I'd told Natalia everything before we left. Cleared my schedule, rescheduled press, explained that I was driving Red to New Mexico because his father was dying. She'd asked if I needed anything. I'd said just keep everyone off my back. She was doing her best, but my father wasn't everyone. My father didn't accept being managed.
Red shifted in his sleep, his forehead creasing. Whatever he was dreaming, it wasn't good.
I reached over and rested my hand on his knee. The crease smoothed. He didn't wake.
At a red light in some town I didn't catch the name of, I typed back one-handed.
Tell him I'm with a friend. Tell him I'll call when I'm ready. If he fires you, I'll double your salary and you can work for me directly.
Her response was immediate.
Be careful.
I put the phone back. She was right. He would find out. He always did. But that was a problem for later, and right now the only thing that mattered was the man sleeping beside me and the road stretching out ahead.
The light turned green. I drove.
The neighborhood was every other neighborhood in America. Ranch-style homes lined the streets, their brown lawns going gold in the autumn sun. Basketball hoops hung over garage doors. It was the kind of place where people left their doors unlocked and knew their neighbors' names.
Derek's house had a minivan in the driveway and a kid's bicycle on its side near the porch. I parked on the street.
Red didn't move to get out.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Yeah." His eyes were fixed on the house. "Just give me a second."
I gave him a second. Then another. A woman walked past on the sidewalk with a stroller, glancing at the rental car with mild curiosity.
"Okay," Red said finally. "Let's go."
Derek answered the door before we knocked. He must have been watching from the window.
He pulled Red into a hug immediately, one arm tight around his shoulders, the other hand gripping the back of his neck. Red went stiff for a second, then melted into it. I stood on the porch while they held each other, two brothers who'd learned to communicate in shorthand, and I had no idea what to do with my hands.
When Derek let go, his eyes were wet. He blinked it away and turned to me.
"You must be Joel," he said. "Thanks for driving him."
He was giving me an out. Letting me pretend we hadn't already met, hadn't already sat together in a hospital waiting room for hours while Red was recovering. Red had been too drugged afterward to remember any of it, and I'd never told him.
I could take the out, shake Derek's hand, play the stranger, let Red keep believing I'd shown up after the worst was over.
"Good to see you again," I said. "How's your father doing?"
Red's head turned sharply. I didn't look at him.
Derek's chin lifted slightly, the recalibration of a man realizing his brother's relationship was further along than he'd thought.
"Day by day," Derek said. He stepped back to let us in. "Sarah's in the kitchen. Kids are—" A crash from somewhere in the house, followed by a shriek. "—being kids."
We stepped inside. The house smelled like something baking, warm and sweet. Every wall had pictures on it: Red as a teenager in a hockey jersey, Red and Derek as kids with gap-toothed grins and sunburned shoulders, Robert Piper Sr. holding a baby in each arm like he'd won the lottery.
I looked away.
A woman came around the corner from the kitchen. She was visibly pregnant, six or seven months maybe, with flour on her apron and her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Her eyes went wide when she registered who was standing in her foyer.
"Oh my God," she said through her fingers. "I would have changed. I would have cleaned. There's flour in my hair, Red."