Blood Ties Read Online Free PDF Page A

Russell. He’s fifteen. He left home Monday. He’s here in New York.” She was still waiting. “He’s my sister’s son.”
    The kettle started to whistle. I got up to turn it off. She followed me with her eyes.
    â€œYour sister?” she said. “Your sister’s son?”
    I opened the cabinet, realized I didn’t know what kind of tea she wanted. “My sister Helen,” I said. “She’s two years younger than I am.”
    â€œI didn’t know you even had a sister,” Lydia said slowly. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that?” She got up, walked over and reached into the cabinet, took out a box of Yunnan tea she’d put there a week ago. She pulled open the drawer for the strainer. I felt useless and went back to the couch.
    â€œWhen I was fifteen, she was thirteen, she ran away,” I said.
    She turned to me. “She was thirteen? Why?”
    I shrugged. “It was tough at home.”
    Lydia considered me. “That was when you went to live with your uncle Dave, when you were fifteen.”
    â€œHelen ran away just before that.” I didn’t want to tell the whole story, not now. “She never came back. She called every now and then, just enough so we knew she was alive, not enough to be found.”
    â€œMy God, what did your parents do?”
    â€œNobody could find her,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t notice how far that was from an answer to her question. “She spent most of the next ten years on the road with one man or another. When she met Scott, the guy she’s married to, she settled down, and when Gary was born she called me. I went down to see them—they were in Atlanta then—and when the girls were born, too. But Scott—” I pressed my cigarette out. “Shit. I don’t like him and he doesn’t like me, and Helen and I . . .” I looked up at Lydia. She was standing, drinking her tea. “I never told you about her because she’s been gone for twenty-five years. She’s just not part of my life.”
    She could have said, Bullshit. She could have said, There’s a lot more to this, I can hear it, and if you’re going to hand me a line I don’t need it. She could have demanded to know, walked out if I didn’t tell her.
    Instead she came and sat next to me again. She drank her tea and for a while there was silence.
    She said, “And Gary’s in New York now, and he’s missing?” She said it the way she would have on any case, giving me back the information I’d given her, waiting for the rest. I turned to look at her, warm and solid and beside me, and I almost laughed, so strong was the sudden idea that we could go away somewhere, up to my cabin in the country, to China, to a farm in New Zealand, leave and start over and never come back.
    Lydia returned my look, sipped her tea, waited for me to speak.
    I said, “Yes. Gary’s missing.”
    I told her the story, all the details, including the phone call with Helen and Scott. I showed her Gary’s jacket, and the broken window in the back bedroom. The cold night air had filled the empty room; when I opened the door it pushed past us into the the rest of my place.
    â€œBoy,” she said, peering out the window into the alley. The streetlights were off now; the day had started. “I’m impressed.”
    â€œHe’s a football player,” I said. “Strong and big. He didn’t jump: he swung over the sill, held on, and then dropped. He took some time and thought about it, planned it before he broke the glass.”
    She was leaning out the window now, saying something I couldn’t hear.
    â€œWhat?” I asked.
    She pulled her head back in. “I said, I’ll bet it was exciting. Breaking the window, holding on like that, dropping. I’ll bet it was a real rush. Even afraid you’d catch him. Even with whatever trouble he’s