Kayleigh mumbled around the melting cube.
MaryAnne set her elbows on the table and dropped her round, freckled face into her palms. “No wonder you look worn-out.”
Kayleigh nodded glumly. “I’ve been on ten interviews and haven’t gotten a job offer. Even my headhunter has started avoiding my calls. I was hoping to speak to Gramps. Get some cheering up.”
MaryAnne’s mouth turned down at the corners. “He’s in physical therapy and—”
“He’ll want a nap after that,” Kayleigh finished for her, her spirits plummeting. “I’ll come back another time for the chat.” Despite her best efforts, her voice quivered.
“MaryAnne Walsh to the front desk,” announced a voice on the overhead PA system. “MaryAnne Walsh to the front desk, please.”
MaryAnne stood. “I wish I could help.” She put a hand on Kayleigh’s shoulder. “What about Niall? You two used to be so close. Maybe he’s ready to come out of that cave he put himself in since the war. He might know about some jobs. He’s been doing independent programming work for software companies.”
“I don’t think he’ll talk to me. He hasn’t returned my calls since he got back.”
MaryAnne blew out a breath and strode to the door. “There’s more to it than that, though he won’t tell me. And he avoids everyone, even his family. I hardly recognize the bitter recluse he’s become. Seeing each other would be good for both of you.... If I can arrange it, will you meet him?”
Kayleigh’s brain fumbled for the right words to say. Niall. A reunion with an old friend would mean so much. He couldn’t have changed that much...could he?
“That would be—I mean—thank you, MaryAnne,” she said inadequately. “I’d appreciate that.”
MaryAnne came back and gave her a quick hug. “I know he always thought the sun rose and set on you, sweetie. When I tell him that you need him, he’ll be there. Promise.”
But as the door clicked shut behind her, Kayleigh was left alone to wonder.
If he did care, why had he shut her out? They’d supported each other through everything: her parents’ divorce and move, his father’s death and mother’s worsening Alzheimer’s. Yet when he’d been honorably discharged after losing his lower leg in an ambush, he’d rebuffed her. His rejection still hurt. She’d needed to tell him about Chris’s death and had wanted to comfort him because of his injury. Sometimes it felt as if she’d lost them both to the war.
They could have helped each other as they had in the past. A team. Inseparable since their summer-camp days.
His withdrawal had left an empty space inside her that no one, not even Brett, had been able to fill.
“I KNOW YOU’RE there, so pick up!”
Niall Walsh punched another line of HTML code into his computer, then glared at the answering machine vying for position with the modem, external hard drive, printer and fax machine cluttering his two desks. He pictured his determined older sister, MaryAnne, marching through his Bed-Stuy neighborhood, calling on her cell. Had she forgotten yesterday’s vow not to check in on him so often?
His phone rang again, followed by the beep. For a low-tech device, it was effective. He should have unplugged it when he’d powered off his cell. “I made your favorite, lasagna,” her voice sounded through the speaker.
His stomach grumbled. It’d been a while since he’d eaten. An empty pizza box balanced on his brownstone apartment’s radiator. It was the last thing he recalled ordering, and that’d been yesterday. Still, she’d given her word. Hunger or no, he was staying strong and not letting her in. It was better for both of them.
“Come on, little brother,” he heard her say after he let the phone ring a third time. “I’ve got to get back to The White Horse and help Aiden before my night shift. Buzz me in when I get to your building.”
He imagined the busy SoHo pub his older brother had managed since their father’s fatal heart attack. Aiden had taken charge of the six other children in the Walsh brood, and their Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother. At least he wouldn’t add to Aiden’s responsibilities. If MaryAnne would stop pestering him, he’d never bother a soul again.
He glanced down at his prosthetic lower leg. The last person who’d come to his rescue had paid the ultimate price; the guilt that he lived and his savior did not was a bitter dose he swallowed every day. If not for his actions during the classified mission, that soldier might have been home now visiting with his own sister.
“I promise not to clean your apartment.” Her voice turned pleading as she left her fourth message.
He glanced around his small, dim apartment, noticing things as MaryAnne would. Laundry spilled out of an overflowing hamper beside his bathroom door. His galley kitchen counters were covered in empty take-out containers, and his sink was full of dishes. Dust coated his coffee table, but at least he’d put his empty soda cans in the recycle bin.
Beside his shrouded windows hung a lone spider plant, its fronds green despite being watered rarely. He should just let it die, yet once in a while something about its droop made him lumber to the kitchen for a glass.
A loud buzzing sounded. She was here, not fooled at all by his phone screening. He swore under his breath and limped to the door. Some things never quit...like MaryAnne. Plus, she was his sister, and he wouldn’t ignore her. Not really. Just teach her a lesson...as in...keep your word about not coming over.
“Fine,” he called into the intercom, and then pressed the button to open the automatic front entrance. “But no cleaning,” he added as he unbolted his locks and slid back the chain.
MaryAnne brushed by him a moment later and marched into his kitchen. “This place is a pigsty!”
He inhaled the aroma of tomatoes, cheese and sausage left in her wake. His stomach grumbled again, grateful to her even if the rest of him wasn’t. When would she get the message that he didn’t want people going out of their way for him?
“What are you doing?” he asked when she shook out an apron she’d pulled from her purse and tied it around her waist. “I said no cleaning.”
His sister slid her eyes his way as she flicked on the faucet. She squeezed his dish soap bottle, got only a faint mist, then uncapped it and smacked the bottom until a dribble of clear gel oozed out.
“This isn’t cleaning. It’s excavating a toxic waste site.”
“I was getting to it as soon as I finished writing a program. I’m sending the prototype to my client this afternoon.”
She shot him a skeptical look, then shoved a clean, wet plate at him. He shouldn’t have relented, but there was no denying his demanding sister. He grabbed a cloth and began drying.
“You’re always working.” She passed him another dish. The crystal necklace he’d given her for Christmas winked under the single working bulb in his light fixture. “When are you going to leave the virtual world and start living
