Raveling
Authors: Peter Moore Smith
“Peter Moore Smith’s debut thriller grabs and won’t let go…. RAVELING knits up quickly to a compelling story of familial love
and trauma, the complexities of the mind, and an evil that is stunning in its perfect, familiar invisibility.”
—San Diego Union-Tribune
“Compelling… a complex debut that will challenge readers.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Fascinating and suspenseful… challenging.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Original and complex, RAVELING holds you long after the final page.”
—David Baldacci
“Hypnotically the strands of the family tragedy interweave toward a resolution that’s satisfying on both a narrative and moral
level.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Harrowing… vivid writing… [a] superb debut.”
—San Antonio Express-News
“A triumph of voice, a remarkably subtle, nuanced, and virtuosic performance.”
—Esquire
“A fantastic psychological thriller that never eases up on the tension throttle.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Superb…. RAVELING is that rare thing, a truly beautifully written thriller, infused with both heart and horror…. Inventive,
intricate, and always engrossing… excellent stuff.”
—Detroit News
“Exceptional… a wonderfully simple, engaging, and well-written story.”
—Library Journal
“A terrific debut… captivating… complex and accomplished.”
—Denver Post
“A haunting blend of mystery and magic realism… a challenging thriller.”
—Booklist
“The perfect psychological mystery in the tradition of a grand Hitchcock thriller…. The creepiest tension-filled whodunit
this side of Sir Alfred to hit the shelves in years.”
—Planet Weekly
“A genuinely gripping and eloquent debut novel… beautifully written and captivating.”
—BookPage
“A classy suspense debut… stylish, substantive, and savvy.”
—Kirkus Reviews
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and
not intended by the author.
WARNER BOOKS EDITION
Copyright © 2000 by Peter Moore Smith
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including
information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may
quote brief passages in a review.
Definitions from the
DSM-IV
are reprinted with permission from the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
, Fourth Edition. Copyright 1994 American Psychiatric Association.
Warner Vision is a registered trademark of Warner Books, Inc.
Warner Books, Inc.,
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: October 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7595-2599-3
Contents
For Brigette, like crazy
O
RDINARILY AT THIS HOUR MY BROTHER
, E
RIC
, would have been at his desk eating his usual Bavarian ham and brie on a wheat baguette, his cup of pumpkin soup, not too
hot, a brown pear, slightly ripe, more crisp than soft. Ordinarily, as I said. But today at lunch he stood in his sterile,
white-tiled, gleaming-steel-and-bright-fluorescent examining room with our mother, Hannah, who had been seeing ghosts. “I’ve
been seeing ghosts,” she complained. She had said it this morning, too, when Eric had come by our house to make coffee and
eggs, if I wanted them, as he had almost every day for several weeks now, to check on me, to make sure I wasn’t any more suicidal
than usual. Eric had told our mother to visit his office at lunchtime, that he would take a look.
This was their intimacy: her acknowledging his authority, Eric’s nonchalant acceptance of our mother’s acknowledgment. This
was the love between them.
“All right.” Eric laughed. “Mom’s nuts.”
She touched the crinkly paper that covered his green vinyl examining table, absently tearing it between her long, fragile,
blue-veined fingers. She was not even aware of this, her actions having become disconnected from her thoughts long ago. “It’s
like on television,” she said. “You know how on
television sometimes there’s an image, like, like Bugs Bunny or something, and right next to him there’s a ghost of that
image, like an entirely different Bugs Bunny?”
Her face was pale, more than usual. A blue-purple vein ran beneath the skin of her temple like a trickle of red wine.
“Sure,” my brother said, somewhat bemused.
“
That’s
what I’ve been seeing.” Almost imperceptibly, the vein in her temple pulsed. It had grown more prominent in recent years,
Eric noticed, her skin whiter, finer, more transparent.
She’d become ghostlike herself.
“You’re seeing double,” he said. “With televisions that’s called a double signal.” This was descriptive only, not a diagnosis.
And somewhat dismissive.
Our mother folded her arms. “Except, my young Dr. Airie, I know which image is real and which one isn’t.” She was proud, it
seemed, her thin lips set.
“Bugs Bunny isn’t real, Mom.”
She giggled, rolled her eyes. “
Eric
.”
“Are you seeing a double image right now?”
“Not now,” she said firmly. “Just sometimes.”
“Hmmm.” Eric, a doctor, my big brother, a fucking brain surgeon, wore a white lab coat. Beneath it, a pale blue cotton shirt
monogrammed with the initials ERA, the E slightly larger, for Eric Richard Airie. He also wore a deep blue tie—silk, of course—with
an elegant pattern of fleur-de-lis in gold thread. Hannah, his mother,
our
mother, wore a soft suede jacket, chocolate brown, a beige linen skirt, Italian leather boots. Outside, it was sweater weather,
early fall. Another Labor Day had come and gone. “That could be her eyes,” Eric suggested, as if speaking to another doctor
in the room, as if anyone else were listening. He walked to the wall,
turned off the lights, and removed a small black penlight from his lab-coat pocket. “Have you been to the optometrist, to,
uh, Dr. Carewater—isn’t that his name?” He aimed it directly into our mother’s pupils, one after the other, watching them
dilate, and on his face was a well-mannered look of medical concern.
She blinked. “I thought of
that
.” Hannah, a physical therapist, a hand specialist, would have known if it were her eyes. “My eyes are fine,” she insisted.
“A little myopia never caused this kind of trouble. Besides, it comes and it goes.” She repeated herself now, saying, “
it comes and it goes, it comes and it goes, it comes and it goes,
” turning the words into a song.
“Okay.” Eric sucked his teeth. “It could just be that you’re crossing your eyes for some reason.” He walked to the wall and
flicked the lights back on. His sandwich was waiting at his desk. The pumpkin soup, was it getting cold? “Can you remember
when it happens? I mean, does it happen when you’re coming out of a dark room and into a bright one? Does it happen when you
wake up, after your eyes have been closed for a long time?” He was looking for information, clues that would lead to an explanation,
data upon which to configure a theory. He was rubbing his hands together. He was growing impatient, too, hungrier by the second.
“Let me think.”
They gave the examining room over to silence for a moment, and Eric looked at his clean, hairless fingers.
Hannah tore at the paper on the examining table. Then she said, “During the day. I’ll be thinking, thinking about something,
I suppose, and then I, and then I just
realize
that I’m seeing a ghost.”
“You just realize it.”
“It suddenly occurs to me that I’ve been seeing one.”
“Thinking about what, specifically?”
Our mother paused again, eyes unfocused, and then she made her characteristic statement. “Just lost, dear, just lost in my
thoughts.” She had abandoned the crinkly paper and was now stroking the suede of her new brown jacket, combing it in the direction
of the nap. When our mother wears something new, she beams, her face joyful—radiant as a young nun’s. “And there’s Pilot,”
she said softly, her expression dropping. “I’ve been thinking about your brother.”
I am Pilot.
I am Pilot James Airie, Eric’s brother, younger by five years, named after our father’s passion—he flew for the airlines—a
profession I have never even considered for myself.
Eric moved to the sink and pulled up his sleeves. Ever since he had gone to medical school, he washed his hands compulsively,
repeatedly, even at home. Ever since medical school, he had been aware of the risks, the bacteria and bacilli, the microbes
thriving just out of sight. “There’s always Pilot,” he agreed.
Once, there was Fiona, too. Fiona May Airie, our sister.
Our mother hummed. It was a song no one had ever heard before, one that she made up every time she hummed it. It was, I believe,
her way of trying to reassure Eric. She seemed always just on the verge of paying attention, her mind ready to wander away,
her gray-green eyes unfocused and hazy. Humming underscored this quality, and it made Eric crazy. It makes everyone crazy.
I know, because I do it, too.
“Are you disoriented?” Eric asked, his tone saying,
Look at me, listen
.
“Now?”
He sighed. “When you’re seeing these ghosts.”
“Disoriented?”
“I mean,” he laughed softly, “more than usual?”
She sang, “
Don’t be cruel
.”
“Seriously.”
“Disoriented,” our mother acknowledged. “Yes.”
“Tired?”
“Tired,” she admitted. “Yes, yes, that, too.”
“Are you sleeping?”
“Not so well.”
“Are you, have you been talking to Dad?”
“Your father is lost—”
“—in the wild blue yonder.” Eric narrowed his eyes. He had heard our mother say this a billion times. “I know,” he said. When
she spoke to our father, which was seldom, Hannah became lovesick, unfocused, a teenage girl pining for her boyfriend.
She hummed again, a slight smile on her lips.
“What about caffeine?”
“I only drink tea, dear, you know that.”
“No coffee?”
This was a stupid question, her face told him. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Okay.” Eric dried his hands and threw the paper towel into the mesh chrome wastebasket in the corner.
Our mother’s hair, which was becoming gray, which until so very recently had been light chestnut, soft as mink, fell in uneven
curls around her elegant face. It was a feminine face, a doll’s face, all too easy to see hurt in. It is my face, too, a patient’s
face, a waiting-room face, transforming everyone who looks at it into a doctor. When I am alone, my face disappears, and I
have no face at all. In someone’s presence, especially Eric’s or my father’s, I am all face and no insides, I am a network
of tiny muscles and porcelain skin stretched over a surface of cartilage, bone, and teeth. She pushed her hair away.
“Can you
try
to worry less?”
Our mother laughed. “About Pilot?”
“About Pilot, about Dad.” He took a step toward her. “About everything.”
“I don’t worry about you.” She placed a hand on his cheek, her fingers cool. It was always disappointing to Eric, but this
is the temperature of women’s hands.
“Please?”
“I can
try
.” She sang, “
I can try, I can try, I can try
.”
“Next time you’re seeing the ghosts,” he said, “give me a call, describe them.” Eric took a deep breath. “But now I have a
patient coming, a real one.” He had food waiting—the sandwich, the soup—no doubt it had grown cold. “Not that you aren’t real,
Mom.”
“I’m already gone.” Our mother touched her jacket, stroking the nap of the suede downward, as though petting a cat. “Thank
you, honey.” She gave my brother a swift kiss and clutched his hands, squeezing his fingers in a motherly way that means something
about holding on, about not letting go, about regret.
Only mothers can do this, I’ve noticed. Or old girlfriends.
Eric watched her leave the room, her voluminous beige linen skirt sweeping the sterile air behind her. I imagine that he washed
his hands once more because she had touched them and that he looked up to see his own movie-star, brain-surgeon face in the
mirror above the sink.
