"Later you did, but before that, how many times did you throw up because she forced you to eat shrimp?"

"I have no idea," I said tersely.

"A lot. She said she wasn't a short-order cook, and she kept forcing you to eat what the rest of us ate. She only gave in after you threw up on the table, and she never did admit you were allergic to shellfish. And what about the garage?"

"What about it?" I said, fury causing a pain behind my eyes.

"Dad never made David eat out there, but Gail and Jill and I had to, and you were out there practically every night."

I closed my eyes to block out the memory of my father's twisted punishment for expressing an opinion at the dinner table that didn't match his. I couldn't count how many times I'd choked down oil fumes with my dinner or heard chunks of snow breaking from the wheel wells in the foreground as my family carried on merrily in the back-around. But I could track how many times David had been subjected to the isolation: zero.

I stopped twisting the phone cord. "You really hate David, don't you?"

"Yes, I do." Ann paused. "And it's taken me about fifty therapy sessions to stop hating myself for it, too."

"Don't you feel any connection with him?"

"Not usually. I did dream about him last night, though," she said, artificially cheerful. "I dreamed I killed him. I put him, and me, out of misery."

"I can't believe you're saying this."

"Haven't you wished it was over, that we could grieve for him all at once, instead of every day of our lives?"

My voice sank to an ominous low. "All I wish is that he'll get better soon and be able to come home."

"To what, Kris? To the life he had living alone in that gross basement apartment, waiting for the next trip to the hospital?"

"God, Ann, are you that far gone? Don't you have any hope left?"

"Yes," she said quietly. "I hope he'll die."

Fuming, I clamped down the receiver and kicked the air until my leg was sore and I was out of breath.

I struggled to compose myself and called Destiny ten times in the next hour. Unable to reach her and tired of trying, I left a detailed message and set off for the hospital alone.

I parked in the south lot and came in through the main entrance of Denver Health, having to first pass by a mini McDonald's and through a horde of smokers. The fast food and cigarettes seemed out of place in a hospital, but then, very little about hospitals made sense.

At the front desk, I learned David had been moved to an intensive care unit on the eighth floor. On the crammed elevator ride, blocking out the smells and sorrow, I tried to concentrate on getting ready to see David, whatever his condition.

I checked in at the ICU nurses' station, and a male aide offered to lead me to David. I followed him through an open area where a dozen patients, mostly unconscious, lay. One man, about fifty years old and awake, if not coherent, unnerved me with his incessant shrieks of "Mommy." I hadn't realized I was holding my breath until we came to a glass-enclosed area at the perimeter of the room, and I saw David in it. I exhaled loudly, relieved to be able to physically separate myself from what was going on around me and stunned at the sight of my brother.

Still in a coma, he looked angry and surreal, a human hub with wires and tubes and machines sprouting from his body, some miracle of modern medicine.

I entered, shut the door, and decided against closing the mini-blinds. I sat on the edge of a chair next to the bed and lightly touched his left forearm. "Hi, David. It's Kris." I looked closely but couldn't detect any movement.

"You sure are quiet. I haven't seen you this still since we hid from Mom and Dad in the fort," I said, referring to the childhood dwelling, five feet north of my parents' brick home, where David and I had spent days and nights, frequently ignoring my parents' calls.

My older sisters and I had built the two-story structure when we were in junior high, assembling it from scraps of plywood and discarded nails scavenged from the sites of new homes in the neighborhood. Soon after we furnished the fort with remnants of carpet, discarded pillows, and crudely sewn curtains, Ann and Gail lost interest in it, and David and I claimed it as ours.

Every summer day, he and I spent hours in the fort. Through blazing heat and ferocious rainstorms, we talked and read and played games and napped. We snacked on Zotz, Vanilla Wafers, and Ruffles we secretly bought and smuggled in.

In the winter, we used the crude edifice as a shelter. We shoveled a path to it and cleared the snow that blocked the door and windows. We lit candles for light and warmth and passed the time in our parkas, boots, and mittens. Many times, we huddled and shivered, but we seldom abandoned the fort for the house next door, a place that seemed colder still.

"You've got a nice room here," I said, glancing around. "At least it's private."

No response. Not even a tic.

"I tried to call you last week. I wanted to tell you I signed you up for a photo class. It's supposed to start in a couple of weeks, but we can reschedule. I was going to come by, but things got hectic." My voice trailed off helplessly, and I lowered my head.

When I spoke again, it was with great difficulty. "I'm glad you're still alive. When I saw you on Friday, I didn't thinka"" Suddenly, I couldn't finish my sentence. I couldn't utter another syllable.

Tears began to form, and I paused and looked up, trying to regain control.

What I saw outside David's room made me freeze inside, and my heart started pounding uncontrollably. On the other side of the window stood my mother, and I caught a glimpse of her just as she turned to leave.

Realizing I had spotted her, she must have concluded a retreat would have been too obvious, because without warning, she altered her course and in seconds sat across from me.

What a nightmarish scene: four feet away, a mother I hadn't talked to in six years; between us, a brother's inert body.

My mother reached to hold David's right hand and addressed me, as if we were alone in the room. "Someone needs to clean out his apartment."

My eyes flickered toward David's. "Isn't it a little early for that?"

"He can't go back there. A nurse told me he'll need months of rehabilitation after he comes out of the coma."

"Do they know when that'll be?"

"They won't say, but he can't go back to where he was. Something needs to be done."

I didn't respond. I knew what she wanted, but I refused to volunteer. I couldn't bear the thought of returning to the dark, dingy apartment where my brother had been writhing and convulsing.

"Have you ever stepped foot in his place?" my mother asked accusingly.

"Ah, not recently, not inside." I coughed. "I always tell him to meet me outside."

"I just came from there, and it's filthy. There were pornographic magazines everywhere and dirty clothes and rotting food."

"Did it smella"" I asked, unable to add, of semen? A peculiar odor, strong enough to cause gagging, often clung to David.

"Yes, it smells," she snapped. "What would you expect? He should never live alone. He doesn't have the skills, but your father can't be bothered with him. He and his new wifea""

"Dad and Martha have been married seven years," I couldn't resist correcting.

"a"don't have a place for him."

And neither do you, I thought. Not in your house and not in your heart.

"He can't find time for David. He never could deal with his son's problems. Or anything else, for that matter. This entire family has problems, and no one will confront them. I'm tired of doing it alone, and I'm not going to any more. It's someone else's turn. You live the closest, Kris. It would be easier for you to clear out his apartment."

My throat felt dry. "I can't."

"It won't take that long."

"No," I said quietly, but firmly.

"That's typical," she said nastily. "You've only been in David's life when it was convenient for you."

"I've been in his life," I said between clenched teeth, "when I could emotionally handle it, and a lot of times when I couldn't. I can't take care of the apartment."

After she said, "What do you know about emotion? You never cry, and you never care about anyone but yourself," it all came back to me.

All the times in my childhood I had tried, but failed, to win the verbal wars she waged. All the times I had held back tears, then stomped off to my basement bedroom and screamed into a pillow all the vicious, clever comebacks I hadn't thought to say.

This time, the cruel retorts raced through my head while I was still in her presence: You were incapable of loving four overachieving, socially acceptable girls. What about a mentally ill, physically embarrassing boy? You were ashamed of him.

You gave birth to him; I didn't. You raised him, and what a poor job you did. All my life, you've tried to foist him off on me, but this time it won't work. I'm not his mother!

My rage came to a full, silent boil when my mother added, "And I didn't appreciate you introducing Destiny as your lover the other night. She had no right being at the hospital, and you didn't need to taunt me with your homosexuality. If your intention was to humiliate me in front of my friend Sharon, you succeeded."

Those comments, as incensing as they were, brought a strange tranquility to me. I calmly stared at my mother, unwilling to believe I had ever been inside her body, unable to fathom how I had lived through the toxins.

In a measured tone, I replied, "I brought Destiny the other night because she's my friend and David's. When he wakes up, he can tell you himself that they're buddies. And I introduced her as my lover because that's what she is. It shouldn't have come as a shock to you. When I was eighteen, I told you I was a lesbian. I still am." I stood. "Not everything is about you, Mom."

I patted David on the shoulder and walked past my mother, careful to avoid eye contact, eager to leave.

But her next words stopped me. "You think you know your brother, fine! If you're so close to him, tell me why he was seizing uncontrollably."

"Because he has epilepsy," I spat, shaking with disgust. I reached for the doorknob, a step away from fleeing her mocking attempt to draw me back into the sick family circle.

"I found thirty unopened bottles of medicine under his bed. He filled the prescriptions but hadn't taken any medicine in months. That's why he had the seizures."

I turned around, expecting to see a shred of sadness on her face, some acknowledgment of my brother's pain, but only spiteful triumph registered.

I left without speaking.

On the way out, I had to refrain from strangling the man whose haunting "Mommy" cries had reached a hysterical pitch.

10.

From the hospital, I headed straight to my office.

A broken computer, important two days earlier, now seemed meaningless. It was the least of my worries as I ripped open the envelope Fran Green had dropped through the mail slot. I swallowed hard when I saw the headline of the article: Mother Kills Infant Son and Self.

I turned on a light in the front room and dialed the phone, half hoping no one would answer.

"Hello."

"Patrice, this is Kristin Ashe. We need to talk. Can I come over?"

"Now? Is it about Lauren?"

"Yes."

"Is it bad?"

"I have to show you something. I can be there in about fifteen minutes."

She hesitated. "Okay. I'll see you soon."

I photocopied the article and in ten minutes had parallel parked in front of the Elliott home in Park Hill, while Patrice, in a yellow sundress, frantically paced on the sidewalk.

"What is it? What's happened? Why did Lauren do it?" she shouted before I could slam the car door.

"I don't have all the answers yet," I said calmly, "but I discovered something I thought you should know."

I crossed the lawn and sat on the concrete steps of the 1930s brick bungalow, motioning for her to join me. She came over, pushed one of the dozen toys out of her way, and slowly kneeled, teetering on the top stair. "It's not good, is it?"

"Did anyone ever tell you why your mother committed suicide?"

"Of course."

I exhaled loudly. "Thank God!"

"She was sad because my brother had passed away. He died from SIDS several months before Mother killed herself."

I winced. "Ah, that's not exactly what happened. Friday, I found out your mom and Brian died on the same day."

"Did Lauren know this?"

I nodded.

"Why would she lie to me?"

"Maybe because she didn't know how to tell you the truth," I said squirming. "Your mother killed your brother."

Patrice gasped and began to wring her hands. "Accidentally?"

"I think you'd better look at this."

I unfolded the copy of the newspaper clipping and passed it to her. Watching her eyes widen as she read, I felt heavy with the realization that I was destroying memories of her family. She would never again view the people she loved in the same light. She would see her brother dying a violent death, her mother beating him senseless, her father deceiving her, and her sister hiding behind the silence.

After she finished, Patrice laid the paper on the porch and ironed it smooth with the back of her hand. "There must be some mistake," she said dully. "You have the wrong family."