Текст книги "Missing You"

Автор книги: Harlan Coben

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

“What do you mean?”

“I dress like this, I’m just another black guy to avoid. All eyes divert. Even yours, Kat.”

She wanted to argue the point—defend her lack of prejudice and general goodwill toward all—but again, it was more important to keep him on track. “So what did you do, Aqua?”

“You were sitting on Elizabeth’s bench.”

“Who?”

He recited it from memory. “‘The best days of my life—this bench, chocolate chip ice cream, and Daddy—Miss you always, Elizabeth.’”

“Oh.”

She got it now, and despite herself, she welled up. Central Park has an Adopt-A-Bench program to raise funds. For seventy-five hundred dollars, a personalized plaque is installed on the bench. Kat spent many hours reading them, imagining the story behind them. One read ON THIS BENCH, WAYNE WILL ONE DAY PROPOSE MARRIAGE TO KIM (did he? Kat always wondered. Did she say yes?). Another favorite, near a dog park, read IN MEMORY OF LEO AND LASZLO, A GREAT MAN, HIS NOBLE HOUND, while yet another simply read REST YOUR TUSH HERE—IT’S ALL GOING TO BE OKAY.

Poignancy is found in the ordinary.

“I heard you,” Aqua said, his voice rising. “I heard you all talking.” Something crossed his face. “Who is that boy?”

“His name is Brandon.”

“I know that!” he shouted. “You think I don’t know that? Who is he, Kat?”

“He’s just a college student.”

“So what are you doing with him?” He slammed his hands against the Plexiglas. “Huh? Why are you trying to help him?”

“Whoa.” Kat stepped back, startled by his sudden aggression. “Don’t turn this around, Aqua. This is about you. You attacked him.”

“Of course, I attacked him. You think I’m going to let someone hurt him again?”

“Hurt who?” she asked, while a small voice in her head—because this is how crazy life could be—heard Stacy correcting her grammar with a gentle hurt whom.

Aqua said nothing.

“Who is Brandon trying to hurt?”

“You know,” he said.

“No, I don’t.” But now she thought that maybe she did.

“I was hiding right there. You were sitting on Elizabeth’s bench. I heard every word. I told you to leave him alone. Why didn’t you listen?”

“Aqua?”

He closed his eyes.

“Look at me, Aqua.”

He didn’t.

She had to make him say it. She couldn’t put the idea in his head first. “Who do you want us to leave alone? Who are you trying to protect?”

With his eyes still closed, Aqua said, “He protected me. He protected you.”

“Who, Aqua?”

“Jeff.”

There. Aqua had finally said it. Kat had expected that answer—had braced for it—but the blow still landed with enough force to knock her back a step.

“Kat?” Aqua pushed his face against the glass, his eyes shifting left and right to make sure no one could hear him. “We have to stop him. He’s looking for Jeff.”

“And that’s why you attacked him?”

“I didn’t want to hurt him. I just need him to stop. Don’t you see?”

“I don’t,” Kat said. “What are you so afraid he’ll find?”

“He never stopped loving you, Kat.”

She let that one go. “Did you know that Jeff changed his name?”

Aqua turned away.

“He’s Ron Kochman now. Did you know that?”

“So much death,” Aqua said. “It should have been me.”

“What should have been you?”

“I should have died.” Tears ran down his face in free fall. “Then it would all be okay. You’d be with Jeff.”

“What are you talking about, Aqua?”

“I’m talking about what I did.”

“What did you do, Aqua?”

He kept crying. “It’s all my fault.”

“You had nothing to do with Jeff breaking up with me.”

More tears.

“Aqua? What did you do?”

He started to sing. “The gypsy wind it says to me, things are not what they seem to be. Beware.”

“What?”

He smiled through the tears. “It’s like that old song. You remember. The one about the demon lover. The boyfriend dies and so she marries someone else, but she still loves him, only him, and then one day, his ghost comes back to her and they drive away and burst into flames.”

“Aqua, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But there was something about the song that was familiar. She just couldn’t place it. . . .

“The last lines,” Aqua said. “You have to listen to the last lines. After they burst into flames. You have to listen to that warning.”

“I don’t remember it,” Kat said.

Aqua cleared his throat. Then he sang the last lines in his beautiful, rich voice:

“Watch out for people who belong in your past. Don’t let ’em back in your life.”

Chapter 23

Aqua shut down after that. He just kept singing the same thing over and over: “Watch out for people who belong in your past. Don’t let ’em back in your life.”

When she Googled the lyrics on her phone, it all came flooding back to her. The song was “Demon Lover” by Michael Smith. They had all seen him live in some dingy venue down in the Village twenty years ago. Jeff had scored the tickets, having seen him perform in Chicago two years earlier. Aqua had come with a fellow cross-dresser named Yellow. The two ended up working a drag-queen act out of a club in Jersey City. When they broke up, Aqua naturally claimed: “Aqua clashes with Yellow.”

The lyrics didn’t trigger any more information. She found the song online and listened to it. It was eerie and wonderful, more poetry than song, the story of a woman named Agnes Hines who loved a boy named Jimmy Harris, who died young in a car crash and then came back to her years later, after she was married, in that same car. The song’s message was clear: Keep past lovers in the past.

So was Aqua’s ranting just influenced by a favorite song? Had he simply listened to it and felt that if she kept searching for her demon lover Jeff, they’d both end up bursting into flames like Agnes and Jimmy? Or was there something more?

She thought about Aqua now, how Jeff’s dumping her and returning to Cincinnati had affected him. He had already gotten worse, but Jeff’s departure really set him off the rail. Was he already institutionalized when Jeff left? She tried to think back. No, she thought, it was after.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered, really. Whatever mess Jeff had gotten himself into—she assumed there was a mess because you don’t change names for no reason—it was his concern, not hers. Despite his insanity, Aqua was the brightest man she had ever known. It was one of the reasons why she loved his yoga so much—the small truths he spoke during mediation, the little vignettes that rang deep, the offbeat way he had to teach a lesson.

For example, singing an obscure song she had last heard nearly two decades ago.

Aqua’s warning, coming from a diseased mind or not, made a lot of sense.

Brandon was awake when she got back from the precinct. He had two black eyes from his broken nose. “Where were you?” he asked.

“How are you feeling?”

“Sore.”

“Take some more painkillers or something. Here, I brought you a couple of cupcakes.” She had stopped at Magnolia Bakery on the way from the Central Park Precinct. She handed him the bag. “I have a favor to ask.”

“Shoot,” Brandon said.

“They caught the man who assaulted you. That’s where I was. At the precinct.”

“Who is he?”

“That’s the favor part. He’s a friend of mine. He thought he was protecting me. I need you to drop the charges.”

She explained, trying to be as vague as humanly possible.

“I’m still not sure I understand,” Brandon said.

“Then do it for me, okay? As a favor.”

He shrugged. “Okay.”

“I also think it’s time we let this go, Brandon. What do you think?”

Brandon pulled a cupcake apart and slowly ate half. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“On TV, they always talk about cop intuition or playing a hunch.”

“Right.”

“Do you ever do that?”

“All cops do. Hell, all people do. But when the hunch flies in the face of the facts, it more often than not leads to mistakes.”

“And you think my hunch flies in the face of the facts?”

She thought about that. “No, not really. But it doesn’t match up with the facts, either.”

Brandon smiled and took another bite. “If it matched up with the facts, it wouldn’t be a hunch, would it?”

“Good point. But I still go with the Sherlock Holmes axiom.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m paraphrasing, but basically Sherlock warned that you should never theorize before you have the facts because then you twist the facts to suit the theory instead of twisting the theory to suit the facts.”

Brandon nodded. “I like that.”

“But?”

“But I’m still not buying it.”

“What about all that talk about not ruining it for your mom?”

“I won’t. If this is true love, I’ll let it be.”

“It’s not your place to say what kind of love it may be,” Kat said. “Your mom is allowed to make her own mistakes, you know. She’s allowed to get her heart broken by him.”

“Like you?”

“Yeah,” Kat said. “Like me. He was my demon lover. I need to leave him in my past.”

“Demon lover?”

She smiled and grabbed a carrot cupcake with cream cheese icing and walnuts. “Never mind.”

 • • •

It felt good to let it go. For about twenty minutes. Then Kat got two calls.

The first was from Stacy. “I have a lead on Jeff Raynes aka Ron Kochman,” she said.

Too late. Kat didn’t want to know. It didn’t matter anymore. “What?”

“Jeff didn’t change his name legally.”

“You’re sure?”

“Definitely. I even called all fifty state offices. It’s a fake ID. Well done. Professional. A complete makeover. I even wonder if he was put into Witness Protection or something.”

“Could that be it? Witness Protection, I mean.”

“Doubtful. Guys in WP shouldn’t be advertising themselves on dating services, but it’s a possibility. I’m checking with a source. What I can tell you without question is that Jeff didn’t change his name legally nor does he really want to be found. No credit cards, no bank accounts, no residence.”

“He’s working as a journalist,” Kat said. “He has to be paying taxes.”

“That’s what I’m following up on now—my source with the IRS. I hope to get an address soon. Unless.”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you want to call me off,” Stacy said.

Kat rubbed her eyes. “You were the one who told me that Jeff and I might have the fairy-tale ending.”

“I know, but do you ever really read fairy tales? Little Red Riding Hood? Hansel and Gretel? There’s a lot of bloodshed and hurt.”

“You think I should leave it alone, don’t you?”

“Hell, no,” Stacy said.

“But you just said—”

“Who cares what I just said? You can’t leave this alone, Kat. You’re not good with loose ends. And right now? Your fiancé is a major loose end. So screw it. Let’s figure out what the hell happened to him, so once and for all, you can move past this dickwad who was dumb enough to dump your shapely ass.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Kat said. Then: “You’re a good friend.”

“The best,” Stacy agreed.

“But you know what? Let it go.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure?”

No, Kat thought. God, no. “Positive.”

“Look at you, being all Miss Brave and whatnot,” Stacy said. “Drinks tonight?”

“They’re on me,” Kat said.

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Brandon had felt well enough to leave after the cupcake. So Kat was alone, getting undressed and turning on the shower—she had a full day of binge-TVing in bed planned—when the second call came in.

“Are you home?”

It was Stagger. He didn’t sound pleased.

“Yes.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Stagger said.

It took less. Stagger must have made the call standing right outside her building. She didn’t greet him when he entered. He didn’t greet her back. He stormed in and said, “Guess who just called me.”

“Who?”

“Suggs.”

Kat said nothing.

“You went to Suggs, for crying out loud?”

It was funny. Last time she saw him, Kat had thought how much Stagger still looked like a little boy. Now she thought the opposite. He looked old. His hair was receding, growing flimsy and flyaway. His jowls sagged. There was a belly now, not a big one, but there was still the feeling of age and softness. His children, she knew, weren’t babies anymore. The trips to Disney were being slowly replaced with college visits. That, she realized, could have been her life. If she and Jeff had married, would she have joined the force? Would she right now be some aging soccer mom raising her family in some shiny-brick McMansion in Upper Montclair?

“How could you do that, Kat?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Stagger shook his head. “Look at me. Okay? Really look at me.” He came close and put his hands on her shoulders. “Do you really think I would hurt your father?”

She did as he asked and then replied, “I don’t know.”

Her words hit him like a slap across the face. “Are you serious?”

“You’re lying, Stagger. We both know it. You’re covering something up.”

“And so, what, you think I had something to do with your father’s murder?”

“I just know you’re lying. I know you’ve been lying for years.”

Stagger closed his eyes and took a step back. “You got anything to drink?”

She headed over to the bar and held up a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He nodded and said, “Neat.” She poured him a glass and figured what the hell, poured herself one too. They didn’t clink glasses. Stagger brought the glass quickly to his lips and took a deep gulp. She stared at him.

“What?” he said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink.”

“I guess we’re both full of surprises.”

“Or we don’t know each other very well.”

“That may be true,” he said. “Our relationship, as it were, was really based on your father. When he was gone, so was our connection. I mean, I’m your boss now, but it isn’t as though we communicate much.”

Stagger took another gulp. She took her first sip.

“Then again,” he went on, “when you form a bond in tragedy, when you have a history like ours . . .” He turned and gazed at her door as though it had just materialized. “I remember everything about that day. But the part I remember most was when you first opened that door. You had no idea I was about to destroy your world.”

He turned back toward her. “Can’t you just let this go?”

She took a deep sip. She didn’t bother answering.

“I haven’t lied to you,” Stagger said.

“Sure you have. You’ve been lying to me for eighteen years.”

“I’ve been doing what Henry would have wanted.”

“My father is dead,” Kat said. “He doesn’t get a say in this anymore.”

Another deep gulp. “It isn’t going to bring him back. And it isn’t going to change the facts. Cozone ordered the hit. Monte Leburne carried it out.”

“How were you onto Leburne so fast?”

“Because I already had an eye out for him.”

“Why?”

“I knew Cozone had killed your dad.”

“And Suggs and Rinsky missed it?”

He took another swig, emptying his glass. “They were like you.”

“How so?”

“They didn’t think Cozone would kill a cop.”

“But you thought differently.”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

He poured himself another glass. “Because Cozone didn’t view your father as a cop.”

She made a face. “What did he view him as?”

“An employee.”

A hot flush hit her face. “What the hell are you talking about?”

He just looked at her.

“Are you saying he was on the take?”

Stagger poured himself another. “More than that.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Stagger looked around the apartment as though for the first time. “Nice digs, by the way.” He tilted his head. “How many cops do you know can buy a place on the Upper West Side outright?”

“It’s small,” she said, hearing the defensiveness in her voice. “He got a deal from a guy he helped.”

Stagger smiled, but there was no joy in it.

“What are you trying to say here, Stagger?”

“Nothing. I’m trying to say nothing.”

“Why did you visit Leburne in prison?”

“Why do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then let me spell it out for you. I knew Leburne had killed your father. I knew Cozone had ordered it. You still don’t see?”

“No, I don’t.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “I didn’t visit Leburne to get him to confess,” he said. “I went up there to make sure that he didn’t tell why.”

Stagger downed the entire glass.

“That’s crazy,” Kat said, even as she felt the floor beneath her start to shift. “What about that fingerprint?”

“Huh?”

“The fingerprint found at the scene. You checked it out for Suggs and Rinsky.”

He closed his eyes. “I’m leaving.”

“You’re still lying,” she said.

“It was just some homeless guy’s print.”

“That’s crap.”

“Let it go, Kat.”

“Your whole theory makes no sense,” she said. “If my father was on the take, why would Cozone kill him?”

“Because he wasn’t going to be on the take much longer.”

“What, he was going to turn on him?”

“I’ve said enough.”

“Whose fingerprint was at the scene?” she asked.

“I told you. Nobody’s.”

Stagger slurred his words now. She’d been right about not seeing him drink before. It wasn’t that she didn’t know him. He simply wasn’t a drinker. The alcohol was hitting him fast.

He started for the door. Kat stepped in his way.

“You’re still not telling me everything.”

“You wanted to know who killed your father. I told you.”

“You still didn’t explain what really happened.”

“Maybe I’m not the one you should be asking,” he said.

“Who, then?”

A strange look—something drunk, something gleeful—came to his face. “Didn’t you ever wonder why your dad would disappear for days at a time?”

She stopped, stunned. For a moment, she just stood there, blinking helplessly, trying to get her bearings. Stagger took advantage, moving toward the door, putting his hand on the knob, opening it.

“What?” she managed.

“You heard me. You want to start getting to the truth, but you just bury your head in the sand. Why was Henry always vanishing? Why didn’t anyone in your house ever talk about that?”

She opened her mouth, closed it, tried again. “What the hell are you saying, Stagger?”

“It isn’t for me to say anything, Kat. That’s what you’re not getting here. I’m not the one you should be talking to.”

Chapter 24

Kat took the B to the E and then picked up the 7 train out to her old neighborhood in Flushing. She headed down Roosevelt Avenue toward Parsons Boulevard, walking toward her house without conscious thought, as you do with the places of your childhood. You just know every step. She had lived in Manhattan longer, knew the Upper West Side better in some ways, but it never felt like this. Not home exactly. This was stronger than that. This neighborhood felt like a part of her. It felt as though some of her DNA was in the blue clapboards and off-white Cape Cods and cracked pavement and small patches of lawn, like she’d been beamed away à la Star Trek but a few of her particles got left behind. Part of her would always be at Thanksgiving at Uncle Tommy and Aunt Eileen’s, sitting at the “kids’ table,” which was a Ping-Pong table with a king-size sheet doubling as a tablecloth. Dad always carved the turkey—no one else was allowed to touch it. Uncle Tommy poured the drinks. He wanted the kids to have wine too. He’d start off with a spoonful and stir it into your Sprite, making it somewhat stronger as you got older until you reached an age where you left the Ping-Pong table altogether and got a full glass of wine. Uncle Tommy retired after thirty-six years working as an appliance repairman for Sears, and he and Aunt Eileen moved down to Fort Myers, Florida. Their old house was now owned by a Korean family who’d knocked out the back wall and built an addition and slapped on aluminum siding because, when Uncle Tommy and Aunt Eileen lived there, the paint was flaking like it had a bad case of dandruff.

But make no mistake. Kat’s DNA was still there.

The houses on her block had always been crowded together but with all the bloated additions, they were even more so. TV antennas still stood atop most roofs, even though everyone had gone to either cable or a satellite dish. Virgin Mary statuary—some stone, most plastic—overlooked tiny gardens. Every once in a while, you’d see a house that had been totally razed in favor of shoehorning some over-the-top faded-brick McMansion with arched windows, but they always looked like a fat guy squeezing into too small a chair.

Her phone buzzed as she reached her old house. She checked and saw the text was from Chaz:

Got license plate off gas station video.

She quickly typed back: Anything interesting?

Black Lincoln town car registered to James Isherwood, Islip, New York. He’s clean. Honest citizen.

She wasn’t surprised. Probably the name of an innocent limo driver hired by her new boyfriend. Another dead end. Another reason to put Dana and Jeff behind her.

The back door off the kitchen was unlocked, as always. Kat found her mother sitting at the kitchen table with Aunt Tessie. There were grocery store coupons spread out on the table and a deck of playing cards. The ashtray was filled with lipstick-tainted cigarette butts. The same five chairs from her childhood still circled the table. Dad’s chair had arms on it, thronelike; the rest didn’t. Kat had sat between her two brothers. They too had abandoned this neighborhood. Her older brother, Jimmy, graduated from Fordham University. He lived with his wife and three kids in a garish mansion on Long Island, in Garden City, and worked on a crowded floor as a bonds trader. He had explained to her a hundred times what exactly he did, but she still didn’t get it. Her younger brother, Farrell, had gone to UCLA and stayed there. He supposedly filmed documentaries and got paid to write screenplays that never get made.

“Two days in a row,” Mom said. “This has to be a world and Olympic record.”

“Stop it,” Tessie scolded. “It’s nice she’s here.”

Mom waved a hand of dismissal. Tessie rose and gave Kat a kiss on the cheek. “I have to run. Brian’s visiting and I always make him my famous tuna fish sandwich.”

Kat kissed her back. She remembered tuna fish at Aunt Tessie’s. Tessie’s secret: potato chips. She sprinkled them on top of the tuna. They added crunch and flavor if not nutritional value.

When they were alone, Mom asked, “You want some coffee?”

She pointed to her old coffee percolator. A tin of Folgers sat next to it. Kat had bought her a stainless steel Cuisinart coffee pod machine last Christmas, but Mom said it didn’t “taste right,” meaning, in her case, that it tasted good. Mom was like that. Anything more expensive wouldn’t work for her. If you bought a twenty-dollar bottle of wine, she preferred the one that cost only six. If you got her a brand-name perfume, she preferred the knockoff she’d get at the drugstore. She bought all her clothes at Marshalls or T.J. Maxx and only off the sale rack. Part of this was because she was frugal. Part of it was something much more telling.

“I’m fine,” Kat said.

“You want me to fix you a sandwich? I know nothing I’d make could ever be as good as Aunt Tessie’s tuna, which is really just Bumble Bee, but I have some nice sliced turkey from Mel’s.”

“That would be great.”

“You still like it with white bread and mayonnaise?”

Kat didn’t, but it wasn’t as if her mom had a seven-grain option on hand. “Sure, whatever.”

Mom lifted herself slowly, making a production of it, using the back of the chair and the table to assist her. She wanted Kat to comment. Kat didn’t bother. Mom opened the refrigerator—an old Kenmore model Uncle Tommy got them at cost—and pulled out the turkey and mayo.

Kat debated how to play this. There was too much history between them for games or subtlety. She decided to dive right in.

“Where did Dad go when he used to disappear?”

Mom had her back to her when Kat asked. She’d been reaching into the bread drawer. Kat looked to see her reaction. There was the briefest pause—nothing more.

“I’m going to toast the bread,” Mom said. “It tastes better that way.”

Kat waited.

“And what are you talking about, disappear? Your father never disappeared.”

“Yeah, he did.”

“You’re probably thinking of his trips with the boys. They’d go hunting up in the Catskills. You remember Jack Kiley? Sweet man. He had a cabin or a lodge or something like that. Your father loved to go up there.”

“I remember him going up there once. He used to vanish all the time.”

“Aren’t we dramatic?” Mom said, arching an eyebrow. “Disappear, vanish. You make it sound like your father was a magician.”

“Where did he go?”

“I just told you. Don’t you listen?”

“To Jack Kiley’s cabin?”

“Sometimes, sure.” Kat could hear the growing agitation in her mother’s voice “There was also a fishing trip with Uncle Tommy. I don’t remember where. Somewhere on the North Fork. And I remember he went on a golf trip with some of the guys at work. That’s where he was. He went on trips with his friends.”

“I don’t remember him ever taking you on trips.”

“Oh, sure he did.”

“Where?”

“What difference does it make now? Your father liked blowing off steam with the guys. Golfing trips, fishing trips, hunting trips. Men do that.”

Mom was spreading the mayo hard enough to scrape paint.

“Where did he go, Mom?”

“I just told you!” she shouted, dropping the knife. “Damn, look what you made me do.”

Kat started to get up to retrieve the knife.

“You just stay in your seat, little missy. I got it.” Mom picked up the knife, tossed it in the sink, grabbed another. Five vintage McDonald’s glasses from 1977—Grimace, Ronald McDonald, Mayor McCheese, Big Mac, and Captain Crook—sat on the windowsill. The complete set had six. Farrell had broken the Hamburglar when he threw a Frisbee indoors when he was seven years old. Years later, he bought Mom a replacement vintage Hamburglar on eBay, but she refused to put it up with the others.

“Mom?”

“What?” She started on the sandwich again. “Why on earth would you be asking me all this now anyway? Your father, God rest his soul, has been dead for nearly twenty years. Who cares where he went?”

“I need to know the truth.”

“Why? Why would you bring this up, especially now that the monster who murdered him is finally dead? Put it to bed. It’s over.”

“Did Dad work for Cozone?”

“What?”

“Was Dad on the take?”

For a woman who needed help getting up, Mom moved now with dizzying speed. “How dare you!” She twirled and, without any hesitation, slapped Kat across the left cheek. The sickening sound of flesh on flesh was loud, almost deafening in the stillness of the kitchen. Kat felt tears come to her eyes, but she didn’t turn away or even reach up to touch the red.

Mom’s face crumbled. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”

“Did he work for Cozone?”

“Please stop.”

“Is that how he paid for the apartment in New York City?”

“What? No, no. He got a good deal, remember? He saved that man’s life.”

“What man?”

“What do you mean, what man?”

“What man? What was his name?”

“How am I supposed to remember?”

“Because I know Dad did a lot of good work as a cop, but I don’t remember him saving any real estate magnate’s life, do you? Why did we just accept that story? Why didn’t we ask him?”

“Ask him,” Mom repeated. She retied her apron string, pulling the ends a little too hard. “You mean, like you are now? Like an interrogation? Like your father was some kind of liar? You’d do that to that man—to your father? You’d ask him questions and call him a liar in his own home?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Kat said, but her voice was weak.

“Well, what do you mean? Everyone exaggerates, Kat. You know that. Especially men. So maybe your father didn’t save the man’s life. Maybe he only, I don’t know, caught a burglar who robbed him or helped him with a parking ticket. I don’t know. Your father said he saved his life. I didn’t question his word. Tessie’s husband, Ed? He used to limp, remember? He told everyone it was from shrapnel in the war. But he was clerical because of his eyesight. He hurt his leg falling down subway stairs when he was sixteen. You think Tessie went around calling him a liar every time he told that story?”

Mom brought the sandwich to the table. She started to cut it diagonally—her brother had preferred it that way—but Kat, ever the contrarian, had insisted sandwiches be cut to make two rectangles. Mom, again out of habit, remembered, angled the knife, cut it in two perfect halves.

“You’ve never been married,” Mom said softly. “You don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“We all have our demons. But men? They have them much worse. The world tells them that they are the leaders and great and macho and have to be big and brave and make a lot of money and lead these glamorous lives. But they don’t, do they? Look at the men in this neighborhood. They all worked too many hours. They came home to noisy, demanding homes. Something was always broken they needed to fix. They were always behind on the house payments. Women, we get it. Life is about a certain kind of drudgery. We are taught not to hope or want too much. Men? They never get that.”

“Where did he go, Mom?”

She closed her eyes. “Eat your sandwich.”

“Was he doing jobs for Cozone?”

“Maybe.” Then: “I don’t think so.”

Kat pulled the chair out for her mother to sit. Mom sat as though someone had cut her knees out from beneath her.

“What was he doing?” Kat asked.

“You remember Gary?”

“Flo’s husband.”

“Right. He used to go to the track, remember? He kept losing everything they had. Flo would cry for hours. Your uncle Tommy, he drank too much. He was home every night, but rarely before eleven o’clock. He’d stop at the pub for a quick one and then it would be hours later. The men. They all needed something like that. Some drank. Some gambled. Some whored. Some, the lucky ones, found the church, though they could kill you with their sanctimonious baloney. But the point is, with men, real life was never enough. You know what my dad, your grandfather, used to say?”

Kat shook her head.

“‘If a man had enough to eat, he’d want to grow a second mouth.’ He also had a dirty way of saying it, but I won’t repeat it here.”

Kat reached out and took her mother’s hand. She tried to remember the last time she had done that—reached out to her very own mother—but no memory came to her.

“What about Dad?”

“You always thought it was your father who wanted you to get out of this life. But it was me. I was the one who didn’t want you stuck here.”

“You hated it that much?”

“No. It was my life. It’s all I have.”

“I don’t understand.”

Mom squeezed her daughter’s hand. “Don’t make me face what I don’t need to face,” she said. “It’s over. You can’t change the past. But see, you can shape it with your memories. I get to choose which ones I keep, not you.”

Kat tried to keep her voice gentle. “Mom?”

“What?”

“Those don’t sound like memories. They sound like illusions.”

“What’s the difference?” Mom smiled. “You lived here too, Kat.”

Kat sat back in her chair. “What?”

“You were a child, sure, but a smart child, very mature for your age. You loved your father unconditionally, yet you saw him vanish. You saw through my fake smiles and all that sweetness when he came home. But you looked away, didn’t you?”