Read Online Obsessed by G. H. Ephron - Free Book Online Page A

smiled. “Promise.” She reached up and smoothed my collar. “And you’d better put something on that eye.” Then she went into the building.
    The flesh felt singed where her fingers had grazed my neck.

    I got into my car and turned on the dome light. I examined my face in the mirror. My right eye was starting to swell shut. I was going to have a formidable shiner. A shower and an icepack, that’s what I needed. I tried Annie one more time before heading home, but no luck.
    On the way, I rolled into a Dunkin Donuts and got myself a coffee and a cup of crushed ice. I wrapped the ice in my handkerchief and drove one-handed, pressing the makeshift icepack to my eye.
    When I got home I dumped the leftover ice in the driveway. My mother had left the porch light on. She’d lived in the other half of my side-by-side two-family ever since she and my father moved in five years ago at the start of his slide into Alzheimer’s.
    I mind my business, and my mother minds mine, too. If she heard me say that, she’d shoot back: “Just like your brother—always with the jokes.” Truth is, we watch out for each other but pretty much stay out of each other’s hair. Like that light that she’d left on for me. She didn’t want me to call or knock when I got in. Just turn off the porch light, she’d tell me, “So I shouldn’t worry.”
    She’s never been happy that one of the things I do is evaluate accused criminals. Seeing my face turning various shades of purple wasn’t going to allay her fears. I hurried up the walk. I didn’t want to have to figure out an explanation.
    I was just unlocking my door when my mother poked her head out. “It’s about time,” she said.
    Time for what, I wondered. I looked at my watch. It was nearly ten.
    I bent down to get a peck on the cheek. I knew she was preoccupied when she didn’t notice my eye.
    Annie was standing in the hall behind my mother. Her curly reddish hair was tied back and her gray eyes looked tense. She had on jeans and a Boston University sweatshirt that I knew she sometimes pulled on in the morning over nothing. This was her standard hanging-around-the-house outfit. There was some dirt streaked across her cheek, and her arms were folded tight across her front, as if she were cold, but I knew my mother’s apartment was always toasty. What was she doing here? I knew something was wrong.
    Annie noticed my eye right off.
    â€œWhat happened to you?”
    Now my mother noticed. “You evaluated another criminal?”
    â€œI didn’t. Actually it was a case of mistaken identity. This guy thought I was someone else.”
    â€œThis guy?” my mother asked, her voice laced with skepticism.
    I followed my mother and Annie through the living room, with its comfortable stuffed furniture and dark patterned carpeting, and into the kitchen. The countertops gleamed. My mother was taking an ice tray from the freezer.
    â€œI tried calling you,” I told Annie.
    She reached into her pocket for her phone. “I’m sorry. I forgot I had it turned off.”
    Now my mother was at the sink, knocking ice cubes into a dishcloth.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” I whispered to Annie, my stomach doing flip-flops. It was amazing how little it took to catapult me back to where I’d been after Kate was killed, sure that any moment another person I cared about would be tossed off the precipice.
    â€œI needed to talk to you.” She had her arms across her middle again, as if she were protecting something fragile. “I need your advice.”
    I realized this was the first time I’d ever heard Annie say she needed me.
    My mother handed me the ice, now wrapped in a moist dish-towel. She pressed it into my hand while giving the rest of me the once-over.
    â€œYour mom heard me knocking,” Annie said. “I knew you were going over to watch that brain scan but I thought you