Page 56 of Absolution

Fifteen

*New York*

Angela Russo

“You’re thin as a stick, brother.”

His eyelids flutter, but he doesn’t wake. He sleeps a lot, my big brother. Or, he used to be big. Now he’s nothing but a shadow. My chest clenches with worry at what will become of him. Will he ever be himself again? My strong hero and protector. Chris has been both my mother and my father through my whole life.

I poke him. “Hey, dude. You gotta eat some. I made you a smoothie. It’s got kale, and carrots, soya milk, three raw eggs, and a ton of fresh strawberries.”

“I’m not a fucking rabbit,” he mutters, and I exhale with relief. As long as there is snark in Christian Russo, there’s hope.

“Well, from where I’m sitting, you’re helpless as a baby, and you do what I tell you.”

He opens one intense, deep brown eye and regards me. “Or what, sis?”

“Or you’ll starve to death. You’ll get bed sores and die in your own shit while flies feast on your rotten flesh.”

“You’re as charming as ever.”

I laugh. “Always.”

“I’ve missed your laugh, Ang. Everything is always so fucking serious.”

“It’s always life and death with us, isn’t it?”

“It’s the way of the Russos.”

“The Russo way sucks. I don’t ever wanna see you in a hospital bed again. You scared us. You scared me!”

He pushes himself up until he half-sits against the big fluffy pillows behind his back. We’re at Nathan’s. The room is big and bright, the ceiling high, the floorboards a beautiful light wood, a whole wall of windows with a sliver of a view of the Hudson river, right now covered in long white curtains. The bedside table is filled with half-full glasses of water and crumpled tissue.

“I scared myself good too.”

“What happened? Who’s Kerry? You keep talking about Kerry in your sleep.”

He flinches as he reaches for a glass of water. “I don’t fucking talk in my sleep!”

I hold out the smoothie for him.

“Keep your kale to yourself, you hippie. A real man needs steak.”

I shrug and take a long sip of it myself, shuddering. Not my best work. “You talk all the time. Kerry, Cecilia. Storm. Water. Middlebro. When you sleep you’re a babbling mess.”

Christian groans and closes his eyes, falling back against the pillows. “You might as well forget you heard that. It’s not gonna go anywhere anyway.”

“Who are they?”

He opens his eyes, and the depth of the despair in them makes a shiver run across my back. “What am I, Angela?”

“My… brother?”

“What am I?”

I swallow. “I— I don’t understand.”

“What do I do?” he growls, so loud that I twitch.

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