“How you doing, dear?”

She recognized Kelli. For some reason I felt grateful that she had at least not called her by name. There were people in the world who knew my sister, yes, who I didn’t know, but at least they weren’t on a first-name basis with her. There would have been something extra-shameful in that, somehow. Trevor raised a hand to the waitress.

“Ready for a feed, that’s how!”

“That’s our girl,” the waitress answered.

Trevor ordered for all of us. Kelli would have “the usual” and I would have what Kelli had.

We were up to our elbows in deep-fried everything, promising one another we’d have a healthier dinner later that evening — in fact maybe the healthiest thing would be to have no dinner at all — when the call came. I looked at my phone — HEALTH AND WELLNESS, the caller ID announced, the coincidence of which gave me a weird feeling like the phone had become sentient and was chiming in to the conversation.

I figured the call had something do with Kelli. About her benefits, maybe. Which meant I’d better answer. I grabbed a bunch of napkins and wiped the excess grease off my hands.

The woman on the other end sounded bright and auto-pilot friendly. She asked me if I was who I was, and once that was established, how I was, and, finally, what kind of day was I having today? I got comfortable — it was factory-standard Maritime preamble; Nova Scotians could go all day with this kind of excessively informal back-and-forth. It didn’t matter who you were talking to — it could be your next-door neighbour or a bill collector and you’d still find yourself swapping anecdotes about sick relatives or your recent car trouble. Inevitably, we even talked a bit about the weather, how the temperature had dropped in the last couple of days and there was a feeling of impending autumn in the air now, wasn’t there? Yes there was, and wasn’t it sad that summer had to end? She told me she’d already seen some leaves had turned when she was out for a walk in the Public Gardens and, Oh! It gave her a sinking feeling. Tch, tch, tch, another summer past. I said Mm-hm to this and was flailing around for what to say next when she asked when might be a good time to visit me and Kelli.

“Sorry?” I said.

“I was wondering when I might stop by and have a visit with you and your sister. I tried to drop in a few minutes ago, but no one seemed to be home.”

I processed this, or tried to. Finally I repeated, “You tried to drop in?” In my dulled, hungover mind I struggled to rearrange the pieces of information I had — or thought I had — on hand about this caller. Some government worker, whose name I hadn’t caught, contacting me about Kelli’s benefits, wanting to . . .

“What is this actually about?” I asked, interrupting my own train of thought. “You’re calling about Kelli, right?”