off she walked, carrying inside her—what? Another nephew for him to introduce to some future wife?” Max sighs. “So I left. That’s it. I left. All he wanted was that heirloom, that necklace, for his new family. Sentimentality afflicts even the nastiest among us, I suppose.”
Kelly doesn’t quite know where to start, but one thing is obvious: “When his wife called me, she said she found my number in his things.”
“If his wife called you.”
“He must have looked at your phone. While you were passed out. Must’ve scribbled down my number.”
“Sure,” Max says, “but he probably saved you in his phone as niece.”
“So all that time,” Kelly says, “he never called me. He talked to you, but he never talked to me.”
“He’s a monster, leaving Mom, reappearing in my life, just for a necklace.”
“And you definitely don’t know where he is? I mean, like, zero idea?” For a moment, the fan in the corner fills in for Max’s voice as her brother goes silent. “Why aren’t you answering?” Kelly asks after a pause.
“I don’t know where he is.” And in his voice, what does she hear? The same goddamn tone from earlier, when he told Kelly he works at Hugo’s, or about his roommate Tobias—a little too clear, a little too forceful, coming from a guy who has never been clear or forceful in his life.
“If you know,” Kelly says, “then you need to tell—”
“I never want to hear about him again,” Max sniffs, and shivers. “You have no idea how it felt to be treated that way.”
And here, the crying? Finally, the crying? Christ. Kelly hears her mother’s voice reminding her: Take care of your brother. She almost sees her mother hovering there, whispering urgently: Take care of your brother. It was quite possibly the only expectation her mother ever had of her—and how unfair was that shit? Still, Kelly knows she should do something comforting; yes, she knows she should—but what? She decides to put her fingers in his hair. Yeah, that ought to work. But as soon as she touches her brother, he flinches. That’s okay, Kelly didn’t want to touch him anyway. She snaps her hand away and feels the grime from his unwashed hair on her fingertips. Max doesn’t move, doesn’t answer. She wipes the grime onto his pillowcase.
“Hey,” she says. “Can I stay here tonight? Do I have to go back downstairs?”
“I’m asleep,” Max says, then makes a ridiculous snoring sound.
So she decides to sleep here too—not downstairs with the house centipedes.
Mom was young when she fell in love with Miles Bennett, a member of one of Portland’s oldest and wealthiest families, owners and founders of Oakhurst Dairy. Mom was nineteen when she met him, twenty when Miles bought for her a two-bedroom apartment in a decent part of town, twenty-one when Max and Kelly were born. For three years, Miles hung around, never moving in but coming over a couple times a week for fun with Mom and paternal indifference elsewhere, but then, when Mom was twenty-four, Miles left her for another woman, someone a little richer (a grad student at Boston College) and someone the Bennetts approved of (more than they approved of dingy, wild Mom, anyway); every week an envelope of cash arrived in Mom’s mailbox, the return address a lawyer’s office in Hartford. It was hush money, stay-out-of-my-life-and-I’ll-make-it-worth-your-while money, that sort of thing—just enough so Mom never worked anything more than the occasional part-time job, but not so much that they could ever live in a better house, or take trips, or own more than a couple pairs of shoes. And what did Mom care? She was barely around, preferring to spend money on herself than on her children. But didn’t she have a duty as a mother? Please. That hardly stopped her from leaving town for several weekends each year. She would knock on a neighbor’s door—or call a coworker, during her rare periods of employment—and, eyes leaking, Mom would lie about a sick family member or close friend, and then once this almost-stranger had agreed to watch her children, she would drive to wherever: some friend’s apartment in Burlington, or a music festival near UMass. When Kelly turned ten, babysitters became unnecessary. “You’re old enough to look after your brother,” Mom told her daughter. Mom lived a throwback fantasy, pining for a lifestyle, to belong to something that no longer existed. She fancied herself some kind of wild child—an artist, although she never considered working at it. As a result of this immaturity, the house wound up resembling a bohemian college girl’s dorm room, decorated with bead curtains, posters for esoteric films from the ’60s and ’70s, record covers pinned to the walls, hookahs—pretty much the same way it looks now, under Max’s care. Most nights, Mom fed her children Thai takeout served on paper plates. Mom acted like a friend or, at best, a rebellious older sister, which made Kelly feel like she was always waiting for her real mom to show up, instead of this child playing dress-up. But Max? Hell, Max loved it. Why wouldn’t he have? When he started writing scripts, Mom encouraged him as any good parent would: follow your dreams, be true to yourself, that kind of shit. When teachers tried to make Max do schoolwork, he became combative, but whenever a counselor called home to voice concern, Mom acted polite on the phone only to later tell her son, “Don’t listen to those idiots. They don’t know genius when they see it.” By senior year, it had become so much worse. Sometimes Mom became so high on the idea of artistic expression that she would write notes excusing Max from school whenever he preferred to stay home and work on his “art.” His grades suffered, but what did he care? He got to watch movies all day and write his screenplays. Kelly could tell that something had changed for Mom too.
Then, with the March sunlight starting to melt the snow and thaw the ground, Mom left for one of her trips, telling Kelly, “Look after your brother. I’ll be gone for the weekend.” Because Mom always said to look after Max, Kelly barely took it seriously, going about her usual business of watching bad television and hanging out with the increasingly dramatic Penelope Hayward, whose early acceptance into Columbia—about which she wouldn’t shut the fuck up—had not slowed her acquisition of an insane number of extracurricular activities, including dull stuff like editor in chief of the video yearbook. Kelly, on the other hand, had been accepted into the considerably less impressive University of Arizona, but whatever: she couldn’t wait to get out of Maine and into the sun, so she bided her time doing the minimum of what was expected of her.
The first indication that something had gone awry—that Mom’s latest trip wasn’t just another trip—came when one of Mom’s friends knocked on the door Sunday afternoon, claiming to have lost contact with Mom, who had recently been rambling on about some guy she met—Rafael, maybe? “You never met him?” the friend asked. Then, frowning, the friend—was her name Melanie?—added, “Neither have I.” Kelly tried calling, but Mom never answered, and Kelly refused to leave dumb, desperate messages. Monday morning arrived, then Tuesday, then Wednesday, and finally, on Thursday, Max asked what was going on, whether Kelly had heard from Mom or anything, and Kelly said, “She, uh, had to go on a job interview in Mass. Apparently it’s going well and they need her to stick around.” Was this what Mom always meant when she told Kelly to look after her brother? Maybe Mom really meant for Kelly to just lie.
On Friday afternoon, the weekly envelope arrived, stuffed with $400, and Kelly put it in her pocket and slid on a cardigan to walk the few blocks to TD Banknorth. While outside the bank, finishing her cigarette in the cold sunlight of early spring, perched on the edge of the curb, her cell phone vibrated: Mom, wondering whether the money had arrived like usual. “Where are you?” Kelly asked. “I’m fine,” Mom said, “but, uh”—Kelly could hear laughter in the background, and Mom’s voice sounded more musical than usual—“but, uh, things are pretty crazy here. I just want to make sure you remember to deposit the money.” “Why?” Kelly asked, lighting another cigarette. “Because,” Mom said, “it’s important that you don’t leave cash lying around. That’s all. That’s all,” clipped, rhythmic. Kelly’s hand shook. “When are you coming home?” “I’ll be home soon,” Mom said, “things just got crazy. It’s just a thing with a friend. But you’ll remember to deposit the money before the bank closes today?” “Yes,” Kelly said,