Heart in Darkness

####

"Would you like a Braille menu, ma'am?"

Raven looked surprised for a split second before her deep red, pouty little mouth turned into a grin.

"You have Braille menus?" she almost giggled.

"We do. They're pretty new," the hostess informed us as she put a plain white piece of heavy paper in Raven's hand. I could see the bumps on it.

Raven leaned toward me as the hostess left with a promise of Bernice being there soon to take our drink orders.

"This might be my favorite place in Cincinnati already. It feels so nice, and smells good, and they have Braille menus!"

"I hear their steaks are pretty good too, Raven," I grinned at her.

Raven's expression changed. She was reading the menu, and she looked puzzled.

"This place is called Hoosier Steaks , right?"

"Yep. There are a few of them in Indiana, and this is the first one in Ohio. Why?"

"Nothing really. Just wondering."

"Raven," I started. There was something I couldn't stop thinking about, and had been since we left home.

"Yeah?" Raven giggled at me.

"At home, you kissed me..."

Raven shrugged, but even in the dim restaurant lighting, I saw a flush rise on her cheeks.

"Dan, it's a little condescending to kiss your sister on the top of her head or on the forehead, even if it's a lot of work for you to bend all the way down to my face. You're finally an adult. We have our own place. You have a real job. We can kiss like grownups, can't we?"

"Sorry, Rae. I never..."

"You have before. I mean, um, I kissed you on the lips before."

"I was gonna say I never knew it was condescending, but when did you kiss me on the lips?"

"Oh." Raven murmured and turned her face away from me.

"The last time I was in your bed, and that's why I stopped sleeping with you, I mean in your bed. You didn't dream it; I kissed you."

"Hi, I'm Bernice. I'll be your server tonight. What can I get you to drink?"

Raven visibly relaxed and smiled toward Bernice, but the flush on her cheeks remained.

"Can we get champagne by the glass here?"

"Rae?"

"I want champagne to celebrate us finally moving in together, Dan."

"Congratulations!" Bernice giggled. "You two make an adorable couple."

"Thanks, Bernice," Raven chortled.

"We do have a house champagne, it's very dry though."

"Perfect. I don't like sweet champagne. Dan? Can we each have a glass?"

I didn't know my sister ever drank alcohol, and I had no idea what she was thinking. She had to know Bernice thought we had moved in together as a couple, not that we're brother and sister.

What was she talking about? She kissed me on the lips? That wasn't anywhere near what I remembered happening the last time she slept in my bed.

At that moment though, I was suddenly distracted, so I nodded and mumbled my agreement as my eyes locked with the eyes of a girl, a young girl, standing a few feet behind Raven.

"Bring us each a water, too, Bernice."

The girl's eyes instantly went to the floor and her face blushed bright red.

"Okay, I'll be right back with your drinks. Congratulations, again."

The girl was very young, literally barely a teenager, if that. She had to be thirteen or fourteen, at the most. She was very thin, with a mop of brown hair in what would have been banana curls surrounding her head, except they would be better described as pencil curls, no bigger around than a wooden pencil, and they almost reached her shoulders.

The second our server turned to leave, she looked back up and our eyes met again.

I had seen that general demeanor, stance, and distance before. She wanted an autograph, but I hadn't been asked for one of those since the summer after college when everyone still thought I was on my way to the NBA, before it became public knowledge that wasn't going to happen.

I smiled at her.

She blushed some more, then shrugged and her eyes turned to my sister and she stepped forward.

"Sorry, excuse me, hi? Are you Raven Tipton?"

I saw she had what looked exactly like one of the Braille books that Raven was always reading in her hand.

"Yes, I am," Raven replied with a question in her voice.

"Oh my God! I knew it was you!" she squealed.

"Well, yeah, it's me. Who are you?"

"I'm Heather, and I love you. You're my hero, um, I mean my hero is Robin, but I love you!"

Raven's cheeks glowed bright red immediately.

"Um, well, nice to meet you Heather."

"You saved my life, Raven. That's why I love you."

She was literally bouncing, and I was as confused as I had ever been in my entire life.

"Will you sign my book for me? Oh my God! Nobody's gonna believe I met you!"

"I don't understand how I could possibly have saved your life, Heather."

Raven sounded a little confused, and still looked embarrassed.

Heather put her book on the table and pushed it in front of Raven. There was a small picture on the front, just like most of Raven's Braille books. The picture looked like a little blonde girl wearing a homemade Superman -- Supergirl, I suppose -- costume. The title was Robin's Great Adventures.

At the bottom of the picture I could barely make out the words "A story by", then in larger letters "Raven Tipton".

"I know it doesn't seem like you could, but you did. I was ready to give up on school and ever learning anything. I wanted to just die. I have dyslexia really bad, and I could barely read. Everybody was talking about Robin and how brave and amazing she is. She seemed to be able to do anything, and she was blind. I wanted to read about her, but I couldn't. I couldn't even read kindergarten books and I was nine years old."

"Sweetheart," Raven murmured.

"I asked Mom to read it to me," Heather whimpered. She looked and sounded like she was about to cry.

"Robin is so brave, and strong, and being blind has to be worse than just having silly dyslexia. If she could..."

Heather's voice cracked and she really started crying then. Raven was crying, too. I was just getting more confused the longer their conversation went.

"Robin's my hero, so I wanted to be like her," Heather moaned. "I decided to try Braille, like Robin. It was hard, at first, but I tried real hard. Mom noticed, and got a teacher to teach me Braille cause I was trying so hard, and Mom and Dad had tried everything to help me but nothing worked."

Heather paused to sniffle and wipe her nose on her sleeve.

"When I read Braille, I don't have dyslexia. I could barely read anything a few years ago. I was even in special ed classes, but now I'm an honor student because my school has to give me Braille textbooks. That's how you saved my life."

Raven sat there, tears streaming down her face.

"Heather..." Raven moaned.

"Would you sign my book? This is the only one I have with me, or I'd ask if you would sign all of them. I have all your books. I would have brought them, hardbacks and all of them, if I knew you were here."

Raven wiped her cheeks and under her eyes hard with her fingers and sniffled a little herself.

"Of course, sweetie," she whispered hoarsely and held her hand out toward the girl.

"It's..."

Heather pointed to her book on the table in front of my sister.

"Raven, are you blind, like Robin?"

"I am."

Heather wrapped herself around my sister and hugged her like there was no tomorrow.

"Oh!" Raven gasped, then returned the hug with as much enthusiasm as Heather was hugging her.

"Forget Robin, you're my hero. A blind author is the bravest thing I've ever heard of!'

They hugged for a long time, while I just tried to wrap my head around the fact that Raven, my sister, is an author. She hadn't just written a book, but enough books that Heather wanted her to sign all of them, and a famous enough author to be recognized by a fan in a restaurant more than a hundred miles from home.

"Heather?" Raven asked as they disentangled and composed themselves.

"Did you have anything to do with this restaurant having a Braille menu?"

"Yeah," she giggled. "I guess they got tired of me asking for one, so they finally made one."

"So that's why it says 'Heather's Menu' at the top?"

"Yeah."

"That's a pretty brave thing to do, Heather."

"That's not brave. I just wanted to be able to decide what I want to eat without anybody helping me or just looking at the pictures like a baby."

"It's also admitting you're not like everybody else, and that's very brave."

"That's not brave, not like you."

"Everything I know about you is brave, Heather. That's why you don't think getting a restaurant to make a Braille menu just for you is brave."

"I just do what I have to do, even when it's scary."

"That's what brave is. You do it even when you're scared."

Heather's face blushed again, and she giggled.

She looked over at me, then waved.

"Hi," she squeaked at me.

"Oh, this is Dan, sorry. He's my brother."

"Your brother?"

"Yeah, he's my brother."

"I thought he was your boyfriend."

"He's too cute to be my boyfriend, Heather."

I thought Heather was going to choke from laughing so hard.

"You said you guys just moved in together, so, ya know, I do know what that means, and you're having champagne to celebrate."

"Oh, you heard that," Raven laughed.

"I know I wouldn't want to 'live with' my big brother."

I knew Raven didn't know about the air quotes Heather used around live with.

"He's my little brother so somebody has to take care of him."

"He's way cuter than my brother, but I might live with my brother if he was gonna take care of me, but I don't think he'd do that. He's not very nice to me."

"How old is, um, what's his name?"

"Bruce. He's twenty. He's seven years older than me almost."

"Give it a few years, Heather. He'll grow up by then. You'll see."

"I kinda doubt it, but I'll give him a chance I guess. As long as I don't have to 'live with' him."

"Now, where's the book you want me to sign?"

"On the table."

Raven moved both her hands from her lap and quickly found the book.

"This is the first one?" Raven asked as her fingers scanned the cover.

"Yeah. I have them all, but between new ones, I read the old ones again."

Raven picked up the pen Heather had put down with the book and opened the front cover.

"I don't really write with a pen and paper anymore, Heather," she explained. She carefully wrote a capital R followed by a straight line.

"So I'm just signing my name."

She wrote a capital T followed by another straight line, then flipped the book over and opened the last page.

"Don't share this with anybody," Raven instructed her while writing something.

"You can use it whenever you want, and I hope you do."

"Your phone number? You want me to text you?" Heather asked hopefully.

"Text or call. Either works."

"You have to have millions of fans. Why do you want to be friends with me?"

Heather looked confused.

"You're the only person who's ever asked me to sign my book for them, and who wouldn't want to be friends with a brave girl who's going to change the world one day? You've already changed your little part of it. I get to use your menu to order tonight."

####

I didn't remember what I had planned, or even why or if I actually had a plan for keeping my career away from Dan.

The fact that he knew now filled my head and overwhelmed thoughts of whatever that plan might have been.

I figured I had two choices. I could pretend he didn't know and ignore the whole thing, hoping it would just go away, or I could give him the excuse I was a teenager when Mom and Dad signed my first two book deals because I was a minor and I never thought to mention it to him.

The first choice absolutely wouldn't work, and the second one was so lame that even Dan wouldn't buy it, even with it being half true, just not the half that I never thought to mention it. I did think about telling him, almost every day, but it had gone on too long for it to be excusable. I had even avoided telling him when he gave me the perfect opening today.

"Well, that cat's out of the bag, isn't it?" I muttered as I searched for my champagne flute that I knew was somewhere nearby.

I found my drink without a response from my brother. Obviously my hope for levity in the situation was fruitless.

"To our new future?" I asked with my glass raised, then held my breath.

"To our new future, in which my sister is going to spill the beans about everything she's been hiding from me."

He didn't sound happy. He didn't sound unhappy, but I was hoping for happy.

Our glasses clinked together, and I released my breath as I brought mine to my lips.

"Danny? Are you mad?"

He chuckled, and sounded sincere.

"I guess that thing about being invisible and boring was total bullshit, Rae."

"It's not like I do book signings or release parties. As far as I know, it's just me at home all day, and until just now, I've never actually met anyone who read one of my books, except my publisher and editors."

"With millions of fans all over the world?"

"I'm sure that was an exaggeration, and Heather didn't say 'all over the world.'"

I would have to take that last part back at some point, even though it was technically true. Heather didn't say "all over the world," but I knew my books were translated into Spanish, German, and French, both standard books and Braille.

I heard Dan's chair scrape the floor as it moved away from the table. Panic rose in my chest at the thought that he might be angry enough to leave me there.

I felt him next to me a second later though. I hoped it was him. Then his warm hand rested on the bare skin of my back across my shoulder blades and his soft lips touched mine in a light kiss.

"I have to use the restroom before the food gets here. Will you be okay?"

"I will be now," I whispered, my lips brushing his while a sparkler storm started again in my eyes.

####

As I made my way across the dining room headed for the restroom, I might have still shaken my head in denial of what I'd just learned even if my sister could see me.

Raven Tipton is an author.

I came up with an excuse for not knowing that -- she writes childrens' books -- just as I was about to make the turn to go into the hallway where the restrooms were located.

The male voice that drowned out the babble of conversations in the dining room rooted my feet in place.

"There's a fucking dog in here!"

I spun around, expecting to need to search for the source of the drunken yell. That wasn't necessary.

A stout man, dressed in a dark suit, his tie loosened at his throat, pointed at the table where Raven sat, and lumbered slowly in her direction.

I knew immediately that even at his slow, unsteady gait, he would reach my sister long before I could cover the distance, even at a sprint and without the tables, chairs, and people between us.

"Hey! Stop!" I yelled as I pushed myself to a sprint, and planned my route to Raven.

"Don't bite him, Boston," I exhaled with each breath.

I had no idea how Boston would react to this situation. As far as I knew, he had never been assaulted by a drunk person who intended to remove him by force from Raven's side.

I wondered if he had been trained for this.

"I'm gonna drag that mutt outta here!" the drunk bellowed.

I wasn't going to be able to stop him. He was already starting to reach under the table and I was only half-way there.

"Stop!" I screamed without slowing.

Raven's face was pale, and her hands were under the table in front of her. Her mouth was open like she was screaming, but the room seemed silent around me.

Suddenly a wad of brown curls bounced off the drunk's shoulder, and he staggered sideways. He almost went down, but stumbled upright as the curls rose from below him, and he pushed them.

The girl, I didn't remember her name at that second, fell backwards, half on the table, and half against Raven.

Skinny legs and arms flailed, then coalesced onto the top of the table. A hand grabbed Raven's arm as she teetered and toppled, then steadied her upright as her chair slid from under her and Raven dropped straight to the floor and the chair clattered away from her.

The bundle of curls raised her other hand, still holding Raven upright with an arm behind her, and something sprayed out of her fingertips and splattered against the drunk's face.

I was still a few yards away, and the man's scream of anguish echoed around me as he dropped to his knees and clawed at his face.

I dashed past him to get to Raven. My eyes caught a snapshot of the drunk and the girl as I passed. He was mashing his fists into his eyes. His face glowed almost beet red and his mouth gaped open with his sobs.

Heather stood over him. Her face grimaced and her lips stretched across her teeth in a scream as she continued to pelt his face with liquid from her fingertips.

She was in total control of that, so I could concentrate on Raven.

"Raven! Are you hurt?" I desperately asked as I slid to a stop on my knees in front of my sister.

She was sitting upright on the floor, her legs spread in front of her with one knee slightly bent. Boston lay across her lap with his chin on her raised thigh, and Raven's fingers gripped handfuls of his fur at his neck.

Boston turned his head and bared his teeth at me for a split second then relaxed and returned his chin to her leg.

"Danny? What's happening?"

"Raven, god, are you hurt?" I insisted.

She looked terrified.

"I don't think so, Danny. What's going on?"

She released Boston's fur and reached for me.

"I'll be right back. I have to take care of that man," I told her as I stood.

"No Danny! Please, you promised!"

I quickly scanned the nearby people.

"You!" I shouted and pointed at a stunned waitress standing at the next table.

Her eyes stretched and her mouth dropped open, but she met my eyes.

"Get a pitcher of milk and pour it on the asshole's face."

I turned my attention to Heather and the drunk.

He was still wailing, now supine on the floor, and rubbing hard at his eyes.

Heather was a few feet away from him, struggling to break free of arms around her waist holding her back. Tears streamed down her face and her eyes were rimmed in red.

The man holding her was probably in his mid-forties, and the woman beside him was about the same age, but the spitting image of Heather. She was talking desperately into her phone.

I took a few steps toward Heather and the couple who were obviously her parents.

"Are you calling 9-1-1?" I asked. The woman met my eyes and nodded.

"What should I do with this?" a voice asked behind me, so I turned.

The waitress was there with milk. I took it from her.

"Get another pitcher and pour it on his face," I told her with a nod at the drunk, then I turned back to Heather.

"Heather, you were too close. You got some in your eyes. Lie down."

She visibly relaxed and reached for her eyes with her hands.

"No! Don't touch anything with your hands."

"Are you her dad?" I asked the man as I reached the pitcher of milk toward him.

"I am," he nodded.

"Get her to lie down, then slowly pour this on her eyes and face. It'll help neutralize the pepper spray. Don't let her touch her face, and get somebody to bring you dishwashing liquid to wash her hands."

He nodded, so I went back to Raven.

"Raven, are you okay?"

I could tell she was still scared, but she broke into a huge smile.

"My hero," she cooed.

"Can we get you off the floor?"

"I think so. I don't think I'm hurt."

She scrubbed around Boston's ears and quietly asked him if he was hurt. He licked her face and his tail started wagging.

"I'm okay, Boston," she murmured and pushed against his shoulders lightly.