Eighty-Seven

EIGHTY-SEVEN

JIMMY AND ESPOSITO'S TRIP back over to McKenzie's house turns out to be another waste of time. No Tesla. No lights on in the house. Nobody home.

"I'll find him," Jimmy tells me when he calls in the morning to give me the update.

"I never doubt you."

"Never too late to start," he says.

An hour later, I'm staring out the kitchen window at the feeder, telling myself that if I just close my eyes for a moment, when I open them at least one hummingbird will have come back.

Instead, the phone rings. Brigid is calling from Switzerland.

"Tell me you're being released with time served and are coming home," I say.

"Not yet."

Her voice sounds small, flat, in a way that has nothing to do with the distance between us. I know this voice from my sister, have known it my whole life; don't like it and never have.

"It turns out I'm not nearly as good at remission as I thought I was," she says.

"Talk to me, sis."

"I'm coming to the end of one last triple-shot jolt of chemo," she says. "If it doesn't work, they want to discuss a stem-cell transplant."

"I'm coming over there."

"No," she says in her big-sister voice, "you are not."

"Not your call."

"Stop me if you've heard this one before. But my body, my choice."

I remember using the same line on Jimmy the other day, trying to be funny.

This isn't. I don't say anything because I'm afraid I might start crying, that's the last thing I want her to hear, as if I'm feeling sorry for my self about my sister's current circumstances. And making this about how I feel. People doing that has pissed me off my whole life. Martin used to do it. He'd be talking about a waitress going through a tough time and before long he'd be complaining how now he had to fire her and how badly he felt about that.

"Don't get crazy until we see how the chemo works. I'm almost done with this cycle."

"Isn't it a little late in the game for you to be telling me not to be crazy?" I ask.

"It must be the drugs talking," she says. "And how about we change the subject, and I get to ask you how you're feeling?"

"Nothing to see here. I'm actually feeling pretty great."

"I don't want to break this to you," Brigid says. "But you were never a good liar."

"Wait. Do you really think I got to be one of the top criminal attorneys in the country by being truthful ?"

We both manage to laugh, even if it doesn't last long.

"I always thought it was you who put the criminal in criminal defense attorney."

"Only when defending one of your old boyfriends."

"Be nice."

"Your old boyfriend makes that extremely difficult sometimes."

I talk about my own upcoming chemo without telling her about my fainting spell at the Bell & Anchor. Brigid knowing about that won't make her feel any better or will only make me feel worse. Basically, I'm still playing the role I've always played in our family:

The strong one.

I was the strong one when Mom got sick, even for our dad, the tough ex-Marine who simply couldn't deal with her illness, or with the prospect of losing her.

Now I had to be the strong one for Brigid. Today, anyway.

"Before I hang up," Brigid says, "I have to tell you something Rob told me on the phone the other night."

I hold the phone at arm's length, stare at it, and sadly shake my head.

"So you're still in contact with him."

"Nothing has changed, Jane. I still love him as a friend."

I can't help myself. "So you're the one."

"Be nice," she says again.

"What did he tell you that you want to tell me?"

"He says that sometimes he thinks about killing himself," she says. "And that scared me."

I don't believe it. Or him.

"I know depression can be as serious a subject as cancer, sis. But he talked about it during the first trial. And as you remember, nobody really bought it then. Sorry, but I'm not buying it now."

"No one fully understands someone's depression except the person experiencing it. Or doesn't understand until it's too late."

"Withdrawn," I say.

"Will you check in on him?"

I tell her I do that frequently and will try to do it today.

There is a fairly lengthy silence now.

I'm the one who ends it.

"Did he happen to mention why he's having these feelings?"

"I asked that question myself. He said it's because of all the terrible things he's done in his life, things that would make me hate him if I knew about them. Right after that, he said he had to go and ended the call."

I make her promise she will call me as soon as she knows about the course of her treatment. I tell her I love her more than she can ever know.

Then I stick my phone in my back pocket and walk out into the backyard.

Still no hummingbirds.