Jeff stared at his brother. Was he supposed to care about all that crap?
“I fired her,” Richard continued, “so at least you won’t have to put up with her acid tongue any more. And I’ll make it up to you, kid. I promise.”
Jeff said nothing. Lies, lies, lies. That’s all adults ever told.
“Don’t bother,” he said, and headed for the door.
“Wait!” Richard called.
Jeff turned. “You took me in when Mom died. You don’t owe me anything else, okay?”
“But I do.” Richard stood again. “I promised your mother—”
“Our mother,” Jeff interrupted.
“I promised her I’d look out for you.”
“Yeah? Well, when do you plan to start? ’Cause I’ve already been waiting a hell of a long time.”
Richard’s fists clenched at his side, his mouth drooping. “Jeff—”
“Don’t bullshit me anymore,” he said and turned away. “I’ve had enough.” He took slow footsteps, a part of him—a big part—hoping Richard would come after him.
But he didn’t.
Jeff climbed the stairs, walked the sixteen paces to his lonely room, entered, and closed the door.
***
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The bubble of existence between sleeping and wakefulness was something to be savored, for in it there was no right, no wrong, no pain, and no fatigue, and Richard Alpert luxuriated in the bliss. Then he made the mistake of opening an eye and focusing on his bedside clock.
“Holy shit!”
He leaped out of bed and barreled toward the bathroom and the shower. He must have hit the alarm’s snooze button—and more than once because it was two hours later than he’d planned to get up.
After a shower and a shave, he changed into clean clothes and charged down the stairs, grabbing his coat from the closet and heading for the kitchen and the back door.
Curtis sat at the kitchen table, a fishing magazine spread out before him. He looked up as Richard strode past him.
“Mr. Richard, the boy’s school called. They want you to go talk to the principal.”
Richard snagged his keys from the wall rack. “What for? Is Jeff in trouble?”
“They didn’t tell me, sir. They’ll only talk to you.”
“Now?”
“If you could, sir.”
Richard glanced at his watch. “I have to be at the hospital in an hour and I’ve got some errands I need to run. I haven’t got time today.”
Or tomorrow either, for that matter.
“Sir, I really think you should go.”
Something in the old man’s voice cut through Richard’s impatience. “Why?”
“The boy hasn’t been himself lately. He comes in late from school. He’s been hiding out in his room in the evenings. He don’t come play cards with me hardly at all since Christmas.”
Just the mention of the holiday sent Richard into instant guilt mode. He’d disappointed the kid that day by volunteering to work an extra shift at the hospital. And then there’d been the fiasco of the former cook tossing out half of Jeff’s gifts and stealing the rest. Jeff hadn’t seemed to care about the lack of presents—more angry that Richard had reneged on their plans to spend the day together. Nearly three months later, Jeff was still giving Richard the cold shoulder.
It had been weeks since he’d even had time to sit down and talk with the kid. And, in fact, he couldn’t remember their last conversation. His latest rotation of thirty-six-hour shifts in the ER left him mind-drained and physically exhausted. Dealing with a moody adolescent hadn’t been high on his priority list.
Curtis’s deep brown eyes continued to bore into Richard’s.
The guilt shifted into overdrive. “Okay. I’ll go.”
#
Richard had only been to Amherst Central High one other time. A year before, when he’d taken Jeff in to register him for school. Richard had gone to a private Catholic high school complete with knuckle-whacking Jesuit priests and uniforms, where the student body had looked down on the rabble that went to public high schools.
He found the main office with no trouble and checked in with the secretary. The plump, matronly woman wrote down his name. “I’ll tell Principal Evans that you’re here.”
Richard leaned against the secretary’s desk, glancing at the clock on the back wall. He should have called the hospital to let them know he’d be late.
Annoyance flared brighter within him. What could the kid have done to warrant a visit to the principal’s office? Jeff’s last report card had been pretty good. Mostly Bs with a few As sprinkled in. He’d had some trouble a year ago when a couple of upperclassmen decided to make a punching bag out of him, but he hadn’t mentioned any problems since. The fact that they didn’t talk may have played a part in that.
The secretary returned. “You can go in, sir.”
Richard had never once visited a principal’s office. He’d never been in trouble at school. He took in the room. As a descriptor, cramped, immediately came to mind. The narrow office was lined with four-drawer file cabinets. Framed certificates decorated the wall above them. A woman with gray-streaked brown hair looked up from the paperwork before her on the desk.
“Mr. Alpert—”
“Dr. Alpert,” Richard corrected. “I’m a resident at UB.”
“Dr. Alpert,” she acquiesced. “Please, sit down.” She waited until he took the chair in front of her desk. “It’s been brought to my attention that you’ve ignored two notices sent home by our school nurse, Mrs. Kleinschmidt.”
Richard raised an eyebrow, and stared at her.
“I take it by your expression that you never received them.”
“No, I didn’t. What’s this about?”
“I wish Mrs. Kleinschmidt could be here to speak with you, but she was called away on a family emergency.”
Richard almost smiled; he knew the feeling.
Mrs. Evans cleared her throat. “First off, let me say that your brother has been a model student. But his teachers have noticed a change in him since Christmas vacation.”
Sudden sweat broke out under Richard’s collar. “How so?”
“His grades have slipped, and he often falls asleep in class. He passed out in P.E. last week, and again yesterday.”
Richard’s gut tightened. He said nothing.
“Mrs. Kleinschmidt says he’s lost twelve pounds since his school physical last fall. Something you apparently haven’t noticed, Dr. Alpert.” Judgment colored her last statement.
Richard still said nothing, his left fist clenching and unclenching.
“Of course, Mrs. Kleinschmidt isn’t a physician, but in her twenty years as a school nurse, she’s seen just about everything. Mr. Ellis, the yearbook advisor, probably spends more time with Jeff than any of his teachers. He said he found Jeff in the dark room last week attempting to make soup from hot water and ketchup packets from the cafeteria.”
“What are you implying?”
Principal Taggart’s expression softened. “It’s something we see more often with girls—”
“Mrs. Evans—?”
“Anorexia nervosa. We’ve seen several cases of it in the past few years.”
Skeptical, Richard blinked at her.
“You’ll want Jeffrey to be examined by his own physician, but in cases like this we also recommend some other kind of intervention.”
Richard frowned. Anorexia? He doubted it. That kind of weight loss was more indicative of real illness or—his heart froze—drug abuse. Another pang of guilt assaulted him. He hadn’t taken much of an interest in the kid—maybe even avoiding him since the Christmas debacle when what he should have done was pay more attention to the boy. But goddamn it, the kid did not engender warm fuzzy feelings and he just didn’t want to! And now he felt like the selfish bastard he probably was.
“Of course, there could be other explanations for Jeff’s behavior. The school system does have social workers on staff to help in
a crisis situation if need be.”
Somehow Richard managed a facsimile of a smile. “I don’t think that will be necessary. But thank you for bringing all this to my attention, Mrs. Evans.”
She nodded. “Mr. Ellis says your brother has taken to staying late every day in the yearbook office. I’ve asked my secretary to have Jeffrey meet us here.” Mrs. Evans rose from her desk and held out her hand, indicating the door.
Richard preceded her out the office. Head lowered, his gaze fixed on the floor, Jeff sat on one of the hard metal chairs. He looked up at the sound of footsteps and turned an angry glare at Richard, who stopped dead. He hadn’t seen the kid in several weeks. Gaunt, with dark circles under his sunken eyes, Jeff looked like a concentration camp victim. No wonder the school thought Richard a neglectful guardian.
Richard glanced back at the principal, wishing he hadn’t told her he was a resident. “Thank you, Mrs. Evans,” he said briskly. “Jeff?” He didn’t wait for a reply and started off, desperate to get away from the woman’s judgmental gaze. Dutifully, the kid got up to follow.
Richard led the way through the corridors, out the side entrance, and to his car. He unlocked the passenger door. Jeff immediately got in, but Richard paused, taking deep gulps of the cold, fresh air to give him strength. What the hell was he going to say to the kid? A year ago, when he’d agreed to act as guardian for the boy, he hadn’t considered what a responsibility it would be. And he’d fooled himself into believing that he could monitor the kid on autopilot, depending on Curtis to do the day-to-day dirty work of watching out for Jeff while Richard spent one hundred percent of his time and effort working on his career.
In all his life, his mother had only asked him to do one thing: watch out for Jeff, and he’d fucked up big time. Not once. Not even twice, but every day when he found more important things to do than connect with this pathetic, parentless kid.
“St. Jude, help me now,” Richard murmured, and unlocked the driver’s side door. He climbed behind the wheel of his Porsche and stabbed the key into the ignition, but didn’t start the engine.
The silence was unnerving. He needed to say something. Jeff stared out the passenger window.
Richard cleared his throat. “Mrs. Evans said the school nurse sent home two letters in the last few weeks. How come I haven’t seen them?”
Jeff continued to stare out the passenger window. “Could be because I haven’t seen you to give ’em to you.”
Richard struggled to keep his voice calm. “You could have left them on my desk, or given them to Curtis.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t.”
“Are you having problems at school? Those kids who beat you up last spring, have they been bothering you again?”
Jeff shook his head.
Time for the big question. “Are you into drugs?”
Jeff’s head whipped round. He glared at Richard, his indignation bringing some much needed color to his pale cheeks, but he said nothing.
“Then what’s going on?”
Still no reply.
Richard waited at least thirty seconds, but no explanation was forthcoming. He started the Porsche. “I’m taking you to the ER.”
“I’m not sick,” Jeff protested.
Richard pulled out of the parking spot and steered toward the exit. “Someone who loses twelve pounds in a few weeks has got some kind of problem. I want to make sure it’s not physical.”
Jeff frowned. “You think I got a mental problem?”
Richard braked at the lot’s exit. “I don’t know what to think. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on with you.”
The muscles along the kid’s jaw tightened, but he looked straight ahead.
#
The usual chaos plagued the ER, but after Richard explained the situation to his supervisor he’d joined the ranks of family members waiting for word on a loved one. Only, if he was honest with himself, he didn’t love the kid. Hell, Jeff had to be the most unlovable teenager on the planet. A brooding loner, he hadn’t endeared himself to the Alpert family at large, nor Richard in particular. And yet, Jeff wasn’t a bad kid. For all the harsh words and nasty looks Richard’s grandmother regularly leveled at the boy, he’d only twice retaliated in kind. Jeff seemed to slip through life making no wake—almost a non-entity, and Richard was thankful he hadn’t been reared by the mother who had raised such a child.
He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes since the kid had gone in.
Twelve minutes.
Richard had parked against the opposite wall from the curtained ER cubicle while his colleague, Ted Mitchell, examined and talked with the kid. Would Ted’s expression mirror Mrs. Evans’s judgmental stare? Would Richard be the talk of the ER when it got out that he’d ignored his younger brother who was probably teetering on the brink of malnutrition?
Don’t be stupid. It takes longer than a few weeks for the effects of malnutrition to set in. Doesn’t it?
Feeling like a total shit wasn’t a good thing.
At last the fabric curtain parted and Mitchell exited the cubicle. “Go ahead and get dressed,” he said, and closed the curtain again.
Richard straightened, facing his friend. “So?”
A smile crinkled Ted Mitchell’s face. He was in the same rotation as Richard, but had long ago decided on his specialty. He snagged Richard’s arm and started walking down the corridor. They paused at a discarded wheelchair. “First off, the kid’s highly insulted you brought him to a pediatrician.”
Richard waved a hand impatiently. “What do you think? Is he on drugs, is he—?”
“I think Amherst High’s got a pretty damned good school nurse. Your brother has all the early signs of an eating disorder and its consequences. We can run him through the standard tests, but from what I could get out of him—and he’ll never be called a blabbermouth—he’s simply stopped eating.”
“Why?”
Mitchell shrugged. “You tell me. Unhappy at school. Unhappy at home. Kids who feel they’ve got no control in their lives often find that limiting what goes in their mouths gives them some semblance of power.” He pulled a business card from his scrubs breast pocket. “Melanie Fisher’s the best when it comes to these things,” he said, handing over the card. “Bring the kid in next week and we’ll do the regular work-up just to be on the safe side.”
Richard fingered the card. “Thanks, Ted.”
He watched Mitchell head for the nurse’s station, where he grabbed the chart for yet another patient.
Steeling his courage, Richard turned and went back down the hall, where he entered the exam room. Fully clothed, Jeff sat on the exam table. Head hanging, eyes focused on the floor, the kid sat hunched over the edge, hands tucked under his thighs, feet swinging.
Richard stopped a couple of feet in front of the boy, but Jeff didn’t look up. “Dr. Mitchell wants to run some more tests on you.”
No reaction.
“He says you’re not eating enough. How come?”
Jeff shrugged, but didn’t look up.
“What do you know about anorexia?”
“Karen Carpenter, the singer, died of it.”
The flatness in Jeff’s tone sent a chill through Richard. He swallowed. “Seems like we have a lot to talk about.”
The legs continued to swing.
“Jeff?”
The kid finally looked up, his muddy brown eyes smoldering with anger. “I got nothin’ to say to you.” He slid from the table and headed out the room.
#
The ride home was tense—silent.
Richard stopped the car in front of the back entrance and Jeff jumped out, slamming the door, hurrying into the house. Richard put the car in park, cut the engine and doused the headlights. Fluffy snowflakes drifted onto the windshield. He should have dropped the kid off and headed straight back to the hospital. But for once, his guilt outweighed his sense of responsibility for his work. Only he didn’t know what to do next.
He was twenty-seven years old with little
to no parenting skills and responsible for another human being. Hell, if he was honest with himself, he found it easier to relate to sick strangers than this person who lived under the same roof and shared half his DNA. And not for the first time, Richard let his anger swell at his mother—a woman he barely knew—for saddling him with the troubled boy.
Richard jerked the key from the ignition and exited the Porsche. The wind whipped around him and he pulled up his collar as he trudged toward the house.
The aroma of roast pork and steaming vegetables assailed him as he entered the kitchen. Doris, the new cook, stood over the stove, stirring a pot. Thin and angular, the gray-haired woman reminded Richard of a blue heron.
Curtis was on his feet, looking down the hall. Richard noted the table was set for one. Jeff preferred to eat dinner with Curtis in the kitchen and only suffered through a meal in the dining room with the elder Alperts when Richard was home—which was seldom.
Richard shrugged out of his coat, settling it on the back of one of the maple chairs. “Where is he?”
“Upstairs.” Curtis’s eyes conveyed his worry. “He’s in trouble?”
Richard sighed. “No. He’s ... not well.”
Curtis turned back to look down the darkened hallway. “Oh, Lord, I had a feeling.”
“What’s been going on around here at mealtimes, Curtis?”
The old man’s body went rigid. Doris turned her back to Richard.
“I been eating most of my meals alone lately, sir.”
“And why’s that?”
Curtis’s gaze traveled back to Doris. “There be new rules about coming to the table on time, sir. Them’s that don’t show gets their dinner throwed down the garbage disposal.”
Richard’s anger swelled as his gaze swung back to the cook. “Is that true, Doris?”
The woman set her wooden spoon onto the ceramic rest and slowly faced him. “I’ve been told how this kitchen is to be run, Dr. Alpert. My husband’s been on disability for five years now. I do what I’m told to keep this job.”
No need for her to say who gave her those orders.
“When was the last time Jeff actually got to eat dinner?”
Neither answered him.
Richard’s heart sank. “I wish you’d said something before now, Curtis.”
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