There was a light rapping on his window that caused Matt to stir from his slumber. He was in the middle of a rather pleasant dream and was reluctant to let go of it. He was making love to someone, but he couldn't quite tell who it was in his dream. It wasn't his girlfriend, Alison, he was sure of that. If only he could see this wonderful girl that was bringing him such pleasure. She was just. . .
TAP TAP TAP.
"What the Hell?" he mumbled. He sat up and flipped on the lamp beside his bed. The alarm clock stated that it was five minutes past five in the morning. It was still a few minutes before dawn, at this time of the year.
TAP TAP TAP.
Matt stumbled out of bed and raised the blinds on the window that was facing the back yard. There stood his sister, Lisa, shivering in the cool morning air. He stood there, just staring at her for a moment while his mind tried to register just what the heck was going on. It took some frantic gesturing on his sister's part to snap him out of his trance and get him to open the window. The cold air drafted in and helped wake him up a bit. Lisa immediately began to climb in, landing on her belly on the floor.
"What in God's name are you up to? You could have used the damn front door, you know," he berated.
Lisa rolled over into a sitting position and slid across the floor with her back to Matt's bed. She sighed heavily and leaned against it. She was dressed only in shorts and a tee shirt, and was still shivering. Her eyes were puffy and red as though she had been doing a good deal of crying recently. Matt shut the window and studied her with a disapproving eye, noting that she smelled as though she had recently taken a bath in stale beer.
"My keys are in my purse at Katie's house, along with my phone. I left my jacket there, too. I didn't want to wake up Grandma by ringing the doorbell, so I was hoping you would let me in."
"What happened?" Matt asked.
"I don't want to talk about it right now."
"Did someone, uh, hurt you? Are you OK?" he asked. His tone changed from one of irritation to concern.
"I'm OK. No one touched me," she replied.
"Here, let me help you up. You look like you spent the night in the freezer. Did you walk here all the way from Katie's house?" Matt asked her, taking her hands and pulling her from the floor gently. She was such a little thing, about five feet four and couldn't have weighed much more than a hundred pounds. He sat her on the edge of his bed and draped his blanket across her shoulders. She pulled the blanket tight and sort of half-smiled up at him.
"Yeah, I walked home," Lisa admitted.
"Jesus, Lisa. Couldn't you have gotten to a phone and called me? You know that I would have come to get you! You can't be walking ten miles in the dark. Some freak could have grabbed you or something," he said.
"I know. But I had a lot of thinking to do."
It had seemed like during the past year or so, Matt had been doing a lot of worrying about his little sister. She was almost nineteen but still acted as though she was in middle school. Her grades at community college were barely passable, and he suspected that she spent more of her time partying than studying. It was hard to tell exactly what she was up to because they rarely spoke to each other for any length of time anymore. Now here she was crawling through the window at five in the morning.
"I just don't want anything to happen to you. I'm going to make some coffee. Do you want me to get you a cup of tea?" he offered. Lisa wouldn't drink coffee, but would sometimes have a cup of tea with her grandmother.
"That would be nice, Matt," she replied.
"OK, I'll bring it in. Be right back."
Matt made his way to the kitchen and started the coffee maker. He also began to heat up some water for Lisa's tea. It was horribly early for him to be up, especially on a Sunday. Still, he thought that he would have a hard time going back to sleep. He thought that he could possibly lend some emotional support to his sister. Maybe get her to talk to him for a change. Short of slapping her upside the head and telling her to straighten up, he wasn't sure exactly what he could do to help her, though. For the millionth time over the last couple of years, he wished that his parents were still around. Their grandmother was OK, but she was in her late eighties and there was a huge disconnect between Lisa and her. They got along fine, but grandma would never be a shoulder to cry on, so to speak.
Matt carried the coffee and tea back to his room only to find Lisa snoring softly. He sighed and set the cups down on his desk. She looked as though she had just tipped over in the position that she was in when he had left the room and fallen instantly asleep. She was half on, half off the bed and didn't look like she could be very comfortable. She must have been totally drained after spending the entire night walking home in the dark. She was such a pretty young woman, didn't she realize any of the terrible things that could have happened to her? Didn't she realize the amount of stress it was putting him through to have to worry about things like that?
Matt took a sip of his coffee, walked over and as gently as he could, he removed her shoes. Without waking her, he lifted her legs onto the bed and made sure that she was covered up. He wanted to crawl into bed with her and just hold onto her. He wanted to some how get her back from whatever path it was that she was headed down. Maybe he would try to get through to her later after she had some sleep.
*****
Lisa came into the kitchen sometime during late afternoon that Sunday. Both Matt and her grandmother were sitting at the table. It smelled as though they were baking something.
"Something smells good," Lisa stated.
"Yeah, Grandma's baking a pie," said Matt.
"These days, I think that Matt did most of it, but I can still tell him what to do. Are you feeling better, dear? Matt said that he thought that you may have been coming down with something," her grandmother wondered.
Lisa's eyes darted to her brother, then to an empty chair at the table where her jacket and purse sat. The same jacket and purse that she had left behind the night before. She thought that Rick or Katie had probably dropped them off.
"I feel all right. I think all that I needed was some rest. Matt took care of me. I'm going to go take a shower, then I think I'll have a piece of that pie if it's ready," Lisa said.
"Oh, heavens yes. You're too skinny, dear, what you need is a nice slice of apple pie. We'll find out how good of a baker your brother is."
Matt just smiled and didn't mention the purse and jacket.
"I don't think that you'd let him go wrong, Grandma."
