Raveling by Peter Moore Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

dead.”
    “Could there have been—”
    “Pilot and I have almost no contact with our father. Ourparents divorced a couple of years after Fiona, after our sister, disappeared. They don’t talk much, and when they do—”
    “I see.”
    He looked out the window.
    “What time of year did your sister—”
    “Labor Day.”
    “That was two weeks ago.”
    “Yes.”
    “The woods behind your mother’s house—”
    “They picked over every inch of them looking for her, or for any clue, any piece of evidence. All they found was one of her
     sneakers.”
    Katherine nodded. “When I was talking to him,” she said, “it sounded like he was afraid the woods were going to swallow him,
     perhaps like Fiona?”
    “Then why would he go in there?”
    “I don’t know. You said he was always drawn to them, didn’t you? Maybe he thought he could find some other evidence. Maybe
     he was reliving the search. Or the abduction. Of course I’m only guessing.”
    “It was a rhetorical question.”
    Katherine blinked.
    Eric put his hands to his face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is my brother.”
    “You’ve spoken to Dr. Lennox?”
    “I’m on my way to his office right now.”
    “He’s put Pilot on Clozaril, which is a—”
    “I know. I’m a neurosurgeon.”
    “Yes,” Katherine said. “I forgot.”
    “It’s all right.”
    She stood up, careful to put her hands behind her back. “I’d like to recommend some insight therapy,” she said cautiously.
     “If you don’t mind. I mean, because it’s not yet clear to me what might have triggered this, if anything.”
    “Insight therapy,” Eric repeated.
    “Nothing too in-depth.”
    “Don’t ask him to relive anything, that’s all. Nothing traumatic.”
    “Of course not.”
    My brother rose, too, and the two of them faced each other. “Whatever you need from me,” Eric said, “just call, anytime. I’m
     in the hospital Mondays and Tuesdays, and in my office the rest of the week.” He extended his hand, his nails perfectly clean,
     the cuticles pushed back, the skin slightly tan, hairless and smooth.
    Katherine shot her hand into his, hoping he wouldn’t look down and see her scabby fingertips.
    “Welcome to the, uh, to East Meadow,” he said, his eyes somewhat wounded. His grip was solid and gentle at the same time.
     “It’s nice to meet you, Katherine. Not my choice of circumstances, exactly, but—”
    She smiled back at him steadily, saying, “It’s all right,” then pulling her hand away as fast as she could.

    I was nine, leaning against my father’s enormous lap, and I could smell the Bacardi he’d been drinking, like a sweet cloud
     that had descended over him. I begged for a sip. “Just let me taste it, Dad, come on,
please
.” The group of men sitting and standing in a semicircle around him all laughed. These were men from the neighborhood, fathers
     of boys and girls I went to school with. Each one of them clutched a drink. Each of them wore a smile.
    “Looks like you’ve got another aviator in the family there, Jim,” one of them said. He wore large sunglasses with white plastic
     rims.
    “Just a taste,” my father said sternly. “Don’t gulp it, all right?” He handed me the small round glass filled with iceand Coke and rum, and I sipped as much as I could into my mouth before he pulled it away. It tasted like medicine and candy.
     “All right,” my father said. He put the glass on the arm of his chair. “That’s enough, you little alcoholic. I don’t want
     you to get sick.”
    “I want some, Daddy.” Fiona had been watching from behind his lawn chair, and now she rubbed her face against his neck like
     Halley the Comet.
    “No, sweetheart,” our father laughed, pushing her away. “You are
way
too little.”
    “Two of them, Jim,” one of the men said. “Two aviators.”
    They all laughed hysterically, like this was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.
    “I’m not that much more littler than