John Connolly: The Lovers

Jimmy’s nephew confirmed for her all that had occurred, or appeared to have occurred, on the patch of waste ground just a short distance from the house, without ever referring to the fact that it was his second visit to the house that evening. She had wanted to join her husband, to offer him support, but he told her that there would be no point. The questioning would go on for some time, and then he would probably be suspended on full pay pending an investigation. He would be home soon, he promised her. Sit tight. Keep an eye on the boy. Tell him nothing for now. It’s up to you, but, you understand, it might be better to wait until we all know more…

I heard her crying after my father’s call, and I went to her. I stood before my mother, dressed in my pajamas, and said:

“What’s wrong? Mom, what’s the matter?”

She had looked at me, and for a moment I felt sure that she had failed to recognize me. She was upset and in shock. What my father had done had frozen her responses, so that I seemed to her a stranger. Only that could explain the coldness of her stare, the distance it placed between us, as though the air had frozen solid, cutting us off from each other. I had seen that expression on her face before, but only at the worst of times, when I had done something so terrible that she was unable to bring herself to speak: the theft of money from her kitchen fund, or, in an abortive attempt to create a bobsled for my G.I. Joe, the destruction of a plate bequeathed to her by her grandmother.

There was, I thought, blame in her eyes.

“Mom?” I said again, uncertain now, frightened. “Is it Dad? Is he okay?”

And she found it in herself to nod, her upper teeth clamped down hard on her lower lip, so hard that, when she spoke, I saw blood against the white.

“He’s okay. There was a shooting.”

“Was he hurt?”

“No, but some people…Some people died. They’re talking to your father about it.”

“Did Dad shoot them?”

But she would not say anything more.

“Go back to bed,” she said. “Please.”

I did as I was told, but I could not sleep. My father, the man who could barely bring himself to cuff the back of my head, had drawn his gun and killed someone. I was sure of it.

I wondered if my father would get into trouble because of it.

Eventually, they released him. Two IAD goons escorted him home, then sat outside reading the newspapers. I watched them all from my wwhe�ll from mindow. My father looked old and crumpled as he walked up the garden path. His face was unshaven. He glanced up at the window and saw me there. He raised his hand in greeting and tried to smile. I waved back, but I did not smile, before leaving my room.

My father was holding my mother tightly as she wept against him, and I heard him say: “He told us they might come.”

I waited halfway down the stairs, holding my breath.

“But how could that be?” my mother asked. “How could it be the same people?”

“I don’t know, but it was. I saw them. I heard what they said.”

My mother began to cry again, but the tone had changed: it was now a high keening, the sound of someone breaking apart. It was as though a dam had burst inside her, and all that she had kept hidden away was now pouring through the breach, sweeping away the life she once had in a great torrent of grief and violence. Later, I would wonder if, had she managed to hold herself together, she might have been able to prevent what happened next, but she was so caught up in her own sorrow that she failed to see that, in killing those two young people, her husband had destroyed something crucial to his own existence in the process. He had murdered a pair of unarmed teenagers, and, despite what he had said to her, he was not sure why; that, or he was unable to live with the possibility that what he had told her was true. He was tired, wearier than he had ever been. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to sleep and never wake up.

They became aware of my presence, and my father removed his right arm from around my mother, and welcomed me into their embrace. We remained that way for a minute until my father patted us both on the back.

“Come on,” he said. “We can’t stay like this all day.”

“Are you hungry?” my mother asked, wiping her eyes on her apron. There was no emotion to her voice now, as though, having given vent to her pain, she had nothing else left to give.

“Sure. Eggs would be good. Bacon and eggs. You want some bacon and eggs, Charlie?”

I nodded, although I was not hungry. I wanted to be near my father.

“You should take a shower, change your clothes,” my mother said.

“I’ll do that. I just need to do something else first. You worry about those eggs.”

“Toast?”

“Toast would be good. Wheat, if you have it.”

My mother began bustling around the kitchen. When her back was to us, my father held my shoulder tightly and said:

“It’ll all be fine, understand? You help your mother, now. Make sure she’s okay.”

He left us. The back door opened, then closed again. My mother paused and listened, like a dog sensing some disturbance, then returned to heating the oil in the pan.

She had just broken the first egg when we heard the shot.

THE MOVEMENT OF THEclouds against the sun caused the light to change rapidly, disconcertingly, brightness briefly fading to a wintry dusk in the blink of an eye, a taste of the greater darkness that would soon encroach. The front door opened and the old man appeared on his doorstep. He was wearing a hooded jacket, but he still had his slippers on his feet. He trotted to the end of the path and stopped at the edge of his property, his toes lined up with the lawn, as though the sidewalk were a body of water and he was fearful of falling from the bank.

“Can I help you with something, son?” he called.

Son.

I crossed the street. He tensed slightly, wondering now if it had been such a good idea to confront a stranger after all. He glanced down at his slippers, probably thinking that he should have taken the time to put on his boots. He would have felt less vulnerable in boots.

Up close, I could see that he was seventy or more. He was a small, fragile-looking man and, I imagined, he had always been that way; he did not carry himself like one who had once been significantly bigger and fitter, yet he had enough inner strength and confidence to face down an unknown man who was staking out his home. There were men younger than he was who would simply have called the police. His eyes were brown and rheumy, but the skin on his face was relatively unwrinkled for someone of his age. It was especially taut around his eye sockets and cheekbones, giving the impression that his skin had begun to shrink, not loosen, against his skull.

“I once lived here, in this house,” I said.

Some of the wariness left him.

“You one of the Harrington boys?” he asked, squinting as he tried to identify me. There were marks on either side of his nose from the spectacles he usually wore. Perhaps he had decided to leave them inside in order to make himself appear less frail than he was.

“No, I’m not.”

I didn’t even know who the Harringtons were. The people who bought the house after we left were named Bildner. They were a young couple, with a baby daughter. But then, over a quarter of a century had passed since I had last seen the house. I had no idea how many times it might have changed hands over the years.

“Huh. What’s your name, son?”

And each time he said that word, I heard the echo of my father’s voice.

“Parker,” I said. “Charlie Parker.”

“Parker,” he repeated, chewing on the word as though it were a piece of meat of whose taste he remained uncertain. He blinked rapidly three times, and his mouth tightened in a kind of wince. “Yes, I know who you are now. My name’s Asa, Asa Durand.”