Free The Debt 4 by Kelly Favor

a wheezing
sound in his chest as he laughed.   “I can walk just fine.   All
of my extremities are intact and in fine working order.   It’s my lungs that seem to have gone on
strike.”
    She turned to her mother and Danny.   “I wish someone had told me what was
going on with Dad.”
    Danny made a face.   “I think you made it pretty damn clear
you didn’t want to hear from us.”
    “But if something was wrong—“
    “You didn’t care what was right or wrong
with anyone but yourself,” he interrupted.
    “This visit is going well so far,” Jake
mumbled, only loud enough for Raven to hear it.   He extended his hand to her father.   “Jake Novak, pleased to meet your sir.”
    Her father beamed, shaking his hand with
enthusiasm.   “Jake, I love your
films.   I’ve watched most of them,
and I can’t tell you what an honor it is to meet you in person.”
    “The honor is all mine,” Jake told him.
    “Are you two hungry?   Do you want to go to your room and
decompress for a bit?” Raven’s mother asked.
    “Our room?” Raven said.   “I thought we’d stay at the Ramada.”
    “Don’t be silly,” her father said.   “You two can stay in the guest room.”
    “What about my old room?”
    “Your stuff went into the attic,” Danny
said.   “Now it’s my room.”
    “You’re still living at home?”
    He shook his head and snorted.   “You haven’t changed a bit.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means, you just got home and you’re
already making snap judgments and looking down on everybody.”
    “Danny, that’s not fair.”
    He waved her off.   “Whatever, I’ve got to get some work
done.   Tell me when dinner’s ready,”
he said to their mother, and then left.
    An awkward silence descended on the room.
    Jake smiled and looked at Raven’s mother.   “So where’s the guestroom?”
    “I’ll show you,” Raven’s mother
said.   “Come you two.   We’ll get you settled in, plenty of time
for catching up later.”
     
    ***
     
      After Raven’s mother had shown them to
the guestroom and left, Raven sat down on the bed and put her head in her
hands.
    Jake was opening his bag and rummaging
around inside.   “Hey,” he said, stopping for a second to
look at her.   “Are you upset that
they put your stuff and storage and relegated us to the guest room?”
    “This is just my brother’s old room, and
no, I don’t care about that,” Raven said, running her fingers through her
hair.   “I just hate that it’s like
this.   This is exactly what I was
afraid of.”
    “Of course it’s going to be tense at
first,” Jake said.   “You haven’t
shown your face in a few years and nobody knows how to act around you.”
    “There’s a reason I haven’t shown my face
in years.”
    He went back to looking in his bag.   “Families are tough.   I mean, I see my family a couple times a
year and they drive me crazy too.   Me and my dad go at it sometimes like a couple of lions trying to kill
each other.”
    “Does your brother hate you?” she asked
him, finally turning her head to look at him.
    “No, my younger brothers both look up to
me,” he said.   “But that’s another
thing altogether.   Anyway, my point
is that family is always complicated, Raven.”
    “Well mine is more complicated than
most.”   She shook her head.   “I still can’t believe that my dad is in
a wheelchair with oxygen.   He looks
so weak and tired and old.”
    “He wasn’t like that before?”
    She blinked, trying to keep tears at
bay.   “No, he wasn’t.   He smoked like a chimney so we always
worried, but now it seems like he got sick and nobody told me about it.”
    There was a knock on the door and Jake
straightened up, rising to his feet.   “Who is it?” he asked.
    “It’s Danny.”   His voice wasn’t particularly friendly.
    Jake looked at Raven, silently asking
what she wanted.   She nodded at him
and he went and opened the door, while she continued sitting