He wished he could give them a Frisbee and tell them to hit the park and run around barefoot and get dirty and then go home and have a few beers and call up a woman they liked and hang out.
Unfortunately, he had no credibility when it came to R & R. And besides, both of the guys had the glow of the converted in their eyes. They were clearly committed to fighting their way to the top and the over-caffeinated, messianic zeal with which they looked at him suggested he was their poster boy for success.
Man, he remembered having that burn, that drive, that need to win. And he knew what it meant. Nothing was going to derail them.
“Listen, boys, get some shut-eye tonight, if you can,” he said because it was the best he could do.
“As long as you don’t need anything else from us?”
“No, Andrew, this is what I wanted. I’ll check through it tonight, but I have a feeling it’s going to be a spotless numbers crunch. Glad you guys are on my team.”
The two positively walked on air as they left.
In their wake, Sean felt as old as a stone and just about as lively.
When his BlackBerry went off, he took it out and answered before checking caller ID. He knew who it was going to be. Had been waiting for the call all afternoon.
“What happened at the lawyer’s, Billy? Did you see her?”
Except the caller on the other end wasn’t his younger brother. “Sean?”
“Mac? Is that you?”
“Yeah.” His older brother’s voice was thin and raspy, no doubt because he was calling from the other side of the flipping planet. “It’s me.”
God…What to say? “You heard about Dad? You got my message?”
“You bury him yet?”
“Ashes have been interred.”
“Next to Mom?”
“Yeah.” There was a pause and the silence made Sean twitchy. Mac was not a big talker under the best of circumstances and it had been a long time since they’d had any contact. But Sean felt as if he had to milk the precious seconds for all they were worth. “So, you sound really far away.”
“You okay with him being gone?”
Sean swiveled his chair around so he could see the sky again. He wondered what part of the heavens his brother was under. “Yeah. Fine. Relieved, maybe.”
“What about Billy?”
“Same.” Sean cleared his throat. Knew he wasn’t going to get anything, but asked anyway, “And you?”
“I’m coming home.”
Sean sat forward in a rush. “You are?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Month or so.”
“Are you out?”
“Think I could stay with Billy? In Boston?”
Nicely dodged, that discharge question. “Of course. You want me to tell him?”
“Yeah. When I get closer to my release date, I’ll let him know.”
“Release date? So you’re really getting out?”
“Take care, Sean. Same to Billy. I’ll be in touch.”
The call ended. And Mac was gone like a ghost.
But at least he was coming home. God, how long had it been since Mac had been to the States for any period of time? Years.
Idly, Sean wondered what his brother looked like now. He’d be forty.
The BlackBerry went off again and this time Sean checked who it was before answering. Billy. Finally.
“Mac just called,” he said instead of hello .
There was a sharp inhale. “He did?”
“Yeah, he’s coming stateside and wants to stay with you in Boston for a little while.”
“Whoa. I mean, of course he can bunk at my house here. Thing’s big enough for an army.” Billy paused, then asked, “What did he sound like?”
“The same. Distant. No idea where he was. Call lasted all of about half a minute.”
“At least he’s coming home.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” After a brief pause, Sean switched the subject. “So did you see her?”
“No.”
“What?” Sean frowned. “Lizzie didn’t show?”
“Didn’t have to because she’s not the one taking over the house. She gave it to the Roxbury Community Health Initiative. The director came with a power of attorney. Said they’re going to use the sale of it to start the center’s endowment. And get this, Lizzie asked that the fund be named after Dad.”
Sean felt all the blood drain out of his head. A horrible, surreal feeling of doom cloaked him until he was mostly blind and mostly deaf and almost dead in his chair.
Gold diggers most certainly did not give away assets like that.
“I gotta go, Billy. Call you later.”
***
Chapter Eighteen
As night eased over South Boston, a blanket of black heat came in and settled down for the evening.
Lizzie sat in the armchair, right next to the air conditioner, holding her phone in her hands. She tried to dial Sean’s number again. And failed.
She just couldn’t complete the call to him. One reason was the obvious issue of the way things had been left between them. The other was far more complex.
The tool box had to be returned and it wasn’t the kind of thing she felt comfortable just leaving outside the apartment upstairs. As she’d long forgotten how to reach Billy, that left Sean. But what to say?
She collapsed back into the chair and her eyes slid over to the tool box. For the millionth time, she thought about the papers she’d read.
Mr. O’Banyon, her old friend, was not who she’d thought he was.
Or maybe he’d transformed himself through the years into someone else completely. She couldn’t imagine the man she’d known doing what those papers had stated, except it was clear he had.
Things to atone for indeed.
And Sean…Poor Sean. Her heart ached for the little boy he’d been. Ached also for Billy. And for the brother she hadn’t met.
The papers had been a report of a domestic abuse complaint and its follow-up. Evidently, the oldest boy, Mac, had missed several days of school. When he’d finally shown up again, he’d gone to gym class, taken off his shirt and one of the teachers had seen the faded marks on his body. Which had triggered the complaint and investigation.
The boys had been taken from the home for two months then returned. All three of them had maintained Mac’s contusions had come from street fighting, not their father. Which was, of course, not unusual. Often children protected their parents out of love or fear of retribution or any one of a number of rationales.
Lizzie was willing to bet things hadn’t improved when they’d come home. The two months of anger-management counseling Mr. O’Banyon had received back in 1979 likely hadn’t turned things around. Especially if he’d continued to drink. Which she was willing to bet he had.
Goddamn it, she would never get answers out of him, would she? She would never be able to confront him. She would never know how long or why or whether what he’d done had eaten him alive as she hoped it had.
Mr. O’Banyon was gone. Dead.
Though the past lived on, didn’t it?
As a nurse, she’d seen the tragedies of domestic abuse and she’d talked to some social workers about the wide-ranging effects it had on its victims. One corollary for survivors, which tended to persist through adulthood, was trust issues in relationships. Particularly intimate ones.
So she found it difficult to stay angry with Sean for the conclusions he’d drawn about her character. She didn’t appreciate his misconceptions, but at least now she could understand how he’d be predisposed to making them. Especially given the fact that someone had likely once used him for money.
Okay, enough with the thinking. Time to call him.
She started to dial just as she heard a car pull up in front of the house.