George Pelecanos: The Way Home

Chris knew that for everyone like him, who had good fortune, there was a Lawrence Newhouse, who had none. But it wasn’t as if Chris would go untouched. His life would not always be a spring afternoon, sunlight streaming on his mom, a breeze caressing the hair of his beautiful lover, a strong dog joyfully playing in a creek. If he could have looked into his future, he’d have seen much happiness in the family he would raise, and fulfillment in his career, as well as wrenching disappointment, regret, and old age. He’d have seen his mother, alone and suddenly aged, praying the rosary in her room. He’d have seen his father lying on a morgue slab at the age of fifty-five, his face deeply cut from windshield glass, his blood alcohol level impossibly high.

If the storytellers told it true, all stories would end in death. But that will come in time, thought Chris. Not today.

The clouds broke as he went down a long slope and found his father, standing before the thick oak rooted in the valley floor. Flynn had his open buck knife in hand. He was carving Katherine’s name beside Chris’s, inside the heart on the family’s tree.

“Dad,” said Chris.

Thomas Flynn turned and stepped toward his son.