A boy with skin the color of whiskey and hazel eyes she met every day in the mirror stared back ather.
“Oh, myGod…”
“Oh, my God,” Jacquesechoed.
They both took in the image in silence. In the picture, Gloria Lopez-Craine had her arm wrapped tightly around the boy’s shoulders as they both laughed at the camera, their dark hair windswept and sun on their faces. The image captured an affectionate moment between mother and son, that fleeting time in a boy’s life when he still welcomed the loving claim of his mother’sembrace.
“He looks just like you and Holi,” Jacques murmured. Holi and Ash had come downstairs the night before just as Jacques was leaving, but it was enough time for Jacques to see the resemblance between Rainey and her sister, which even Holi’s surgical mask could nothide.
And if Jacques saw the family traits here in this boy’s picture, then Rainey couldn’t have been imagining it. The smiling child with eyes that matched hers had to be her brother. Rainey put a hand to her chest and wheezed in a breath. Her heart pounded, and her eyesstung.
She had a brother. A brother who smiled and laughed and loved his mom. A brother who was alive and — by all appearances — happy andwell.
Rainey’s throat closed completely, and her eyes welled. Her gaze darted around the restaurant. What had she been thinking coming here to begin this search? And with Jacques, no less? And why did she think she could do this at all? How could she look at pictures of a little brother who wasn’t John Lee? She wouldn’t be able to hold it together. She’d start weeping, and everyone in the restaurant would stare at her and whisper. Jacques would think she was certifiable. When had she ever been around him when she wasn’t an absolutemess?
Why did he want to be with heranyway?
“I-I’m sorry. Please excuse me.” She forced the words past the ball bearing in her throat and made to scoot out of the booth when he grabbed herhand.
“Rainey.” He spoke her name gently, but his tone was assertive, calm. “It’salright.”
“It’s not,” she rasped. As if to prove herself right, Rainey looked down at the fingers of her free hand to find them shaking. He followed the line of her sight and then took that handtoo.
“Talk to me,” hewhispered.
Rainey just shook her head. A lone tear broke free and streaked down her cheek. She ducked her chin to hide her face, and another travelled down the bridge of her nose. Jacques stacked her hands on top of each other and covered them with his broad left palm. Then he brought the corner of his napkin up to her face and trapped the third tear before it couldescape.
“This is a lot,” Jacques said, low enough so that only she could hear. “This is a lot tohandle.”
She swallowed hard and sniffled. “There isn’t much I handle well.” Rainey kept her eyes trained on the front of his shirt. AWOLNATION stared back at her.“Maybe I should cry for help. Maybe I should kill myself. Blame it on my ADD, baby.”The lyrics popped into her head, and for some insane reason, they made it possible to take a deepbreath.
“You’re doing better than youthink.”
A mirthless laugh bubbled up from the vise that was her chest. “Then I must think I’m doing a pretty shit job ofit.”
Jacques chuckled. “Well, if you think that, you’re wrong.” He dabbed his napkin gently under each of her eyes. “You want to tell me what’s going on inside that head so I canhelp?”
“Not particularly,” she croaked, pulling aface.
Sweetly, and with eyes full of warmth, he laughed again. “You’re so funny,” he murmured. “It amazes me how your sense of humor never abandons you, no matter how hard thingsget.”
Rainey blinked at him. Her tears had enough mercy to dry up, but she knew they’d return if she wasn’t careful. His words made her feel stronger than she really was. They tempted her, and even though she knew how dangerous it was, she reached for her phone and opened her photoalbum.
“I had a little brother.” Rainey clicked on the photo of her and John Lee on their last family vacation. They’d gone to Aspen. All five of them. John Lee had never skied before, but he was a natural, and his first time down the bunny slopes, Rainey had skied beside him, cheering him on. Their mother had snapped the picture at the bottom of the run. Their cheeks pressed together, faces red from the cold. Hair sticking out of knitted ski caps. Smiles as big as the blinding blue sky behindthem.
Rainey turned the screen to Jacques. “His name was John Lee,” she said. Her voice shook, but she still managed to speak hisname.
She watched Jacques’s eyes take in the image, and a little frown — a knowing frown — marked hisbrow.
“The bad car accident you told me about…” he said, watching herclosely.
Rainey nodded and swallowed. “I was driving.” His eyes on her never flickered, but his hand plucked hers off the table and held it tight. Somehow, she found the words to tell him the story. “It was a freak accident. The woman who hit us was having a stroke. She ran a redlight…”
She stopped, lost in the memory that often kidnapped her. The grill of the Escalade like a charging bull… John Lee’s gasp… herscream…
“How old were you?” Jacques asked, rescuingher.
She refocused her eyes on his. “I was seventeen. John Lee was twelve. That was six yearsago.”