Dennis Lehane - Since We Fell

Brian, on the other hand, had refused to do so.

She stared at his photograph and imagined him living a neighborhood or two over. Or maybe a block or two over.

“I am with Sebastian,” she said aloud.

“I love Sebastian.”

She closed her laptop.

She told herself she’d respond to Brian’s e-mail tomorrow, but she never got around to it.

Two weeks later, Jeremy James called and asked if she was sitting down. She wasn’t but she leaned against a wall and told him she was.

“I’ve identified pretty much everyone. The black couple are still together and both work in private practice in St. Louis. The other woman died in 1990. The big guy was faculty; he passed too a few years back. And the guy in the velour pullover is Charles Osaris, a clinical psychologist who practices on Oahu.”

“Hawaii,” she said.

“If he turns out to be your dad,” Jeremy said, “you’ll have a great place to visit. I’ll expect an invitation.”

“But of course.”

It took her three days to call Charles Osaris. It wasn’t a case of nerves or trepidation of any kind. It was rooted instead in despair. She knew he wasn’t her father, knew it in the pit of her stomach and in every electromagnetic strand of her lizard brain.

Yet some part of her hoped for the opposite.

Charles Osaris confirmed that he had been in the Johns Hopkins Ph.D. program in clinical psychology with Elizabeth Childs. He could recall several nights when they went to a bar called Milo’s in East Baltimore, where, indeed, a Baltimore Colts pennant had hung on the wall to the right of the bar. He was sorry to hear Elizabeth had passed away; he’d found her an intriguing woman.

“I was told you two dated,” Rachel said.

“Who on earth would tell you something like that?” Charles Osaris let out a sound that was half bark, half laugh. “I’ve been out of the closet since the seventies, Miss Childs. I never had any illusions about my sexuality, either — confusion, yes, but illusions, no. Never dated a woman, never even kissed one.”

“Clearly I was misinformed,” Rachel said.

“Clearly. Why would you ask if I dated your mother?”

Rachel came clean, told him she was looking for her father.

“She never told you who he was?”

“No.”

“Why?”

And Rachel responded with the explanation that, with every passing year, seemed more ludicrous. “For some reason she thought she was protecting me. She confused keeping something secret with keeping me safe.”

“The Elizabeth I knew was never confused about anything in her life.”

“Why else keep something so big a secret?” Rachel asked.

When he responded, his voice was newly tinged with sadness. “I knew your mother for two years. I was the only man within a ten-mile radius who wasn’t trying to separate her from her clothing, so I probably knew her as well as anyone. She felt safe with me. And, Miss Childs, I didn’t know her at all. She didn’t let people in. She liked having a secret life because she liked secrets. Secrets were power. Secrets were better than sex. Secrets, I firmly believe, were your mother’s drug of choice.”

After her conversation with Charles Osaris, Rachel had three panic attacks in one week. She had one in the employee bathroom at Channel 6, another on a bench along the Charles River during what was supposed to be her morning jog, and the third in the shower one night after Sebastian fell asleep. She hid them all from Sebastian and her coworkers. As much as one could feel in control during a panic attack, she felt in control of herself; she was able to continually remind herself that she wasn’t having a heart attack, that her throat wasn’t permanently constricting, that she could in fact breathe.

Her desire to remain indoors intensified. For a few weeks, only conscious effort and internal howls of defiance pushed her out the door every morning. Weekends, she stayed in completely. For the first three weekends, Sebastian assumed it was part of the nesting instinct. By the fourth, he’d grown irritable. Back then, they were on the guest list to just about every party in the city — any gala, any charity function, any see-or-be-seen excuse to imbibe. They’d become a power couple, fixtures of gossip items in the Inside Track and Names & Faces . Rachel, try as she might, couldn’t deny how much she enjoyed the position. If she had no parents, she’d realize in retrospect, at least the city welcomed her into the tribal fold.

So she got back out there. She shook hands and kissed cheeks and drank in the attention of the mayor, the governor, judges, billionaires, comedians, writers, senators, bankers, Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins, and Celtics players and coaches, and college presidents. At Channel 6, she rocketed through the ranks, racing from freelance to the education beat to crime to general assignment in sixteen months flat. They put her face on a billboard with Shelby and Grant, the evening anchors, and prominently featured her in a commercial to introduce their revamped logo. When she and Sebastian decided to marry, it felt like they’d elected themselves homecoming king and queen, and the city applauded the decision and gave its full blessing.

It was a week after the invitations went out that she ran into Brian Delacroix. She’d just interviewed two reps at the statehouse over a projected budget shortfall. Her crew went to the van but she decided to walk back to the station. She’d just crossed to the other side of Beacon when Brian walked out of the Athenaeum accompanied by a shorter, older man with ginger hair and a matching beard. She experienced that electric bolt of confusion and recognition that usually only occurred when she passed someone famous in the street. It was a feeling of I know you. But I really don’t. Both men were ten or twelve feet from Rachel when Brian’s eyes found hers. A flash of recognition was followed immediately by a flash of something she couldn’t identify — was it annoyance? fear? neither? — and then that flash vanished and was replaced with what, in retrospect, she could only describe as manic joy.

“Rachel Childs!” He crossed the distance to her in one long stride. “What’s it been — nine years?”

His handshake was firmer than she expected, too firm.

“Eight,” she said. “When did you—?”

“This is Jack,” Brian said. He stepped aside so the smaller man could step into the space he’d made and now they were a threesome standing on the sidewalk at the peak of Beacon Hill as lunchtime crowds streamed around them.

“Jack Ahern.” The man shook her hand. His handshake was much lighter.

There was a strong whiff of Old World to Jack Ahern. His shirt had French cuffs with silver cuff links that peeked out from under the sleeves of his bespoke suit. He wore a bow tie and his beard was precisely trimmed. His hand was dry and uncallused. She imagined he owned a pipe and knew more than most about classical music and cognac.

He said, “Are you old friends with—?”

Brian cut in. “Friends would be a bit strong. We knew each other a decade ago, Jack. Rachel’s a reporter on Channel 6 here. She’s excellent.”

Jack gave her a polite nod approximating respect. “Do you like the work?”

“Most days,” she said. “What kind of work are you in?”

“Jack’s in antiquities,” Brian said in a rush. “He’s up here from Manhattan.”

Jack Ahern smiled. “By way of Geneva.”

“I’m not sure what that means,” Rachel said.

“Well, I live in Manhattan and Geneva, but I consider Geneva home.”

“Isn’t that something?” Brian said, even though it wasn’t. He glanced at his watch. “Gotta go, Jack. Reservations for twelve-fifteen. Rachel, a pleasure.” He leaned in and kissed the air to the side of her cheek. “I heard you’re getting married. Very happy for you.”