Dennis Lehane - The Given Day

Her laugh came out strangled and damp.

“We can never marry in the Church.”

“I’m done with that, too,” he said.

They stood there for a long time, and the streets smelled of the early-evening rain.

“You’re crying,” she said. “I can feel the tears.”

He removed his forehead from hers and tried to speak, but he couldn’t, so he smiled, and the tears rolled off his chin.

She leaned back and caught one on her finger.

“This is not pain?” she said and put it in her mouth.

“No,” Danny said and lowered his forehead to hers again. “This is not pain.”

Luther came home after a day at the Coughlin household in which, for the second time since he’d been there, the captain had invited him into his study.

“Take a seat, take a seat,” the captain said as he removed his uniform coat and hung it on the coat tree behind his desk.

Luther sat.

The captain came around to the front of the desk with two glasses of whiskey and handed one to Luther. “I heard what you did for Aiden. I’d like to thank you for saving my son’s life.” He clinked his heavy glass off Luther’s.

Luther said, “It was nothing, sir.”

“Scollay Square.”

“Sir?”

“Scollay Square. That’s where you ran into Aiden, yes?”

“Uh, yes, sir, I did.”

“What brought you over there? You’ve no friends in the West End, do you?”

“No, sir.”

“And you live in the South End. As we know, you work over here, so …”

The captain rolled the glass between his hands and waited.

Luther said, “Well, you know why most men go to Scollay Square, sir.” He tried for a conspiratorial smile.

“I do,” Captain Coughlin said. “I do, Luther. But even Scollay Square has its racial principles. I’m to assume you were at Mama Hennigan’s, then? ’Tis the only place I know in the square that services coloreds.”

“Yes, sir,” Luther said, although by now he knew he’d walked into a trap.

The captain reached into his humidor. He removed two cigars and snipped the ends and handed one to Luther. He lit it for him and then lit his own.

“I understand my friend Eddie was giving you a bit of a hard time.”

Luther said, “Uh, sir, I don’t know that I would—”

“Aiden told me,” the captain said.

“Oh.”

“I’ve spoken to Eddie on your behalf. I owe you that for saving my son.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I promise he’ll be a bother to you no longer.”

“I really do appreciate that, sir. Thank you again.”

The captain raised his glass and Luther did the same and they both took a drink of the fine Irish whiskey.

The captain reached behind him again and came back with a white envelope that he tapped against his thigh. “And Helen Grady, she’s working out as a house woman, she is?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“No doubts to her competency or her work ethic?”

“Absolutely none, sir.”

Helen was as cold and distant to Luther as the day she’d arrived five months ago, but that woman could work, boy.

“I’m glad to hear that.” The captain handed Luther the envelope. “Because she’ll be doing the job of two now.”

Luther opened the envelope and saw the small sheaf of money inside.

“There’s two weeks’ severance in there, Luther. We closed Mama Hennigan’s a week ago for code violations. The only person you know in Scollay Square is one who used to be in my employ. It explains the food that’s gone missing from my pantry these past few months, a theft that Helen Grady began to report to me weeks ago.” He considered Luther over his scotch glass as he drained it. “Stealing food from my home, Luther? You’re aware I’d be well within my rights to shoot you where you sit?”

Luther didn’t respond to that. He reached over and placed his glass on the edge of the desk. He stood. He held out his hand. The captain considered it for a moment, then placed his cigar in the ashtray and shook the hand.

“Good-bye, Luther,” he said pleasantly.

“Good-bye, Captain, sir.”

When he returned to the house on St. Botolph, it was empty. A note waited on the kitchen table.

Luther,

Out doing the good work (we hope). This came for you. A plate in the icebox.

Underneath the note was a tall yellow envelope with his name scrawled on it in his wife’s hand. Given what had just happened the last time he opened an envelope, he took a moment before reaching for it. Then he said, “Ah, fuck it,” finding it strangely guilt-inducing to cuss in Yvette’s kitchen.

He opened it carefully and pulled out two pieces of cardboard that were pressed together and tied off with string. There was a note folded underneath the string and Luther read it and his hands trembled as he placed it on the table and undid the knot to remove the top piece of cardboard and look at what lay underneath.

He sat there a long time. At some point he wept even though he’d never, not in his whole life, known this kind of joy.

Off Scollay Square, he went down the alley that ran alongside Nora’s building and let himself in the green door at the back, which was only locked about 25 percent of the time, this night not being one of them. He stepped quickly to her door and knocked and heard the last sound he would have expected on the other side: giggling.

He heard whispers and “Sssh, sssh,” and he knocked again.

“Who is it?”

“Luther,” he said and cleared his throat.

The door opened, and Danny stood there, his dark hair falling in tangles over his forehead, one suspender undone, the first three buttons of his undershirt open. Nora stood behind him, touching her hair and then smoothing her dress, and her cheeks were flushed.

Danny had a wide grin on his face, and Luther didn’t have to guess what he’d interrupted.

“I’ll come back,” he said.

“What? No, no.” Danny looked back to make sure Nora was sufficiently covered and then he opened the door wide. “Come on in.”

Luther stepped into the tiny room, feeling foolish suddenly. He couldn’t explain what he was doing here, why he’d just gotten up from the kitchen table in the South End and hurried all the way over here, the large envelope under his arm.

Nora came toward him, her arm extended, her feet bare. She had the flush of interrupted sex on her face, but a deeper flush as well, one of openness and love.

“Thank you,” she said, taking his hand and then leaning in and placing her cheek to his. “Thank you for saving him. Thank you for saving me.”

And in that moment he felt like he was home for the first time since he’d left it.

Danny said, “Drink?”

“Sure, sure,” Luther said.

Danny went to the tiny table where Luther had left the fruit just yesterday. There was a bottle there now and four cheap glasses. He poured all three of them a glass of whiskey and then handed Luther his.

“We just fell in love,” Danny said and raised his glass.

“Yeah?” Luther chuckled. “Finally figured it out, uh?”

“We’ve been in love,” Nora said to Danny. “We finally faced it.”

“Well,” Luther said, “ain’t that a pip?”

Nora laughed and Danny’s smile broadened. They raised their glasses and drank.

“What you got under your arm there?” Danny said.

“Oh, oh, this, yeah.” Luther placed his drink down on the tiny table and opened the envelope. Just pulling out the cardboard, his hands trembled again. He held the cardboard in his hands and offered it to Nora. “I can’t explain why I came here. Why I wanted you to see it. I just …” He shrugged.

Nora reached out and squeezed his arm. “It’s all right.”

“It seemed important to show someone. To show you.”