“Why the hell would they say that?”
Lacey puckers her mouth, clearly considering what to tell me. How much she should reveal. Her pale eyes narrow, roving from my eyes to my mouth to my nose and then back to my eyes again. She draws her arms tight to her body, apparently having made up her mind. “He’s older than me. My older brother. I traveled all over Los Angeles trying to find him when I finally…when I finally got away from Gregory. But he wasn’t there.” She absently chews her thumbnail, staring into space. Meanwhile, I sit with my hand over my mouth once more, trying to let the information sink in. Sister. She’s his sister? “I found his uncle, though.” She carries on, ignoring my stupefied look. “My uncle, too, I suppose. He said Zeth had moved to New York, so I went there. Turned out Zeth hadn’t actually moved to New York so much as been arrested and put away there. I didn’t know what to do then, so I left and came here. I’d found out his boss lived in Seattle and Zeth would come back here at some point, so I decided to wait. And then there he was one day.”
I can’t really believe it. They are like night and day, one so tall and dark, the other tiny and colorless, like a soft gust of wind. Lacey drinks more wine, while I run my finger back and forth across the rim, trying to make the pieces fit. “And so you approached him and told him you were his sister?” I ask.
She looks at me, surprised. “No.”
“He already knew?”
Another shake of the head. “He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know we’re related.”
“So how did you end up living with him, then?” This is getting more confusing by the second. The small girl gives me a careful smile.
“It was raining. I’d been trying to figure out how to introduce myself for hours, sitting outside his place. It was raining and I was soaked through. I thought he’d probably let me come in and dry off at least once he found out we were brother and sister, but I just couldn’t find a way to word it right in my head. I passed out from the cold. He found me on his doorstep, nearly tripped over me as he was going out somewhere. He was dressed in this smart tux. He still picked me up and took me inside, getting soaked in the process. He asked what the fuck I was doing outside his place. Did I know him? I said yes. Yeah, I did. But then I was stuck again. I still couldn’t figure out what to say to make it make sense. He asked me if I’d fucked him and I said no. He asked if I was gonna tell him how the fuck I knew him then, and I said, yeah. At some point. When I’d worked up to it. And then that was that.”
“And then that was that?” Incredulous, I shuffle closer to the girl. “You just said you’d get around to telling him, and you’ve been living with him ever since?”
She nods, like this is completely normal.
“How long ago was that?”
“Six months,” she replies.
I have no idea how this man’s mind works, or his sister’s now that I know that’s who she is. But they’re both as strange as each other. “So he has no idea? After letting you live with him for six months?”
“Probably not.”
Wow.
A dull thump at the door prevents me from asking any further questions. I answer—our takeout finally arrived—and decide to let the matter drop. We eat in silence, Lacey laughing quietly at the rom-com playing on the television, while I sit and stew on the news that I’m not the only one with a sister in trouble. And mull over the irony of the fact that I am taking care of Zeth’s while he attempts to take care of mine.
******