Trevor placed his hands on his knees in a finishing-the-­conversation gesture. “Well, me and the Kelli-bean here should get our walk in and let you” — I could see him mentally reach for something sombre and respectful — “do your thing.” He pushed on his knees and stood with a weird physical precision as if it was some kind of training exercise he usually did in sets of fifteen at the gym.

I was nodding and Kelli was already on her feet, at the closet and putting her windbreaker on upside down. I got up to help her, but Trevor beat me to it, peeling the yellow nylon sleeves from Kelli’s arms, over her protests.

“Jacket on!” said Kelli.

“We gotta get it on right, Beaner.”

“Geddit on right,” conceded Kelli, standing still for him.

I watched the stranger dress my sister, feeling incongruously at peace. It was a suspicious feeling, it had no place in this house, in this hinge-like moment of my and my sister’s existence. Thinking about it now, I realize I had spent the days after my mother’s funeral flailing around for some kind of cosmic reassurance when it came to the arrangements I was beginning to make for Kelli’s future — looking for signs from the universe that the total upheaval she was facing would go smoothly and she’d be more or less ok. And somehow the sight of Kelli keeping still for Trevor, smiling and humming as he zipped her jacket up to her chin, had given me that reassurance, however briefly. See? Someone else taking care of Kelli. That’s all it is. It won’t be as hard as you think.

And I was so grateful in that moment. When I tell this story now and people ask what I was thinking, it’s this feeling of incongruous peace that I remember. It exists in my memory as the quick, satisfying sound of a zipper being hoisted. I never mention it, though — not because it seems so irrelevant compared to the details that come later, the juicy stuff that makes people cringe and cover their eyes. It’s just that this is the moment of which I’m most ashamed. Ziiiipppppp! My pathetic gratitude. The wide-open door of it.

2

For the first five minutes of their walk, I just hovered at the top of the stairs, wondering if I should’ve double-checked Trevor’s credentials before I let him whisk Kelli out the door. The responsible thing to do would have been to ask him to wait and then call Bestlife for a quick confirmation. As opposed to feeding the stranger fucking cookies then standing off to one side with a stupid smile on my face as he zipped up Kelli’s jacket. But, my mind babbled, surely Bestlife ran background checks and surely your average sexual predator would not prioritize the 250-pound mentally handicapped woman with a skin condition his employer has placed in his care — or would he? Then I scolded myself that this mode of thinking was unfair, even sexist. I had not remotely entertained such dark notions about any of the female strangers who’d been alone with my naked sister in the downstairs bathroom throughout the week. But then I thought — perhaps I should have.