Revival House Read Online Free

killed in an unfortunate boating accident— networking, you might say. Boring, but necessary.
    In any case, rush hour on the Islands Expressway is murder, as usual. You wouldn’t think of Savannah as having a “rush hour” like the bigger cities, but we do. The main difference being that we maintain a certain level of decorum about it. For example, horn-honking and vulgar gestures are frowned upon, whereas sipping any beverage of your choosing (although it must be from a plastic cup) while idling in line is perfectly acceptable. (Not necessarily legal, but always acceptable.) Perhaps it’s the average Savannahian’s blood alcohol content which lends the city its trademark civility.
    By the time we make it over the Wilmington River Bridge, I have a bitch-kitty of a headache, likely stemming from a lack of nicotine paired with the Gilbert and Sullivan show tunes played at too many decibels in order to penetrate Uncle Sterling’s Miracle Ear. I shall never again listen to the ‘Yeoman of the Guard’ soundtrack. Not that I ever have, not of my own accord anyway. I feel dangerously close to delivering a savage kick to the burl walnut surrounding the Jaguar’s CD player. But, truth be told, it isn’t just Uncle Sterling’s choice of music or my own lack of cigarettes that has me in a violent mood; it is my uncle’s lackadaisical attitude and behavior. The savage kick should really be delivered to his great bald pate. Had I failed to close a significant sale in the past, a sale to lifelong acquaintances like the Davis family, I could expect not only to be screamed at about my own lack of concern for the future of the family business, but I would also receive that resounding smack on the head from Sterling’s cane. Not that I miss the abuse, but, at present, he doesn’t seem to care about the Davises, or anything else.
    Over the past several weeks he’d been crankier than hell— whacking me with that cane, snapping at suppliers, being short with clients— but he has been less combative than usual, arguing with me less despite the whackings. I find the situation most unsettling. Is it depression? Hopelessness? If he is hopeless, then our business must be a whole lot closer to spinning down the toilet than I’d imagined. I don’t know what, if anything, to do. I stare at the gray ribbon of road and recite the periodic table of elements within the confines of my head. This is a little trick I use to calm myself in moments of what you might call rage or extreme anxiety. I learned it from some therapist years ago. By the time I get to germanium, number thirty-two, the dark cloud centered in my frontal lobe dissipates. I uncurl my aching and blanched fingers from around the steering wheel.
    I mutter a hello to Aunt Billie when we enter her room ten minutes later. I bend to kiss the air next to her withered cheek, as if she can hear me or is even aware of my presence. She lay motionless in her hospital bed, a thick semi-transparent white snake taped into her mouth like some kind of rigid plastic intestine, forcing air into and out of her wasting lungs. Her head is bald and flat on top, over to the right-hand side. Directly beneath her scalp lies a steel plate secured to her skull with titanium pins. That is from the accident, of course.
    Uncle Sterling takes her long-nailed talon in his own fat paw and smiles into her unseeing eyes. “Oh, darling, you look beautiful,” he says, eyes wet, his words barely audible over the rasping of her breathing machine.
    I reckon you’re curious as to what happened. I am not proud of it.
    Seven years ago, Aunt Billie had woken early to prepare a pitcher of mimosas and to bake a breakfast casserole to bring over to the Farthington Inn Bed & Breakfast, just down the block from 121 Hall Street. The Howards, who owned the B&B that overlooked Forsyth Park, held an annual sumptuous St. Patrick’s Day breakfast, which commenced promptly at seven a.m. Aunt Billie had never missed it.
    St.