The Ortolan's picked me up at the hospital that afternoon. I spent the rest of Thanksgiving with them.
"Have you spoken to her yet?" Diane asked.
"She's been sedated all day."
"Poor girl," Diane replied.
Shannie scowled at her mother before glancing out the window. She was in what Diane called a navel gazing mood. In those moods, Shannie was cold and introspective.
"Cut the shit, Who are you kidding?" Shannie said when we returned to Cemetery Street. I protested her idea of checking out the bathroom. "You know you want to."
"For the fifty-second time, I don't have my keys."
"We don't need them, I know a way in."
"Great. Now you want me to break in to my own house."
"We're using an alternative method."
"Wait a minute. How do you know how to get into my house?"
"Experience is a wonderful thing," she said.
"But what if they come home while we're in there?"
"Geezus Pete James," Shannie rolled her eyes.
"Diane, we're going for a walk," Shannie said. Behind the rhododendrons guarding my front porch, she instructed me to lift the lattice. I smiled at her. I had crawled behind those bushes countless times and never thought I could get into the house this way. "Your dad did a great job on the basement," she said after we slipped in. "The old owner was a slob."
"It's locked," I said trying the basement door.
Shannie pointed to a key hanging from a nail on the doorframe. "That should do it." Awkward didn't quite describe my feeling. Shannie knew my house better than me. She replaced the key and led the way across the creaky floor. Gray seeped through the aging windowpanes.
The air was heavy on my shoulders. Stillness rang in my ears. The house felt as if it was brooding, mourning the loss of an occupant. The idea gave me the shivers; my hands broke into a cold sweat. My curiosity waned. I didn't want to look behind the bathroom door. Fear of Shannie's scorn kept me going.
At the top of the stairs I told her I didn't want to look. "Suite yourself Just James," Excitement sparkled in her eyes.
Droplets of blood led from my parent's room into the bathroom. They returned my stare - taunting me with visions of the flashing red lights and my mother's cries. Without warning my stomach erupted; bile rushed into my mouth. Force of will prevented me from drawing a gruesome collage with my dead brother's blood. Hand to mouth I took three steps at a time, racing my stomach tremors. I lost my Thanksgiving meal in the kitchen sink.