Up close, Gwen looked like a deflated version of her sister: more angular cheekbones, a smaller chest, tiny limbs, straighter hair. Her lips were thin lines, lightly colored. She was wearing a black silk dress with ornate stitching on the front and oval glasses that emphasized the darkness of her eyes.
“I remember you,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Do you remember me?”
“Yes,” Brad told her. “You look older now.”
“So do you.”
He felt her studying him, and he took a deep breath. “Sorry about Kara,” he said at length.
“Yeah, I know,” she mumbled.
“I hope it’s okay that I came in here.”
“Sure, I don’t care.”
Gwen returned the dresser to the dollhouse, and as she did, Brad noticed dangling from her wrist a bracelet that he’d bought for Kara a dozen years ago or more. It was made up of square tiles of onyx set in silver and held together with a black leather cord. They’d gotten it on a road trip through the mountains. He wondered if Gwen had started wearing the bracelet in the last few days, or if it had been passed on to her long ago. And if so, how long ago. And why.
“Are you still an actor?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Realtor.”
She nodded.
“Are you in college now?”
“In the fall,” she said. “I’m going to a pre-college thing this summer.” She pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s an art program in New York. Being there was supposed to be a whole sister-bonding thing. Mom wants me to cancel now, but I mean, what else am I going to do?”
Brad felt like her question wasn’t entirely rhetorical, like he should say something consoling or constructive. His instinct was to agree with her mother. New York was a hard place for anyone to navigate, let alone an eighteen-year-old who’d just lost her sister. But that probably wasn’t the advice she wanted.
“I should go help out,” she said.
His window of time had passed.
“Okay,” Brad said. “But if you need anything . . .” He fished into his pocket and pulled a business card from his wallet.
“Like a house?”
“No. Like, to talk.”
She examined his card. “You’re still in Chapel Hill,” she said, her voice lightening. “I’m going to UNC.”
“Oh, then you should definitely give me a call. When you’re there for orientation. I can buy you a decent meal.”
“Maybe so.”
“I’m serious. Please let me.”
“Well,” she said, “I should go help. People keep bringing over macaroni, and I’m in charge of putting it somewhere.”
Margot was done. She’d said her good-byes to the family, eaten her share of funeral food, and chatted with a half-dozen people she’d probably never see again. Now she was standing in the kitchen, wondering if Brad might have left without saying good-bye, when she saw both him and Gwen slip out of Kara’s bedroom down the hall. At a glance, Gwen looked a lot like Kara, and Margot was reminded of a moment long ago when she’d been standing in this kitchen, talking to Kara’s mother about God-knows-what for God-knows-how-long, and saw Kara and Brad walk out of the bedroom behind Lucy Ann’s back. This was early in Kara and Brad’s relationship. Margot had thought he was the third wheel on the trip, but his face was flush and Kara was grinning. Without knowing it, Margot had become their accomplice, their decoy. She’d been furious. She pouted the whole weekend, though no one seemed to notice.
Gwen passed through the kitchen and said good-bye to Margot again as she picked up a bowl of soupy chicken salad to bring into the living room. Brad lingered in the kitchen. “You going?” he asked.
“I am, yeah. I have a flight out of Wilmington in a couple of hours. Do you still live down here?”
“Yeah, in Chapel Hill.”
“I need to make a visit back one of these days. I’m in Long Island.”
“I still have a couple of cousins up in New York. We try to make it up every once in a while.”
Brad walked with her outside and down to her car, and they exchanged phone numbers, both typing the digits into their cell phones as if they meant to call. (“That was an eight?” “Yes, exactly.”) And Brad, she found herself thinking, was one of a handful of people she’d seen today whose wedding she wasn’t invited to but whose funeral she might have attended if he’d died and she’d been told.
And who would have told her if he’d died? Kara, of course.
“This was a little surreal,” he said.
“Tell me about it.”
“And Steve . . .”
“I know.”
“It’s hard to believe,” he said.
“Very hard,” she agreed. “I almost feel like he’s lying.” Margot inserted a fake laugh to lighten the tone.
“To inherit the tens of dollars she had to her name?” Brad said. He wasn’t taking her seriously.
“Kara was something,” he added. “You never quite knew what to expect.”
Over his shoulder, Margot saw Mullet walk out of the house and light a cigarette under the carport. He caught her eye and took a few steps down the driveway. “You going?” he called out. “Good to meet you. Maybe we can get together back home sometime.”
Margot forced a smile and waved back. “Mm-hmm,” she called back.
“You never met him before?” Brad asked quietly.
“Never,” she said, still smiling over his shoulder. “I thought she couldn’t stand him.” Margot looked at Brad now, then turned away and tossed her purse in the car. “I don’t know,” she said, in answer to the question in his eyes. “She should have married you when she had the chance.”
Brad dropped his gaze to the ground. Now it was his turn to fake a laugh.
WHEN THE WOMAN ON THE PHONE TOLD BRAD HIS TEST WOULD BE IN THE mobile unit beside the hospital, he thought “mobile” referred to patients who were mobile. He didn’t realize his MRI would take place in a trailer.
“You’re not late. Don’t worry. Come on up.”
Brad had circled the hospital twice before he saw a sign propped up next to the small trailer beside the hospital’s front entrance. At a glance, it looked kind of like a dumpster or storage pod. Inside was a small office and the machine in the next room.
“Is anyone here with you?” the medical technician asked. “Your wife?” The guy was younger than Brad, maybe in his mid-twenties. He wore scrubs but had a baseball cap on the desk.
“No,” Brad said. “I’m here alone.”
“Okay. Well, first I’m going to ask you to take anything you have that’s metal and put it in this tray here: your watch, phone, belt, wedding ring.”
Brad emptied his pockets, took off his ring and watch. “I have a zipper,” he said. “Do I have to take off my pants?”
Oh, that would be fun.
“No,