The Medusa Amulet

Chapter 3

For David, Sunday night had always meant dinner at his sister Sarah’s house in the suburbs. And for years, he had looked forward to it.

But those simple, happy days were gone. For the past year or more, it had been an increasingly fraught occasion.

Sarah had been battling breast cancer, just as his mother had done, and like his mother, many years ago, she was losing the war. She had been through endless rounds of radiation and chemo, and even though she was only four years older than David, she looked like she was at death’s door. Her wavy brown hair, the same chestnut color as his own, was entirely gone, replaced with a wig that never sat quite right. Her eyebrows were penciled in, and her skin had a pale translucence.

And he loved her more than anyone in the world.

Their father had gone AWOL when he was just a toddler, and after their mother succumbed to the disease, it was Sarah who had pretty much raised him. He owed her everything, and there was nothing he could do to help her now.

Nothing, it seemed, that anyone could do.

He was just stamping the slush off his boots when she opened the door. Around her head, she was wearing a new silk scarf in a wild paisley pattern. It wasn’t great, but anything was better than that wig.

“Gary gave it to me,” she said, reading his mind as always.

“It’s nice,” David said, as she smoothed the silk along one side.

“Yeah, right,” she said, welcoming him in. “I think he hates the wig even more than I do.”

His little niece, Emme, was playing tennis on her Wii in the den, and when she saw him, she said, “Uncle David! I dare you to come and play me!”

She reminded him of Sarah when she was a little girl, but he sensed that Emme didn’t like it when he said that. Was she just showing her fierce independence, or was it a sign of some subliminal-and justifiable-fear? Was she aware of the terrible ordeal her mother was going through and trying to separate herself from a similar prospect? Or was he imagining the whole thing?

Eight-year-old girls, he recognized, were beyond his field of expertise.

A few minutes later, right after David had lost his first two games, Gary came in from the garage, carrying a bunch of flyers for the open house he was holding the next day. Gary was a real-estate broker, and by all accounts a good one, but in this market nothing was selling. And even when he did get an exclusive listing, it was usually with a reduced commission.

He was also carrying a pie he’d picked up at Bakers Square.

“Is it a chocolate cream?” Emme asked, and when her dad confirmed it, she let out an ear-piercing squeal.

Over dinner, Gary said, “It’s the Internet that’s killing the real-estate business. Everybody’s convinced they can sell their houses themselves these days.”

“But are there any buyers out there?” David asked.

“Not many,” Gary said, pouring himself another glass of wine and holding the bottle out toward David, who passed. “And the ones that there are think no price is ever low enough. They want to keep making counteroffer after counteroffer until the whole deal winds up falling apart.”

“Is it time for pie yet?” Emme asked for the tenth time.

“After we’re done with the meat loaf,” Sarah said, urging David to take another piece. There were dark circles under her eyes that the overhead light only made worse. David took another slice just to make his sister happy.

“Save room for the pie,” Emme said in a stage whisper, just in case anyone had forgotten about it in the last five seconds.

When dinner-and dessert-were over, and David was helping to clear the table, Gary disappeared into the garage again. By the time he came back in, he was dragging a six-foot-tall tree.

“Who wants to decorate a Christmas tree?” he announced.

“I do! I do!” Emme shouted, jumping up and down. “Can we do it tonight?”

“That’s why your uncle David is here,” Gary said. “To help us get the lights on. You mind?” he asked, and David said he’d be glad to help.

“Hope you’re not starting to feel like a hired hand,” Sarah said, taking a plate David had just scraped clean and putting it in the dishwasher.

“I’ve got to earn my keep somehow.”

“You do that every day,” Sarah said sincerely. “Without your help, I don’t know how any of us could have gotten this far.”

David gently rubbed her shoulder, wondering not how they’d gotten through this far but if it would ever end. She’d been through the mastectomy, and all the rest… but what happened next? He knew that when their mother had been diagnosed, things had gone downhill rapidly-she was dead within eighteen months-but that was then, and this was now. Surely the odds and the outcomes must have improved since then.

Gary hauled out a box of Christmas tree lights and ornaments, and while David held the tree straight, he positioned it in the stand, screwing in the bolts from three sides. Emme was already trying to attach some ornaments, and her dad had to tell her to wait until the lights were on. Gary had the old-fashioned kind of lights that David liked, big thick bulbs that were green and blue and red and shaped like candle flames-none of those fancy little twinkling white lights-and the two of them wrapped the strings around the tree, handing the cord back and forth. Once they were done, Gary said, “Go for it!” to Emme, and she started sticking the ornaments on as fast as her fingers could get the hooks around the boughs.

Sarah, watching from the sofa, sipped a cup of herbal tea and offered the occasional instruction. “Spread them out, honey. You’ve got a whole tree to cover.”

David and Gary took care of the upper limbs, and when David took a silver papier-mache star out of the box, he stopped and showed it to Sarah. It was the star she had made in grade school and that they’d always put on the very top of the tree. It was a little bent now, and he straightened it gently before putting it in place.

“I made that in Mrs. Burr’s class,” she said.

“And I had her four years later, but what happened to my ornament?”

“A mystery for the ages,” Sarah said. It was the same conversation they had every year, but it wouldn’t have been Christmas without it.

Once the ornament supply was exhausted, and the tinsel flung, Gary said, “Are we ready?” and Emme raced around the room, turning off all the lights except those on the tree. The evergreen sparkled in the dark, its boughs giving off a rich, outdoorsy scent. David sat down next to his sister, took her hand, and intertwined their fingers.

“You know how many years we’ve been recycling that star?” Sarah said.

David did a quick calculation. “Twenty-four years.”

“Next year we should celebrate its silver anniversary.”

“Yes, we should,” David replied, eager to endorse any implicit hope for the future.

“When do we put out the presents?” Emme asked eagerly.

“That’s Santa’s job,” Gary said, and Emme made a face.

“I like it better when Santa comes early,” she said, in such a way as to indicate that the Santa bit wasn’t working for her anymore.

“They get so cynical, so fast,” Sarah said, with a rueful smile. “I believed in Santa until my senior prom.”

“Remember the time you got up on Santa’s lap at Marshall Fields’ and wouldn’t get off?”

Nodding, she said, “Remember Marshall Fields’, period?”

They were both nostalgic about the pieces of Chicago history, such as its flagship department store, which had disappeared over the years. Fields had become Macy’s, and as far as David and his sister were concerned, the magic was gone.

But the magic of a lighted Christmas tree, festooned with homemade ornaments and strings of tinsel, was as powerful as ever, and Gary flopped down in his armchair with a sigh. Even Emme lay down on the wall-to-wall carpeting, with her chin in her hands, gazing at the tree. Taking off the glasses she’d just started wearing that year, she said, “Oooh, this is even prettier. All the colors get kind of blurry. Try it, Uncle David!”

He took off his wire rims, said, “Yep, it’s way better,” then cleaned them on the tail of his shirt.

“You’ll scratch them,” Sarah said.

“Only the finest Old Navy fabric,” David said.

“I gave you handkerchiefs for your birthday. What did you do with them?”

David couldn’t answer that one. Presumably, they were somewhere in his dresser, under the pajamas he never wore, or the old track jerseys he had retired. But he liked having Sarah ask, probably as much as she liked nagging.

When Sarah finally told Emme it was time for bed, David helped her up off the sofa. Sarah had always been tall and slender, like her brother, but it was like raising a wraith now. She hugged David with frail arms. “We never asked about your work,” she said. “Weren’t you giving a lecture soon?”

“Yep, and it went fine.”

“Oh, I wish I could have come,” she said.

“Next time,” he said, though the very thought of having family there made him more nervous than ever.

“What was it about?”

“We got a new copy of Dante, very old and very beautiful. I talked about that.” He never went into much detail about his work; he knew that Sarah was proud of his accomplishments, and that was enough. While he had always been the dreamer, the scholar, she had been the practical one. She hadn’t had much choice.

“I’ll drive you back,” Gary said, stretching his arms above his head and rising from his armchair. “You’ll freeze to death waiting for the El.”

“I’ll be okay,” David said, though he suspected Gary wanted the chance to talk in private; he often used these car trips to confide in David about what was really happening with Sarah.

They got into his Lexus SUV, with all the trimmings, and even though David knew the car was politically incorrect-a flashy gas guzzler-he had to admit the ride was great and the heated seat was mighty comfortable. Gary had once explained that he needed to lease a new one every year or two because he shuttled clients around in it, and a real-estate broker who looked like he was down on his luck soon would be.

“You ever going to spring for another car?” Gary joshed as they headed south on Sheridan Road. It was a running joke that David had no wheels.

“Maybe,” David said. “Especially since it looks like I might get a promotion.”

“Really? To what?”

“Director of Acquisitions.” David seldom liked to discuss such things until they were in the bag, but he knew that Gary would mention it to Sarah, and maybe it would give her a little pleasure. And after the warm reception for the lecture, he felt that Dr. Armbruster, who had hinted about it already, might come across at last.

“So you’ll be swimming in dough!” Gary said.

“Yeah, right. Just as soon as I pay off my loans. And my rent, by the way, just went up.”

“I guess it helped to have that girlfriend of yours split it with you,” Gary said, fumbling to remove a packet of Dentyne from the console between the seats. “You want one?”

“No thanks,” David said. He knew that what Gary really wanted was a cigarette, but he had given up smoking the day Sarah had been diagnosed. Now he tried to make do with gum and Nicorette. “Linda was usually broke, anyway.”

“But not anymore?”

It was a sore spot for David, but he knew Gary meant no harm by asking. “No, not anymore. She’s going out with a hedge-fund guy.”

Gary whistled and nodded. “I know your sister never liked her all that much.” He flipped on the windshield wipers to clear some snow. “But if you don’t mind my saying so, she was superhot.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“Don’t mention it.”

They drove in companionable silence for a few miles, listening to a jazz CD Gary put on. As they passed the Calvary cemetery, David said, “When we were kids, Sarah always used to hold her breath when we passed a cemetery.”

“That’s funny. She says you’re the one who used to do that.”

“I guess we did a lot of things alike.”

“Still do,” Gary observed. “Two peas in a pod.”

There were times, David thought, when he sensed that Gary was just the tiniest bit jealous of the bond that David and Sarah had, the history that only they shared, the ability they had to read each other’s minds and instantly understand each other’s feelings. Gary was kind of a regular guy, a hale fellow well met-somebody who followed the Bears and the Bulls, who played in a weekly poker game and liked to barbecue bratwursts in the backyard. His father had owned the real-estate company, and Gary had just sort of fallen into it, but what used to be an easy living wasn’t so easy anymore. David knew that the family’s finances had been stretched… and that was before all the medical bills had started pouring in.

“Emme’s growing up so fast,” David said, looking out at the icy, empty streets. “I swear she’s grown a couple of inches taller in the last six months.”

“Yeah, she’s gonna outstrip her mother one day,” Gary said, “and maybe me, too. But this whole… situation has been taking a toll on her.”

“I’m sure it has.”

Gary exhaled, like he didn’t want to talk about it, though David knew he did. “She’s got a look in her eye,” he mused out loud, “especially when she’s watching her mother. Like she’s afraid of what’s going to happen next. Like she doesn’t want to let her out of her sight. I get the feeling that Emme thinks she’s supposed to protect her somehow, but she doesn’t know how.”

“I know how she feels.”

“So do I.” He lowered the window, spat out the gum, then stuck a fresh piece in his mouth. “And last night she had another nightmare, one of those doozies where she wakes up screaming.”

David hadn’t heard about the nightmares. “She gets nightmares?”

“Sometimes.”

“Have you thought about taking her to a therapist, somebody who specializes in dealing with kids?”

“I have,” Gary said, “and I will. But Christ almighty, I don’t know where the money is going to come from…”

“Let me help. Remember, I’ll be swimming in dough.” He was so sorry that he’d even mentioned his own precarious finances.

“Forget about it. That’s not why I said anything.”

“I know that. But she’s my niece, and I want to help.”

“I can handle it,” Gary said. “This market’s gotta bottom out soon. Stuff will start selling again.”

“That’s right, and then you can pay me back,” David said, though he knew he’d never accept a dime.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” Gary said, just to drop the subject. “If I need to, I’ll let you know.”

Pulling up at David’s apartment building-a dreary brownstone in Rogers Park-Gary said, “Home sweet home. Now find yourself another girl. Al Gore’s full of it, it’s going to be a cold winter and you’re going to need something to keep you warm.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” David said. “Thanks for the ride.”

Gary waved it off, but then, as David started to walk away, he called out, “Hold on,” and pulled something out of the pocket of his coat. It was a plastic bag, with something wrapped in foil inside. “Sarah wanted me to give you this.”

“What is it?” David said, though he could pretty much guess.

“A meat loaf sandwich. She says you’re too thin.”

David took the baggie.

“How come she never tells me I’m too thin?” Gary said, rolling up his window again.

David watched as the Lexus did a three-point turn to head back toward Evanston, then went into the foyer, got yesterday’s mail out of the creaky metal box, and trudged up the stairs. Apart from the low buzz from the fluorescent light fixture on the landing, the building was as quiet as his own little apartment would be.

But as he put his key in the lock, he was overwhelmed, and not for the first time, by the thought of the world without his sister in it. To him, it was as sad and terrifying a prospect as anything from Dante-but more so, as this one could prove to be all too real.