My Brother's Keeper by Keith Gilman Page B

twenty years and you’ve lived around here your whole life. Our fathers worked together on the force. And you’ve been around the block a few times yourself. So please don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. My God, I’m so sick of pretending.’
    She lifted the cup of coffee and brought it to her lips but didn’t drink. She seemed to want only to warm her hands on the cup. The afternoon sun struggled through the thin blinds in filtered rays that highlighted her streaked face, a few strands of gray in her dark hair. She’d always been beautiful, Lou remembered, and still was, but her face had grown haunted. A shadow had fallen over it. Illuminated now by the yellow light from the window, she looked sallow and a little sick.
    Lou walked to the window and pulled the cord on the shade. The office grew perceptibly brighter. He switched on the lamp on his desk. It was a green and white Philadelphia Eagles Tiffany lamp with a pewter base and stem and a bronze eagle perched at the top.
    â€˜You an Eagles fan?’
    â€˜Everyone in my family are Eagles fans, Lou. It’s a family tradition. Seems like one of the few we have left.’ She took a sip from the cup and exhaled sharply through her mouth as if it had been a shot of whiskey. ‘How about you?’
    â€˜I root against them. It’s kind of a love/hate relationship.’
    â€˜I know the feeling.’
    The language of football, Lou thought; in Philadelphia it opened channels of communication as wide as the Delaware and as dirty. It flowed between people who otherwise might have never exchanged a word. But he’d questioned Philly’s love affair with football. In his experience, it was driven by an obsession with violence and it brought out the worst in them. It made them loud. It made them aggressive. It got them drunk. It made them want to beat somebody’s brains in. Football was certainly a tradition in Philadelphia, just like bar fights and domestic disturbances.
    â€˜You were going to tell me about that baggage you’ve been carrying around.’
    â€˜Was I?’
    â€˜I thought maybe you wanted to.’
    â€˜You’re wrong. I assumed you knew it all already, heard it from one of my brothers or from one of your cop friends at Fortunato’s.’
    â€˜I’d prefer to hear it from you.’
    â€˜I told you, Lou. I’ve been married and divorced once already. Now it looks like it’s going to happen again.’
    â€˜It’s not a crime, Franny. Relationships are a funny thing. Sometimes we don’t get it right. I’m divorced.’
    â€˜You don’t understand, Lou. You don’t understand how it makes me feel, how it makes me look. People look at me differently. They start to think something’s wrong with me.’ She fumbled in her purse for the pack of cigarettes. Her hand came up with a crumpled pack of Newports and a plastic lighter. She tapped one out and lit it with a trembling hand. She might have singed her eyebrows with the dancing flame. ‘It’s so much easier for men. You remind me of my first husband; he had all the answers.’
    â€˜I never said I had all the answers, Franny.’
    â€˜But you act like you do. And that smug look. It gets me so angry I’d like to wipe it right off your face.’
    â€˜I don’t mean to be smug and I’m not judging you, so there’s no reason to get defensive. Do you know what I think the truth is? If you didn’t think I could help you, you wouldn’t be here.’
    â€˜How do you know I’m not using you? I have a reputation for using men, you know.’
    She sucked hard on the cigarette, letting the smoke drift heavily from her open mouth. Her eyes lowered to black slits and her smile regained its confidence.
    â€˜Stop it.’
    â€˜You never were any fun.’
    â€˜Is that how you avoid the subject, Franny? Bat your eyes and let your