That was when I felt it. Before anybody explained anything. I felt it in my stomach first, a dropping sensation, like the first second on a roller coaster, the moment after the crest when your body understands what is about to happen before your mind has been informed. Because the old man had said our name. Not my name. Our name. And he had said it the way you say the name of a judge.
"Lark," my brother said. His voice was perfectly level. He has a voice for this. It is a voice that does not rise and does not fall. It is a voice that walks. "Lark. Come here, please."
"What's going on? Do you two know each other?"
"Come over here. Now. Please."
"Eamon, what—"
"Step away from him." For the first time, the voice rose. Not much. A half step. But I had never in my life heard my brother raise his voice to me, not once, not when I was a teenager and crashed his car into the Wegmans cart return, not when I told him I was moving to Ohio, not at our mother's funeral when I could not stop laughing at the wrong time and had to leave the church. "Step away from him, Lark."
I didn't. I don't know why I didn't. Maybe because the old man was shaking now worse than he had been at the counter, his whole body, so that the rubber tip of his cane squeaked against the wet floor. Maybe because I already knew, somewhere, and as long as I stood still the knowing could not catch up with me.
"I didn't know," the old man said. He was talking to my brother, past me. "Mr. Fennessy, I didn't know who she was. I swear to you. She just came up to the window. She was helping me. I didn't know until—"
"Don't," my brother said. "Don't talk to me. Don't you talk to her."
"I didn't know until she said—"
"I said don't."