Carry the One by Carol Anshaw

from her, the pills were pushing through his blood, spreading their grace, casting a tint over Alice’s neighborhood that was not a color so much as a mood. Even with the dog-boarding kennel and the dry cleaning plant, the atmosphere was definitely homey. He opened the plastic bag and took one more pill—a shooter to put him in a visitation groove.
    “Boocs,” Alice greeted him, opening the door. The nickname was ironic. All three siblings were named after operatic characters. Horace, their father, was a huge buff. Naming his kids was a little opportunity to show off his erudition. Alice was really Lucia. Nick was Nabucco. Only Carmen had hung with the deal.
    Alice was surprised to see him, he could tell. People, he noticed, seemed less and less into the idea of dropping by. Now you were supposed to call first. The dropping-by era was, apparently, over.
    “Are you high?” she asked him once he was inside. The question caught him off guard and in pondering it, he forgot what it was.
    “High?” she tried again, pointing upward as a visual aid.
    “Oh. No. No way.” He didn’t want to disappoint. She was so earnest. He adored Alice. At this exact moment, he was overwhelmed by how much he loved his sister. A lot of people loved her, many at first sight. They wanted to be her friend, or lover. They wanted to hire heror get her on their team. This was all due to something she put out, into the atmosphere around her. She was not beautiful in any conventional sense. The elements of her face were too severe, her eyes brown edging toward black, the whole effect weaving between mysterious and tragic. Something about this blend made people want it, want her. She had been hit on by gay guys, also by women in straight bars.
    Right now she just continued to stare the truth out of him.
    “Well, maybe a little,” he admitted. “Just a little feel-good thing. A top-off. Today was visiting day.”
    “Oh,” Alice said. “Right.”
    “You know, Olivia is really a very fascinating person.” He pulled out his wallet, but Alice stopped him with a hand pressed on his arm. “I’ve seen the picture. Listen, we have to be quiet. Is toilet repair quiet? The thing is Maude’s asleep already. She has to be downtown at five a.m. tomorrow so they can get her into makeup and out on the Michigan Avenue Bridge in some evening gown before the morning rush hour.”
    “Evening pants, ” Maude said from the bed at the far end of the loft, around the corner so she was only a ghostly voice. The voice sounded wide-awake, though. “Who can sleep at eight-thirty at night?” she said as she came out in a T-shirt and men’s striped pajama bottoms.
    “Toddlers,” Alice said as Maude pulled her into a headlock. She was way taller than Alice, so it was an easy move. “Toddlers are definitely asleep by now. Don’t bother calling any of them.”
    Maude was great looking, but also a pain in the ass. She had disappeared after the accident, and now she was back again. Sort of. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be a dyke. In Nick’s opinion, Alice was too vulnerable to her. But just now, as he looked at them standing there so perfectly together, he got a whole other view. He could see how Alice, with Maude’s arm draped over her shoulder, was taken care of. He saw now the way the two of them occupied a space that extended into the future. The image filled him with hope. The wide, flat plane of hope it lifted you onto—this was what he loved best about Percodan.
    “I’m starving,” Maude said.
    “We could order some gyros from the Greek place,” Alice said.
    “Oh honey,” Maude said. “You know my stupid job, my stupid life. We could order a grape, maybe.”
    Alice turned to Nick. “Are you hungry?”
    He shook his head. He was trying to follow what they were saying, but the words kept clicking right and left, like a Ping-Pong ball being volleyed across the table. Clickety-clack. Clackety-click.
    “I hate when he shows up like this,” he