Expiration Date

“I totally know you do.”

“You’re being silly.”

I turned to Meghan.

“She totally smokes.”

“I do not smoke.”

Mom excused herself anyway to go downstairs to smoke. In a few moments we would hear the wrinkling of the wrapper, then the flick of the lighter. And in a few minutes we would all smell cigarette smoke.

I explained to Meghan, not bothering to lower my voice.

“Both of my mom’s parents died of lung cancer. She wants me to think that she quit smoking in 1990, when her father died. And I really do think she tries to quit. She just never has.”

Whiplash was clearly uncomfortable with this, so he made some small talk with Meghan. Once he found out her father was the Nicholas Charles, the small talk became more pointed, asking what her father was working on now, and hey, does he go to the Capital Grille every so often, and hey, is your dad looking to hire oh I’m just kidding but really I’m not.

My mom returned to the kitchen, absolutely reeking of smoke. It wafted from her clothes and invaded our nostrils. I fought back the urge to sneeze. We all sat down to eat.

Within sixty seconds Whiplash had whipped through his dinner. Then he stood up and wordlessly made his way down to his basement office. But not before giving my mom a none-too-subtle pinch on her ass.

The plates in front of Meghan and me were still full, as we hadn’t had time to pretend to enjoy more than a few bites of our rigatoni and meatballs. My mom leaned in closer to us, all confidential-like.

“He’s working on a case.”

I leaned in, too.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Whiplash spent a lot of time in Northwood, but he’d never move here. Going from suburbia to Northwood would be serious slumming, even for a personal injury lawyer. So he kept his own condo in Ardmore, but spent most of his time at my mom’s house.

“More wine?”

“I’m good, Mrs. Wade.”

“Hey, I told you. It’s Anne. We’re all adults here.”

“Right. Anne.”

Bringing Meghan had been a tactical decision. With a buffer in the room, my mom might not come at me with both barrels blazing. She might even be forced to answer a question or two directly.

“Mom, what do you know about Grandpop and the Adams Institute?”

The fork in my mother’s hand froze for a brief moment, like the fancy slow-mo bullet time of a Wachowski flick. She smiled.

“That’s where I thought I’d end up when you told me you wanted to be a writer.”

And then the fork completed the journey to her mouth, which chewed and grinned at the same time.

The Adams Institute was a popular punch line in Frankford. Misbehave, and your parents would say, “You’re going to drive me straight to Adams if you don’t knock that off.” Or, “Where we going on vacation, Mom?” “To Adams, if you don’t stop goofing around.” Adams was the loony bin. It was the most beautiful piece of land in Frankford, spread across ten gorgeous acres on the fringes of Northwood. But nobody wanted to end up there.

Meghan laughed politely.

“How many years did Mickey’s grandfather work there?”

Oooh, kapowie. Anne hadn’t seen that one coming. She was very practiced at smacking away my questions. She had since I was a kid. But the two-on-one assault had left her flummoxed.

“Oh, gee. I think he retired a few years ago? We really don’t talk too much. You know your grandpop, Mickey.”

I took a slug of Johnny Walker Black for courage.

“How long before Grandpop found out Billy Derace was there?”

You should have seen the death stare on Anne’s face then. My God. Blue eyes like dagger icicles.

“Billy who?”

“Mom. The guy who killed dad.”

“Excuse me.”

My mom pushed her chair back, wiped her mouth with a white napkin, placed it on the table, then left the room.

Meghan and I exchanged glances. I took another gulp of Whiplash’s good scotch, which burned my throat as I followed my mom into the kitchen.

My mother’s palms were pressed to the edges of the countertop. I didn’t know if she was trying to keep her balance or keep the counter from resisting the earth’s gravity and floating into the air.

“Mom?”

She looked up. Tears were running down her cheeks. I had the strangest sense of deja vu. Wasn’t I just here—my mother looking at me and crying? Like, thirty-seven years ago?

My mom wiped her face dry.

“You don’t understand. For years I’ve been waiting for the call that your grandfather’s murdered someone over at Adams.”

“Not just someone. Billy Derace. Why didn’t you ever tell me the truth? You said it was a bar fight. But this guy just attacked Dad out of nowhere. I read the news clips.”

“When would you have liked to know? When you were nine years old? Or maybe when you turned sixteen? Twenty-one, just in time for you to go out drinking?”

“Any of those times would have been better than you lying to me.”

“I never lied to you. You assumed things.”

This was true. I had filled in the gaps. But only because I’d never heard the full story, and had little else to go on. My mother was masterful at shutting down awkward conversations or ignoring them completely.

I tried a different way at it.

“I found a bunch of newspaper clippings that Grandpop kept—all about Dad’s murder. I think he saved every newspaper article, and even got a copy of the police report.”

“Well, that’s a surprise. Your father hated your grandfather and always assumed the feeling was mutual. Who knew he gave a shit.”

It was always that. Your grandfather. Your side of the family. Your gene pool, not mine.

“Why did he hate Grandpop?”

“It’s a long story, and we have a guest.”

Now it was “we.” Now I was part of the family again. Our weird dysfunctional family of two.

“Okay, now here’s what I don’t get. You don’t like him. That much is obvious. You never speak to him, you barely seem to tolerate his existence, and yet you’re always bugging me to visit him. You put me in his friggin’ apartment, Mom. Why would you push me toward somebody you hate? Somebody you tell me my own father hated?”

“Because he doesn’t have anybody else.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“And because someday he might wake up. And the doctors say if he does wake up, he’s going to need some help. I can’t do it, not with work. You’re his grandson.”

Then I understood what my mom had wanted all along. A way to ease her conscience. A way to take care of everything. Me. And my grandpop.

That is: me taking care of my grandpop. Because she sure as hell didn’t want to deal with him.

We didn’t say anything for a short while. I knew Meghan could hear every word of this. My mother’s house, as spacious as it may be by Northwood standards, wasn’t a Main Line McMansion.

“Why did Dad hate Grandpop? Was it because of the divorce?”

“I should have never brought that up.”