Long Bright River(42)

—Wasn’t expecting to see you here, he says. He’s wearing jeans and an Eagles jersey. He looks like Gee, but bigger. Like many of my older male relatives, he’s a talker, a kidder, someone who elbows you to get you to laugh at his jokes.

I nod. Here I am, I say.

—Looks like you’re hungry, says Rich, looking at my plate. Me, I’m watching my waistline, he says, and winks.

I laugh weakly.

—How’s your new place? says Rich. Your grandmom told me you moved. Up in Bensalem now, huh?

I nod.

—With some mystery man, I bet, says Rich. Right? I bet you’ve got a boyfriend up there. You can’t get anything past family.

He is teasing me, gently. I know this. I say nothing.

—Bring him around sometime, says Rich.

—I’m not seeing anybody, I say.

—I’m just messing with you, says Rich. Hey. You’ll find someone.

—I don’t want to find anyone, I say.

I return to my food. Carefully, I select a small piece of everything, so that I have one perfect bite on my fork. This endeavor takes me quite a while, because I find, suddenly, that it’s difficult to focus on my plate.

For once in my uncle Rich’s life, he says no more.





THEN





After I confided in Simon Cleare about the struggles my sister was having, we began to see each other outside the PAL as well.

That summer, after the end of the workday, I went to libraries or parks or restaurants, places where Simon felt we wouldn’t be seen, and then he joined me. I was seventeen. (We don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, he told me, and at the time this actually gave me a little thrill.) Sometimes, we went to see a film at one of the independent theaters in Center City, and then he walked me all the way to the El stop at Second and Market, talking with me the whole way about the artistic strengths and weaknesses of the script and the actors. Sometimes we went to a pier that jutted out over the Delaware River. It had gone unused for decades, and by then it was decrepit and probably unsafe, but it was mainly abandoned and we could sit alone on the edge of it and look over toward Camden. To all of these places, I arrived first. Soon after, Simon would join me. He knew everything about Kacey, listened attentively to every new development as it occurred.

Not a week after her first overdose, Kacey began again to sneak out with regularity. Because we still shared a bed, I knew it every time she did. I tried, always, to convince her not to go. Sometimes, I threatened to tell Gee. But I was more afraid of what Gee would do to Kacey than I was of what Kacey was doing to herself. I was afraid, primarily, that Gee would kick Kacey out. And if that were to happen, I didn’t know what would become of either of us.

—Stay here, I would whisper.

—I need a cigarette, Kacey would say. And then she’d be gone for hours.

It happened again and again. Kacey quickly got worse. Now she seemed permanently glazed over, a glossiness to her eyes, a flush to her cheeks, her speech slow, her tongue heavy, her beautiful laugh nearly gone. Seeing her this way, I often had the urge to clap my hands, loudly, in front of her face. To hug her tightly, to squeeze out of her whatever darkness was making her want to dull her life so completely. I missed my bright little sister, the quick-witted Kacey, dashing here and there, always alight with energy; the fierce small fiery version of the teenager who seemed now to exist in a world of unending, unrelenting dusk.

Though I tried very hard to keep Kacey’s behavior a secret from Gee, our grandmother was sharp. She knew. She went through Kacey’s things over and over again until, at last, Kacey got lazy. Then Gee found a wad of hundred-dollar bills—Kacey had begun dealing a little, on the side, with Fran and Paula Mulroney—and that was enough evidence for Gee. As I had feared, she kicked Kacey out of the house.

—Where will she go? I asked.

—You think I care? said Gee, her eyes defiant, a little wild. You think that’s my problem?

—She’s sixteen, I said.

—Exactly, said Gee. Old enough to know better.

A week later, of course, she was back. But the pattern continued, and Kacey got worse, not better.



* * *



—

All of these happenings, I related to Simon whenever I saw him. And it provided me with a certain amount of relief: to know that there was one person in the world, aside from me, who carried with him the details of Kacey’s descent into addiction, who kept track of her story, who listened well and dispensed advice that seemed reasonable and adult.

—She’s testing you, he said confidently. She’s just immature. She’ll grow out of it.

Then, inclining his head toward me slightly, he confessed: I went through a phase of it myself.

He was clean now, he said. He rolled up his pant leg to show me, on the back of his strong right calf, a tattoo of a large X that signified his sobriety. He had, by then, stopped going to meetings, but he had never stopped being wary, aware that a relapse was not out of the question.

—You can never stop being on guard, he said. That’s the hell of it. To always be worried.

If I am being honest, it comforted me, this talk. To know that someone as functional as Simon, as smart and upright and worldly, a good father—to know someone like that had once been like Kacey. And had come out all right on the other side.