John Connolly - The Lovers

Meanwhile, Jimmy was wishing that they’d never met Caroline Carr. After she made the call to Will’s home, Jimmy had to drive up and take her back to Brooklyn, where she stayed in his mother’s house in Gerritsen Beach, close to the Shell Bank Creek. Mrs. Gallagher owned a small, one-story bungalow, with a peaked roof and no yard, that stood on Melba Court, one of the warren of alphabetically ordered streets that had once served as a summer resort for Irish-Americans, until Gerritsen proved so popular that the houses were winterized so that people could live there year-round. Hiding her in Gerritsen gave Jimmy and, occasionally, Will, an excuse to see her, because Jimmy went down to visit his mother at least once every week. In addition, this part of Gerritsen was small and tightly knit. Strangers would stand out, and Mrs. Gallagher had been warned that there were people looking for the girl. It made Jimmy’s mother more vigilant than she already was; even at her most relaxed, she put the average presidential bodyguard to shame. When neighbors asked about the young woman who was staying with her, Mrs. Gallagher told them that she was a friend of a friend and had recently been bereaved. A terrible shame, what with the poor girl expecting. She gave Caroline a thin gold band that had once belonged to her own mother, and told her to wear it on her ring finger. Her supposed bereavement kept even the worst snoopers at b R qnoopers aay, and on the handful of occasions when Caroline joined Mrs. Gallagher for an evening at the Ancient Order of Hibernians on Gerritsen Avenue, she was treated with a gentleness and respect that made her feel both grateful and guilty.

In Gerritsen, Caroline was content: she was close to the sea, and to the residents-only Kiddie Beach. Perhaps she even saw herself playing there on the sand with her own child, spending summer days eating at the concession stand, listening to bands on the stage, and watching the big parade on Memorial Day. But if she did imagine such a future for herself and her unborn child, she never spoke of it. It might have been that she did not want to put a hex on her wish by speaking it aloud, or maybe-and this was what Mrs. Gallagher told her son on the phone when he called one day to check on the girl-she saw no future at all.

“She’s a nice girl,” said Mrs. Gallagher. “She’s quiet, and respectful. She doesn’t smoke and she doesn’t drink, and that’s good. But when I try to talk to her about what she plans to do once the baby is born, she just smiles and changes the subject. And it’s not a happy smile, Jimmy. She’s sad all the way through. More than that: she’s frightened. I hear her crying out in her sleep. For God’s sake, Jimmy, why are these people after her? She doesn’t look like she could do harm to a fly.”

But Jimmy Gallagher didn’t have the answer, and neither did Will Parker. But then, Will had problems of his own.

His wife was pregnant again.

Will watched her bloom as her term drew on. Even though she’d suffered so many miscarriages in the past, she told him that this one felt different from the others. At home, he would catch her humming softly to herself in the chair by the kitchen window, her right hand resting on her belly. She could stay that way for hours, watching clouds scud by and the last leaves slowly spiraling from the trees in the garden as winter began to take hold. It was almost funny, he thought. He’d slept with Caroline Carr three or four times, and she’d become pregnant. Now his wife, after so many miscarriages, had managed to carry their unborn child for seven months. She looked like she was actually glowing from within. He had never seen her happier, more content within herself. He knew of the guilt that she had experienced after the earlier losses. Her body had betrayed her. It would not do what it was supposed to do. It was not strong enough. Now, at last, she had what she wanted, what they had both wanted for so long.

And he was tormented by it. He was having a second child with another woman, and the knowledge of his betrayal was tearing him apart. Caroline had told him that she wanted nothing from him, except that he keep her safe until the baby was born.

“And after that?”

But, as with Jimmy Gallagher’s mother, she declined to answer the question.

“We’ll see,” she would say, then turn away.

The child was due to be born one month before his wife was likely to give birth. They would both be his children, yet he knew that he would have to let one go, that if he wanted his marriage to survive-and he did, more than anything R qhan anyth else-then he could not be a part of his first child’s life. He wasn’t even sure that he could offer more than minimal financial support, not on a cop’s salary, despite Caroline’s protestations that she didn’t want his money…

And yet he didn’t wish to let this child simply disappear. He was, despite his failings, an honorable man. He had never cheated on his wife before, and he felt his guilt about sleeping with Caroline as an ache so strong that it made him reel. More than ever before, he felt the urge to confess, but it was Jimmy Gallagher who dissuaded him, one evening after a post-tour beer in Cal ’s.

“Are you crazy?” Jimmy said. “Your wife is pregnant. She’s carrying the child that you’ve both wanted for years. After all that’s happened, you may not get a second chance like this one. Apart from what the shock might do to her, it’ll destroy her and it’ll destroy your marriage. You live with what you did. Caroline says that she doesn’t want you to be part of her child’s life. She doesn’t want your money, and she doesn’t want your time. Most men in your situation would be happy with that. If you’re not, then the loss is the price that you pay for your sins, and for keeping your marriage together. You hear me?”

And Will had agreed, knowing that what Jimmy said was true.

“You have to understand something,” said Jimmy. “Your old man was decent and loyal and brave, but he was also human. He’d made a mistake, and he was trying to find a way to live with it, to live with it and to do the right thing by all concerned, but that just wasn’t possible, and the knowledge of it was ripping him apart.”

One of the candles was sputtering as it neared the end of its life. Jimmy went to replace it, then paused and said: “You want, I can put the kitchen light on.”

I shook my head, and told him that the candles were fine.

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Somehow, it doesn’t seem right telling a story like this in a brightly lit room. It’s just not that kind of story.”

He lit a new candle, then resumed his seat and continued his tale.

At Epstein’s request, a meeting was arranged with Caroline. It took place in the back room of a Jewish bakery in Midwood. Jimmy and Will drove Caroline to the rendezvous under cover of night, the by-now heavily pregnant young woman lying uncomfortably under some coats on the backseat of Jimmy’s mother’s Eldorado. The two men were not privy to what passed between the rabbi and Caroline, although they were together for over an hour. When they were finished, Epstein spoke with Will and asked him about the arrangements that had been made for Caroline’s lying-in. Jimmy had never heard that phrase used before, and was embarrassed when it had to be explained to him. Will gave Epstein the name of the OB-GYN, and the hospital in which Caroline intended to deliver her baby. Epstein told him that alternative arrangements would be made.

Through Epstein’s agencies, a place was obtained for Caroline in a small private clinic in Gerritsen Beach itself, not far from PS 277, on the other side of the creek from w R qcreek frohere she was staying. Jimmy had always known that the clinic was there, and that it catered to those for whom money was no great object, but he hadn’t been aware of the fact that babies could be delivered behind its doors. Later, he learned that it wasn’t usually the case, but an exception had been made at Epstein’s request. Jimmy had offered to lend Will money to cover some of the medical costs, and he had accepted on condition that a firm schedule of repayments was agreed upon, with interest.