He’d grown a beard and dropped out of college. He no longer communicated with Raela’s parents (that’s how he began to think of Kronin and Maya). Doris drank too much sometimes, and when she did she got rowdy. But Michael said that he loved her, and Raela spent weekends with them once a month.
“It’s been a long journey, Tommy,” Minas said, holding up a glass of cognac. “But I think you’ve made it through.”
They all drank and cheered.
Raela played the piano for them, and Ahn sang a Vietnamese song that she remembered from her youth before coming to America.
Sometime late in the evening, Eric took his brother into the garden.
Eric seemed older. There could often be seen a slight smile on his lips. His shoulders sagged slightly, and he paid a lot of attention to people around him.
“You think you’ll marry Clea?” Eric asked.
“She’s too young,” Thomas said. “She just wants to go to school and have some fun.”
“Will you live together?”
“Yeah. Maybe we’ll get a place near Fontanot’s or some kinda student housing thing.”
Eric put his arms around Thomas, kissed his cheek, and whispered, “You’re my brother, Tommy.”
Thomas went to bed happy and fell into a dream.
He was in his alley valley again, and all the trash was gone.
No Man and his wife were in the oak tree with a dozen parrot chicks crying for food. Skully was there and so was Pedro.
Bruno was sitting on the other side of the fence reading a Fantastic Four comic. Thomas was sitting in the shade of the big oak watching the sun creep across the floor of the alley 3 0 0
F o r t u n a t e S o n
toward his feet. He was feeling completely relaxed when the surface he was sitting on started to shift.
He jumped up and realized that he was sitting on Alicia’s tomb. The head cinder block fell away, and Alicia sat up. At first Thomas was happy to see his old friend come to life, but then he noticed that the tattoo on her left breast no longer read
“Don’t touch me,” Alicia said in a voice much like his mother’s.
He wanted to obey, but his hands moved forward with a will of their own, and even though she screamed, his fingertips grazed her neck. Instantly she fell back dead. An earthquake shook the alley. Tall buildings that had never been there before began to fall. No Man flew away, and the oak toppled upon Bruno — Thomas came awake unable to breathe, unable to yell, but the shout was in his throat.
“ H e l lo ? ” E ri c sa i d, answering the call. It was 3:27.
“Eric.”
“What, Tommy?”
“If something bad happens I want you to tell Clea that I really love her.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen, Tommy.”
“And I want you to know how grateful I am for you going back East with me and helping me.”
“What’s wrong?” Eric asked.
“I just had a dream. But it was really real. Everything went wrong all at once. The whole world fell apart in a earthquake.”
“You remember what you told me about the moon, don’t you?”
Thomas took a deep breath, another.
3 0 1
Wa l t e r M o s l e y
“Yeah, but . . . things have been goin’ so good, Eric. A whole year now and nothin’s wrong.”
“That’s okay, Tommy. You just had it bad, that’s all. Bad things might happen again but not so bad that you won’t be happy.”
“No?”
“It was just a dream. Just a dream.”
“Just a dream,” Thomas echoed. He could feel the sleep returning behind his eyes.
“Go back to bed, man,” Eric said. “It’ll all be fine in the morning.”
But Th omas was upset all day at work. He knocked over a steel smoker filled with chickens. He cut himself in the afternoon, and if it wasn’t for the fast work of Michael Cotter he might have lost a lot of blood.
At the end of the day, when Michael was driving him back, Thomas said, “You should have turned left.”
“Aren’t we gonna have that toast? There’s this great bar I know on Little Santa Monica.”
“I don’t know, Mike,” Thomas said. “I don’t feel much like celebrating.”
“Aw come on, Lucky. It was just a can’a chickens and a slip. You’re gonna be fine.”
