Page 91 of 7 Days and 7 Nights

He gave it his best shot, but nothing he did seemed to cure the emptiness he felt or point him in a direction that made sense. Everything that had mattered most to him—his work, his lifestyle—suddenly seemed unbearably shallow and lacking in some elemental way.

Even the bedroom of his youth offered no real answers. Floor-to-ceiling shelves still bulged with boyhood treasures. Little League trophies sat next to the airplane models Adam had painstakingly assembled. A complete set of Hardy Boys mysteries leaned against a plexiglass cube that contained a baseball signed by the 1974 Cubs. Everything that had mattered before the age of thirteen was on these shelves.

Matt had made the transition to teenager alone in this room. But even as the sports posters he and his twin chose together gave way to Matt’s budding passion for rock bands and fast cars, Adam had always been there, the missing part of him standing to his right and sharing his life.

Matt closed his eyes and remembered. He’d lost his virginity at the age of sixteen in the twin bed he now sat on. He’d been nervous as hell, afraid his parents would come home early and catch him and MaryAnn Hightower doing the deed, but sex had been the first thing that knocked Adam out of his brain. He’d been seeking that oblivion ever since.

A knock sounded on the door, and Matt welcomed the interruption. “Come in.”

“Hi.” His sister stood in the threshold. “Thought you might like to come to the restaurant for lunch today.”

“Love to. Mom said something about a walk down to the lake, but we’ve talked about doing that every day since I got here, and it still hasn’t happened. I’m not counting on it.”

Sandra walked over and sat next to him. “She’s never been able to go back there.”

“She’s never been able to do a whole lot of things.”

“She can’t help it, Matt."

“Sure she can, she just won’t.”

“No. After Daddy died, she finally agreed to try therapy, but she’s kept everything bottled up for so long, I don’t think she knows where to begin. Sometimes I think Kyle and Kenny will do it for her, but I don’t know. She still blames herself.”

“We all do. But she’s the mother. It was her responsibility to get hold of herself and give a shit about us.”

Sandra smiled an incredibly sad smile. “I’m a mother now, little brother. And I can promise you she gave a shit. And she still does. She just can’t show it the way we want her to.”

Matt knew he sounded like a petulant child, but he couldn’t stop himself. “She wasn’t the only one who lost someone.”

“No, she wasn’t.” His sister slipped an arm up around his shoulder and squeezed. “And I don’t think any of us ever really understood what it must have been like for you. But we all have our chosen method of coping.” She placed a hand on his cheek and turned his face toward hers. “Or hiding.”

“Olivia accused me of that very thing. Called me a Peter Pan and said I refused to grow up.”

“Yeah, I know. I listened online. And I haven’t been able to get you to utter her name all week. Obviously my attempts to make you talk have been too subtle.”

Matt snorted at the idea of Sandra and the word “subtle” sharing the same sentence, and his gaze cut to the laptop he’d set up to monitor WTLK.

“Things were heating up between you right before we left for Italy,” Sandra said. “But we missed the remote.

What happened?”

“You don’t even want to know.”

“Yes, I do. It would be nice to have some inkling why you’ve been moping around here all week."

“I’m not moping.”

His sister just gave him that look she’d been giving him since she turned thirteen and decided girls were inherently superior to boys. "Well, as far as I’m concerned, she’s on the air telling it like it is, while you’re... ?”

Matt scowled at her.

Sandra just laughed. “I love her show. I keep picturing men in minivans trying to survive in suburbia.”

Matt winced. It was hard to believe men and women could ever get together with that kind of condescension coming from the other side. He was just as capable of expressing his feelings and coping with everyday life as the next guy.

Sandra glanced at the clock on the wall and moved toward the computer. Both of their gazes traveled to the screen, and Matt reached over to adjust the volume. A moment later they heard, “This is Dr. Olivia Moore. You’re on the air.”

“So that’s what you’re doing here,” his sister said. “You’re hiding from Dr. O.”

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