turned around and trotted down the hall, looking over his shoulder to make sure they were following. Not to the kitchen, but up the stairs. “I’ll go, Portia. You can take your stuff to your room.”
“Can I get on the Internet?”
“In the great room, yeah.”
Julian followed Alvin upstairs and into his bedroom, where Elena was buried beneath the covers in his bed. She looked about six, with her mussed hair and the covers up to her chin. The television was on, the sound muted, and the blue light touched her cheekbone.
She was very much asleep, her mouth open, a faint snore coming from between her lips. Alvin went to the edge of the bed and nudged her back, and when she didn’t open her eyes, he jumped up on the edge of the bed and put his paws on her shoulder. “Alvin, no,” she said in a pitiful voice.
He patted her shoulder, tugging with his claws at the duvet, pulling it off her shoulder. She made a soft noise, but it took a lot of effort to turn over. “Alvin—” She saw Julian. “Hi, sorry to be in here. The loft was just—” She sighed.
“You look terrible. What can I get you?”
“I just need to rest. I’ll be all right in the morning.”
“Did you need to get into the hot tub?”
She shook her head.
“Let’s get you down there. That will help.”
“I just don’t think—is Portia here? I don’t want to freak her out.”
Julian sat down next to her. “What can I do, Elena? Let me help you.”
“It’s just stress. It will be better in a day or two.”
“Will a massage help?”
“Maybe.” She tangled her hand in his. “Will you be giving it?”
He bent to kiss her. “I can. Purely nonsexual, of course.”
She hesitated, then reached for his hand. “Help me sit up.”
He did and she reached for the hem of her shirt, and pulled it off over her head, and with great effort turned over. “I actually do know a little about this,” he said, pushing the quilt away. “My fourth wife was a massage therapist.”
“I thought she was a yoga teacher.”
“Both.” He went to the bathroom and came back with some unscented oil. “Lucky for you, I have some oil left over from those days.”
It drew a small chuckle. “Really. You’ve been moving it from house to house all this time.”
Alvin seemed satisfied and slumped nearby the bed on the floor. Julian said, “Brace yourself,” and turned on a lamp on the nightstand. Elena didn’t move. The light put the scar over her shoulder into relief, a thick cord of dark pink. He started there, at her shoulder blades, moving his hands lightly at first, from shoulder to shoulder, up into her neck, down the channel of her spine. The main scar submerged about halfway down, turning into a very thin white line. There were faint dots on either side of the spinal column, as if there were stitches or pins there once. Below her ribs on the left side, the scar reemerged in two rivers—one neat and clean, a surgical incision that healed well, the other a ragged gash where something must have pierced her.
He thought of the boy yesterday, flung onto the bed, and it made him think of a seventeen-year-old Elena lying in a ditch in the dark, thinking that her sister was there, holding her hand. “I hate it that this happened to you,” he said, and his voice was thick. “That you’re still in so much pain.”
“Better this than dead.”
“Absolutely.” He kneaded the lower back with the heels of his hands, moved into the buttock. “Jesus, Elena, these muscles are like rocks.”
She groaned, half in pain, half in pleasure. “Oh, that hurts so good.”
For a while, he worked in silence. “What were your injuries, exactly, Elena? That you had to spend so much time in the hospital?”
“Broke my back in four places,” she said, eyes closed. “Shattered left hip—that’s what that scar is. Broken clavicle and right shoulder blade and many ribs. Lost my left kidney. The back is the big problem.”
He dug into her left buttock, feeling the glutes like iron cords. “Not your hip?”
“Maybe.” She shifted a little to look at him. “It’s not like this all the time. I just got stressed out, and I didn’t want to take any muscle relaxants and—”
“How long has it been since anyone looked at all of this? A medical professional?”
“A while, probably five years. There’s not much they can do. This is the legacy