Somehow she had managed to fit a Weber grill, a pair of sanded wrought-iron chairs, and a small table on it.
In the two years since Byrne had seen Melanie Devlin, she had gained thirty pounds or so. She wore a yellow short set-stretch shorts and a horizontal-striped tank top-but it was not a cheerful yellow. It was not the yellow of daffodils and marigolds and buttercups. It was instead an angry yellow, a yellow that did not welcome the sunshine but rather attempted to drag it into her shattered life. Her hair was short, perfunctorily cut for summer. Her eyes were the color of weak coffee in the midday sun.
Now in her midforties, Melanie Devlin had accepted the burden of sorrow as a constant in her life. She did not fight it any longer. Sadness was her mantle.
Byrne had called and said he was in the neighborhood. He had told her nothing further.
'You sure you can't stay for dinner?' she asked.
'I have to get back,' Byrne said. 'But thanks for the offer.'
Melanie was preparing ribs on the grill. She poured a good amount of salt into her palm, sprinkled it on the meat. Then repeated it. She looked at Byrne, as if to apologize. 'I can't taste anything anymore.'
Byrne knew what she meant. He wanted to establish a dialogue, though, so he responded. If they chatted for a while, it would make it easier to tell her what he had to tell her. 'What do you mean?'
'Since Gracie… died, I lost my sense of taste. Crazy, huh? One day, it just disappeared.' She dumped more salt on the ribs, quickly, as if in penance. 'Now I have to put salt on everything. Ketchup, hot sauce, mayonnaise, sugar. I can't taste food without it.' She waved a hand at her figure, explaining her weight gain. Her eyes began to swell with tears. She wiped them away with the back of a hand.
Byrne remained silent. He had observed so many people deal with grief, each in their own way. How many times had he seen women clean their houses over and over after a loss to violence? They fluffed the pillows endlessly, made and remade the beds. Or how many times had he seen men wax their cars beyond reason, or mow their lawns every day? Grief stalks the human heart slowly. People often feel that, if they remain in motion, they might outrun it.
Melanie Devlin stoked the briquettes on the grill, closed the lid. She poured them both a glass of lemonade, sat on the tiny wrought-iron chair opposite him. Someone a few houses down was listening to a Phillies game. They fell silent for a while, feeling the punishing heat of the afternoon. Byrne noticed that Melanie was not wearing her wedding ring. He wondered if she and Garrett had divorced. They certainly wouldn't be the first couple ripped apart by the violent death of a child.
'It was lavender,' Melanie finally said.
Excuse me?
She glanced at the sun, squinted. She looked back down, spun the glass in her hands a few times. 'Gracie's dress. The one we buried her in. It was lavender.'
Byrne nodded. He hadn't known this. Grace's service was closed- casket.
'Nobody got to see it, because she was… you know,' Melanie said. 'But it was very pretty. One of her favorites. She was fond of lavender.'
Suddenly it occurred to Byrne that Melanie knew why he was there. Not exactly why, of course, but the tenuous thread that bound them- the death of Marygrace Devlin-had to be the reason. Why else would he stop by? Melanie Devlin knew that this visit had something to do with Gracie, and probably felt that if she talked about her daughter in the gentlest of manners, it might ward off any further pain.
Byrne carried that pain in his pocket. How was he going to find the courage to take it out?
He sipped his lemonade. The silence became awkward. A car rolled by, its stereo blasting an old Kinks song. Silence again. Hot, empty, summer silence. Byrne shattered it with what he had to say. 'Julian Matisse is out of prison.'
Melanie looked at him for a few moments, her eyes stripped of emotion. 'No he's not.'
It was a flat, even statement. For Melanie, saying it made it so. Byrne had heard it a thousand times. It wasn't as if the person had misunderstood. It was a stall, as if making the statement might cause it to be true, or, given a few seconds, the pill might become coated or smaller.
'I'm afraid so. He was released two weeks ago,' Byrne said. 'His conviction is being appealed.'
'I thought you said that-'
'I know. I'm terribly sorry. Sometimes the system…' Byrne trailed off. There really was no explaining it. Especially to someone as scared and angry as Melanie Devlin. Julian Matisse had killed this woman's only child. The police had arrested the man, the courts had tried him, the prisons had taken him and buried him in an iron cage. The memory of it all-although never far from the surface-had begun to fade. And now it was back. It wasn't supposed to be this way.
'When is he going back?' she asked.
Byrne had anticipated the question, but he simply did not have an answer. 'Melanie, a lot of people are going to be working very hard on that. I promise you.'
'Including you?'
The question made the decision for him, a choice with which he'd been wrestling since he'd heard the news. 'Yes,' he said. 'Including me.'
Melanie closed her eyes. Byrne could only imagine the images playing out in her mind. Gracie as a little girl. Gracie in her junior high school play. Gracie in her casket. After a few moments, Melanie stood up. She seemed unhooked in her own space, as if she might float away at any second. Byrne stood up, too. It was his cue to leave.
'I just wanted to make sure you heard it from me,' Byrne said. 'And to let you know that I'm going to do everything I can to get him back where he belongs.'
'He belongs in hell,' she said.
Byrne had no argument to answer this.
They stood facing each other for a few uncomfortable moments. Melanie put out her hand to shake. They had never hugged-some people simply didn't express themselves that way. After the trial, after the funeral, even when they said goodbye on that bitter day two years earlier, they had shaken hands. This time, Byrne decided to chance it. He did it as much for Melanie as himself. He reached out and gently pulled her into his arms.
At first, it appeared as if she might resist, but then she fell into him, her legs all but quitting her. He held her closely for a few moments-she sits in Gracie's closet with the door closed for hours and hours on end she talks baby talk to Gracie's dolls she has not touched her husband in two years- until Byrne broke the embrace, a little shaken by the images in his mind. He made his promises to call soon.
A few minutes later, she walked him through house to the front door. She kissed him on the cheek. He left without another word.
As he drove away, he looked in the rearview mirror one last time. Melanie Devlin stood on the small front stoop of her row house, watching him, her heartache born anew, her cheerless yellow outfit a cry of anguish against a backdrop of callous red brick.
He found himself parked in front of the abandoned theater where they had found Gracie. The city flowed around him. The city didn't remember. The city didn't care. He closed his eyes, felt the icy wind as it cut across the street that night, saw the fading light in that young woman's eyes. He had grown up Irish Catholic, and to say he was lapsed was an understatement. The destroyed human beings he had encountered in his life as a police officer had given him a deep understanding of the temporary and brittle nature of life. He had seen so much pain and misery and death. For weeks he had wondered if he was going to go back on the job or take his twenty and run. His papers were on the dresser in the bedroom, ready to be signed. But now he knew he had to go back. Even if it was for just a few weeks. If he wanted to clear Jimmy's name, he would have to do it from the inside.
That evening, as darkness embraced the City of Brotherly Love, as the moonlight crested the skyline, and the city wrote its name in neon, Detective Kevin Francis Byrne showered and dressed, slid a fresh magazine into his Glock, and stepped into the night.
6
Sophie Balzano, even at the age of three, was a bona fide fashion maven. Granted, when left to her own
