"Mom started using--again," My sister murmured up into the darkness.

    We were on our backs, sharing the bed in my grandparent's guest room, the same as we had done as little girls. Well, when I was a little girl and she was my guardian at a time when I had none other but her and Eugene... Eugene.
    There had been so many early mornings when the sun cast a light that made everything look the exact same shade of blue and I was small in body wearing a flannel Cabbage Patch Kids nightgown. I crawled into bed with her and she tucked the daisy print quilt around me. Jane had made me feel safe.
    At what age had I stopped feeling safe?
    Not just with Jane but any place and with any one.
    When had I stopped being safe within myself?
   
    "Using what?" I asked.
    "Street drugs," Jane paused, "She was still taking pills. She just..."
    "Finally got out of the house."
    "Audrey, it isn't a joke."
    "What do you want me to do about it, Jane? She did this to us. The same way that she has always done this to us..."
    "Audrey." Her whisper was stern. She need not say more than my name.

    There was a pain within my chest that felt like a minor heart attack. I touched my sternum with my fist. The ache shot through my arm and made my fingers go numb.
   
    Jane adjusted herself, holding her pregnant belly between both of her palms.
   
    "How does it feel?"
    "Do you want to feel it?" She offered, taking my hand from my sternum and placing it flat against her swollen stomach.
   
    Her skin was hard and stretched smooth over the alien creature housed within her petite frame. I had expected to feel something other than my sister. Something that would surprise me but there wasn't anything to alert me of its existence inside of her.

    "I meant how do you feel?" I clarified, retracting my hand.
    "Ugh. Like I have the flu... all the time." Her voice carried with it a frown, "I will never do this again. Do I already sound like a terrible mother?"
    "No," I shook my head, "You're going to be a great mother. You've been one your whole life," I took a breath, "I'm always going to be like this."
    "Like what?"
    "Weird.."
    "On this day, ten years from now, I promise that you will be saying something different. Probably five years. Besides, some people like weird. The guy in the living room..."
    "Is just that. A guy in the living room."
    "I have a feeling that there is a story that you aren't telling me."
    "He's an actor."
    "I know. And?"
    "And what?"
    "Why is he here?"
    "Because... I don't know. He showed up at the airport."
    "So he likes you but you don't..."
    "No. I do..."
    "So, what's the problem?"
    "I signed a contract."
    "What does that have to do with anything?"
    "It would keep us apart."
    "Another movie?"
    "Live theater."
    "You are becoming more and more of a mystery and it's almost irritating."
    "It's just your hormones."
    "Matthew says that. Come to think of it-- I'm finding Matthew irritating."
    "Eugene would have liked your husband, Jane."
    "Yeah," She yawned and closed her eyes, "I still wish he was John Cusack... wait," She jerked her eyes opened, "Have you met John Cusack?"
    "Never."
    "Do you know anyone who has?"
    "I don't think so. Maybe Holly..."
    She groaned, "You aren't famous..."
   
    Jane grew silent and still. Sleep had descended upon her like a false death. I held my cheek above her face to feel the warmth from her breath before I slid from the bed unnoticed.
   
   

    I pulled my coat on over my dress slip and my sneakers on without tying them. I stuffed the dingy shoe laces into the canvas tongue.

    I snuck through the living room where the fire was still burning down to the embers. Adrian was asleep and I found comfort in this only because I believed him incapable of such an act. For once he seemed human; fragile. His dark hair obscured his face as his chin rested against his chest. I wanted to lift his head to save his neck an ache but resisted if only to save myself from having to deal with him in a waking state.
    I crept through the back door and I walked to the edge of my grandparents' property which ended in a small section of rocky beach that touched the Sound.
    This is where I found Eugene sitting on a driftwood log. He had his back to me and was facing the water.
    I had not seen my brother in almost a decade but still I recognized him.
    I stopped; frozen.
    He spoke, acknowledging that he knew that I was present.
    "It's weird, huh?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at me with his blue eyes.
    His husky voice caused me an involuntarily twitch.
    I took a few careful steps toward him.
    "What?" I questioned, frightened.
    "Mom," He picked up a stone and threw it into the dark water. There was no splash.
    I proceeded with caution fearing that the nearer I drew to him, the more likely he was to disappear. It was only when I approached the log and he remained in place that I lowered myself to a seated position beside him.
    Eugene looked at me as though I were nuts.
    "What's wrong with you?" he inquired.
    "What do you mean?"
    "You're acting weird."
    "How so?"
    "Like--weird. Like you're scared of me."
    "No, I'm not," I protested.
    "BOO!"
    I jumped.
    "See?" He gave a wry smile.
    "I'm sorry. I'm... where have you been?"
    "What do you mean?"
    "I thought you were..."
   
    But then I thought for a moment. Thought about how there had never been any proof that Eugene was dead. That I had never seen the ashes or the body or the blood... Eugene wasn't dead. Maybe Eugene wasn't dead or... maybe I was... dead...finally. Or...
    "Where are your jeans?! You'll freeze to death." He scolded.
    I observed him in his faded red sweatshirt. He must've worn that red sweatshirt almost every day his senior year of high school and every fall for at least ten years after that.
    "Here, I'll take care of this," Eugene reached out and pinched my nose. He showed me his thumb between his index and middle finger, "There. Now, that I have your nose, you can't get a head cold. There won't be any place for snot to go."
    "It could settle into my lungs."
    "You always were a pessimist."
    "What about mom?"
    "Mom wasn't a pessimist-- she was a narcissist," He countered.
    "I meant what are we going to do about her?"
    He shrugged, "Plan a funeral."
    My cell phone vibrated in my coat pocket. I ignored it until it was motionless-- then it vibrated again. I pulled it from my pocket and paused with almost as much shock as I'd had in seeing Eugene.
    "Christian?" My brother asked as he read the screen from over my shoulder.
    "Christian was..." I trailed off. Telling Eugene about Christian didn't seem all that important at the moment.
    "Well, are you going to answer it?"
    "I don't think so."
    The phone continued to shudder in my hand.
    "Answer it," Eugene insisted.
    I shook my head.
    "If you don't answer it-- I will," Eugene grabbed for the phone. I held it from him.
    "Don't!"
    "I'm serious."
    "Okay!"
    I tapped the screen. Eugene waited for me to begin speaking.

    "Hello?" I tried to keep the nervous inflection out of my voice but I could feel my stomach rising up into my lungs.
    "Audrey--" Christian began, softly, "I'm so sorry."
    I became ill.
    "Don't be sorry."
    "Adam just told me about your mom."
    I released a solitary incredulous chuckle on my breath. I was stupid to think that it was a phone call about me.
    "It's okay."
    "Are you okay?"
    "I'm okay."
    He exhaled, "Do you need anything?"
    "I'm okay."
    "I'm getting a flight out. I'll be there some time tomorrow night--"
    I panicked, "You can't come here."
    Eugene fixed me with a curious expression. I shook my head, dismissive.
    Christian paused, taken aback, "Audrey, I overreacted. I should've let you explain."
    "What are you talking about?
    "When I asked you to come here. To London."
    "It's not that, Christian. There's a lot that you don't know."
    "About what?"
    "About me. You don't know anything."
    "What don't I know about you?"
    I kept my eyes focused on Eugene. He had his arms folded across his chest and he was staring up at the stars.
    "I am death."
    "Audrey..." Christian soothed.
    "I want to be someone else..."
    "A lot has happened. You aren't thinking clearly."
    There was a shuffling and a rustling on his end that sounded like zippers on luggage.
    "You can't come here," I repeated.
    "Please let me be there with you."
    "Adrian is here."
    "Fuck. Of course, right?"
    "Whatever it is that you are thinking-- just... I don't know... Don't. He showed up at the airport while I was waiting for my flight and I don't know how he found out about my mom because I hadn't spoken to him since before you walked out on me."
    I hugged my knees to my chest. Eugene turned his attention from the sky to the water. I took my eyes off of him and looked in the same direction as he was looking.
    The water was only a mirror for the moon and the clouds in the sky. My body shivered from the cold air and I choked on desperation. I could have walked into that dark water in my wool coat. It would have been heavy when wet. I could have kept walking and not come up. This would all just disappear.
   
    "Do you still love me, Christian?"
    "Audrey--," He drew out my name in a pained way. He was frustrated by his helplessness, "We shouldn't talk about this now."
    "It can't be worse than anything that's happening. Just be honest with me."
    "I've always been honest with you," He was almost defensive about it. He had a right to be.
    "I didn't sleep with Adrian."
    He groaned a little.
    "Audrey, this whole thing is so completely fucked that I don't even know where to begin to straighten it out."
    "Talk to me. Can you just speak to me?"
    His voice was warm. I wanted to blanket myself in it.
    "I bought Son of Fury and I watched it, like, fifteen times. I was trying to figure out what you saw in Frances Farmer."
    "Did you figure it out?"
    "Not really. I thought that I came close but I was distracted."
    "By what?"
    "Norton reissued a bunch of Roky Erickson vinyl. I was standing outside of the record store before ten a.m. on Tuesday."
    "Did you have any competition?"
    "No. I was the only customer they had for at least an hour."
    There was an awful silence. 
    "I should get off of the phone," I said but I didn't mean it.
    He hesitated before he admitted,
    "I'm scared," Christian sighed, "Fuck. There. I said it. I can't eat, Audrey, and I can't sleep and I had these awful pains in my chest. Adam took me to the hospital because I thought that I was having a heart attack and the doctor told me that it was anxiety. Just emotional. I don't know what to do. It never felt this bad before. I want to say to you that it's okay and that everything is going to be alright and that we can work through it but I don't know that because I don't trust that. I don't trust you."
    "I'm sorry."
    "And I'm so far away, " He whispered, his voice broke a little.
    "If you can just wait until after I'm done in Bellingham..."
    "We can't talk about this now."
    "Please?"
    "You have to get through this thing with your mom and your family."
    "You would be here if Adrian wasn't here, right?"
    "Audrey..."
    "I'm sorry."
     My brother pretended to take my nose again and held his mouth ajar as if surprised.
    "Will you call me to let me know what's going on? With your family and things?"
    "Yeah. Fine."
    "I do love you. I do still love you."
    I closed my eyes. The words sent an electric pulse through me that was painful and I was a masochist.
    "Say it again," I demanded.
    "I love you."
   
    I hung up the phone.

    "Who are you talking to, sweetheart?" My grandfather asked from behind me. Startled, I looked over at him, a concerned look pained upon his pale face.
     I turned back to Eugene but he wasn't there. I was sitting alone.
    "No one." I shook my head, "Myself."