My Brother's Forbidden Touch::Ch-12

Two children, a boy and a girl about eight or nine, were approaching them, taking up the whole sidewalk. It looked like they were talking while they looked right at Raven.

I hurried.

"Is that your server dog, miss?" the boy asked just as I got within earshot.

"Service dog, dumb dumb," the girl scolded him.

I knew they were brother and sister by the sister's comment, but they looked really close in age.

"Service dog, whatever," the boy told his sister before looking back at Raven.

I was behind her, so I couldn't tell what her expression was, but she leaned down closer to them.

"Yes, he is. How did you know?"

"Can we pet him?" the boy asked.

Boston looked nervous. He seemed to know people weren't supposed to bother him when he was working. He put up with it if he had to, but I could tell he didn't like it.

"He's working right now, but if you let me take his leash off, it will be okay to pet him then," Raven explained.

Both kids nodded, which made me chuckle just a little bit.

"Boston, sit."

Raven found his collar and unhooked his leash.

"Boston, stay."

Immediately he was relaxed and his tail started wagging to beat the band.

The boy patted his head, then scratched his ears while the girl looked up at Raven and Boston covered the boy's face with licks.

"I'm Sarah, and this is Jimmy. We're twins."

"I'm Raven, and this is Dan. We're twins, too."

"Wow. Are you blind?" Sarah asked.

"I am, Sarah."

"Dan's not though. He was driving," Sarah announced.

"How did Jimmy know Boston is my service dog?"

"I knew too. I just didn't get to ask before he butted in."

"Okay," Raven laughed, "How did you two know about service dogs?"

Sarah was taking her turn petting and getting dog kisses from Boston, so Jimmy answered for his sister.

"Miss Richardson, she's the music teacher at our school and she's blind. Her service dog looks like yours, except hers is yellowish like colored, and Miss Richardson teaches everybody in her classes how to act around server, I mean serving dogs."

"Service," Sarah corrected him again, still petting Boston.

"I hope you two like Miss Richardson and are nice to her," Raven told her.

"I do. We are. She sings really pretty," Sarah responded. She was done with Boston now, and he sat quietly, except for his tail, at Raven's side.

"But Jimmy loves her."

"Do not!"

"Jimmy and Miss Richardson sittin' in a tree, k-i-s..."

"DO NOT!" Jimmy screamed, and Boston jumped a little.

Jimmy reached out and pinched his sister on the arm hard. She shrieked and ran off yelling for their mother with Jimmy in hot pursuit.

Raven got a good laugh out of that before she clipped Boston's leash to his collar.

"Can you get my cane out of the car, Dan? I really need to pee, and so does Boston. We'll meet you inside, then I can manage with my cane while you take Boston for a walk."

####

"Are you okay, Rae?"

We had ridden in silence for several minutes after we got back on the road, and she had simply leaned her head back against her headrest with her eyes closed.

"Mmhmm. How long's it been since you talked to Karen?"

I knew, in the back of my mind, that Karen and I weren't close like we were as kids. I knew Raven was though. She occasionally went out with her, mostly in the afternoons.

It wasn't as one would expect after the breakup of a year-long romantic relationship either. We drifted apart sometime in the middle of our college careers. I kind of assumed that a large part of that was because of the time taken with my basketball schedule, and maybe Karen's disdain for cheerleaders.

"I don't really know. I invited her to my graduation, but I didn't see her there, or get a response to the invite."

"Yeah, she was a little preoccupied at the time. She had her baby in June."

Maybe it's a guy thing when he hears that a woman he had sex with, even once, has a baby. His mind does the math, no matter how absurd it might be. Six years would either guarantee the baby isn't his, or it was the longest human gestation in history.

"She had a baby?"

"Yep. A beautiful little girl, they say. They say she looks just like her mom, too."

"I didn't know. Is she, um..."

"Yeah, you probably didn't know she got married the winter after we graduated from college. I was her maid of honor, but you said you were busy that weekend when I asked if you wanted to go to a wedding with me."

"She's married? Two years now? I had no idea. Maybe it's been longer than I thought."

"She lives in Cincinnati now, too."

"Really? With..."

"Yeah, of course, with her husband. Christian."

"Good for her."

"I'm thinking we should have them over for dinner, Dan."

"This week?"

"No," Raven laughed. "This week is a staycation for us, except for the going to California thing in the middle of it.

"You do realize we're going to be living in Cincinnati by next weekend, right?"

Part of me did realize that was probably true, but it felt so surreal to the rest of me.

"Before Mom and Dad are back from Phoenix?"

"I'll text them once we're moved in so they won't expect us to be there when, and if, they get back," Raven laughed.

I had to laugh with her.

"Are you really going to suddenly escalate this with them, Rae?"

"What are they gonna do? Kick me out?"

"Yeah, I don't see that ever happening, but especially not if you don't even live there."

Raven sat quietly for a few minutes, but she seemed to be thinking instead of just relaxing like she had been.

"I'm scared, Dan."

"You're scared? Of what?"

Of course, my mind made up a list of things she might be scared of.

"Finding out I'm really as boring and invisible as I think I am."

That wasn't on my list of possibilities.

"You're not boring, and definitely not invisible, Rae. Why would you even think that?"

"'Cause I am. You're my brother so you don't think that, but I know the truth."

"The truth, huh? What about those kids at the rest area? You weren't invisible to them, and they felt safe enough with you and that you might be interesting enough to talk to you even though you're a stranger. This new, secret identity you've let out today definitely makes you highly visible, and I really like it."

"I hope you're right, Dan."

She apparently didn't want to talk about it anymore. She leaned over, turned the radio up, then leaned back and closed her eyes again.

####

"So far, so good. It smells nice here. Are we there?"

We were in the lobby of our new building, waiting for the elevator to take us up to our condo.

"Not quite yet. We live on the fourth floor, so we're waiting on the elevator.

"Poor Boston. You're going to make him ride on an elevator?"

"Does he hate elevators?"

The bell dinged, and the doors opened. Boston didn't even hesitate; he moved toward the inside, but Raven looked reluctant.

"There's buttons on each side of the door," I told her as I reached for and pushed the 4 .

She reached out and grabbed a handful of my coat sleeve when the car started to move.

I could see her knuckles, clutching my coat, turn white.

"Okay, it's not Boston that hates them, Dan. I just haven't needed to ride in elevators very often and I'm not used to it. I'll get used to it though, I swear," she told me through clenched teeth.

Her grip didn't loosen until we came to a stop at our floor and the doors opened.

"Are the buttons Braille?"

"Of course. That was the first thing I looked for when I came to look at it. That was a deal breaker, or they would have had to install new panels if I really wanted to live here."