Page 99 of Suite 7

I reach for my wine. “He might be fine on his own,” I say.

“He’s not fine. He’s contained. There’s a difference.” She picks up her wine, puts it down again without taking a sip. “Kane manages everything — his work, his schedule, his feelings. All of it held at exactly the right distance.” She looks at her glass. “And one day he’s going to look up and realize he’s been alone for years and called it a choice.” A pause. “He deserves better than that.”

“You don’t know his life is like that.”

“He’s my brother,” she says, not defensive, but certain. “He’s been alone since Vanessa. That was five years ago.”

“He might be doing better than you think,” I say carefully. “He might have things in his life you don’t see.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, he’s just—“ I reach for my wine. “He’s private. You know that.”

“Exactly.” She doesn’t let me finish. “He’s so private he’s built a whole life with nobody in it. No one who actually knows him.” Her voice quiets. “I’m his sister and half the time I feel like I’m reading him through glass.”

The guilt settles the way it’s been settling lately — not sharp, just heavy. The space below my sternum where it lives now.

“He’s not without people,” I say.

“Marcel doesn’t count.” She reaches for her wine. “Marcel is furniture — beloved, irreplaceable furniture — but Kane doesn’t let Marcel in, he lets him be adjacent. There’s a difference.” She half-smiles. “I want someone to actually know him. The whole thing, not the version he decides to show.”

Someone already does.

I can’t say it. On Wednesday I couldn’t say it. Tonight I can’t say it. Tomorrow I’m going to dinner with him and I still won’t be able to say it and I don’t know what that makes me except someone who is very good at carrying two things in the same room without letting them touch.

“You’re being weird about this,” Sloane says. “You usually love this kind of thing.”

“It’s different when it’s someone I know.”

“The only way you know him is through your own lens. He’s always just been your argument opponent.” She meets my eyes. “You’ve never seen him as just Kane.”

The correction sits in my mouth and stays there.

“I just think he might not want the help,” I say.

“Of course he doesn’t want the help. That’s why he needs it.” She tilts her head. “Although — that’s interesting.”

“What is?”

“You’re defending him. You’ve been in the same room as with my brother for nine years and I have never once heard you defend him.”

I pick up my wine. “People change.”

“Vera.”

“Maybe I’m maturing.” I take a sip, look at a point past her shoulder, the picture of casual. “It happens.”

She sets her wine glass down. Slowly.

“Vera.”

I look at her over the rim of my glass. She’s gone still, watching me.

“Wednesday you were weird about Gerald. Tonight you’re sitting here defending Kane and telling me setting him up would be a mistake.” She tilts her head.

“I just think he might be less alone than you’re assuming. And setting up someone who doesn’t need setting up⁠—“

“Is that a feeling or a fact?”