine, and began working her fingers through her hair.
“It’s okay,” Nate said. “I believe you.”
“See?” she said.
She had created a part across her scalp that revealed a portion of a scar that looked like it ran for several inches.
“That must have hurt,” Nate said.
“I’m sure it did. I’m told there was a lot of blood.”
“Head wounds have a way of doing that.”
“Oh, really? And you know this how?”
He shrugged. “Grew up watching
She snickered, then let her hair fall down as she leaned back. “I wasn’t even two yet. This is the only proof I have that the accident even happened. Well, and Davey’s grave, I guess.”
Nate tried to stop himself, but he couldn’t. “So what happened between you and Jake?”
“One night he just left,” she said. “I was nine.”
That surprised Nate. “He ran away from home?”
“Can you really call someone who leaves home at seventeen a runaway?” she asked. “All I know is he was gone.”
“For how long?”
“The first time I saw him after that,” she said, “was last month at our father’s funeral.”
“Whoa,” Nate said. “That’s a long time.”
“The only reason I knew he wasn’t dead was because he still keeps in contact with Mom. She asked me once if he’d ever been in touch with me. I lied and told her he had. Mom’s always had this kind of defeated sense to her. I guess I just didn’t want to add to it.”
“Look, you don’t need to—”
“I thought I’d moved past him, forgotten about him. But then the funeral, and now here.” Her eyes started to glisten. “He never called me. He never wrote. I don’t understand why.”
Tears began to slide down her cheeks, then she took a big gulp of air and could no longer keep herself from sobbing.
Without even thinking, Nate reached out and pulled her into his arms, letting her bury her face in his shoulder. He rubbed her back, and every once in a while whispered, “It’s okay” or “Just let it out.”
Then, when her crying subsided, she lay against him, her breaths fast at first, but gradually slowing down. After a while he thought she might have fallen asleep, but then she turned in his arms, and looked at him for a moment before pushing herself back up.
“More than you bargained for this evening, huh?” she asked as she wiped the last of her tears from her eyes.
He liked that she didn’t apologize. “You never know which way life is going to come at you. I find it better to let things happen than expect anything in particular.” He gave her a smile. “At the risk of setting you off again, I’m wondering if you ever asked him what was up.”
