Yes, Dad is at bat for all of us, no doubt.
Michael’s dark brown hair and freckled cheeks remind me of Ray before he began to blame himself for the faults of circumstance and chance, before he punished himself with alcohol and paid for his grief with time served.
The kid just needs one good thing to turn it all around.
After a few minutes, Ray starts the engine and pulls away from his son. He doesn’t speak again until we pull up in front of an apartment building four or five blocks away.
“It’s in this one,” Ray says, and his voice is rushed and weird. “It’s near the school he attends and not far from where Nicole works. They like to eat at that pizza place just over there, and now that I see the park, I know I made the right choice.”
I turn my head slowly, sneaking a look at him.
“Ray,” I say carefully, speaking to him like he’s a child or a mental patient. “Do you miss prison this much?”
“No,” he answers, confused.
“Then I suggest you drive back over to the park and say hello.”
“What if she doesn’t want me to?” He looks at me, not like my scary and tortured older brother, but like a man desperate for answers to the questions he doesn’t even know to ask.
“She wouldn’t have told you about Michael if she didn’t want you to come around.”
“Maybe she just wants money,” he says and breaks his hand loose from mine.
“Ray, sweetie,” I say. “She likely heard about Dad getting sick and had one of those good old-fashioned changes of heart. Now drive back over to the park and say hello.”
Ray drives me back home instead.
◆ ◆ ◆
Ray didn’t come home from his first year at college until Christmas. He had wanted to join the Marines, but Dad told him to go to school for a year and think about it. Dad was afraid the service might just be a way for Ray to skip town—to go off some place where someone would yell and punish him for all the things they didn’t even know he held himself accountable for. Dad was afraid that Ray would get stupid and jump in front of bullet and die with a smile on his face, thinking himself even.
But Ray was eighteen and determined to begin his descent into self-destruction. He came home that winter with a tattoo of the devil on his shoulder, fire shooting from its mouth and running down the length of Ray’s arm. Mom cried; Dad asked if it was real and when Ray answered yes, simply shook his head and went back to the newspaper. I asked if it hurt, for lack of knowing what else to say.
“Not enough,” Ray had said.
Lola ran her hand across it like she was touching something beautiful and delicate. She kissed the devil on his fire-breathing mouth. Ray looked at her, his face hard and jaw clenched, but for one moment something pained and yet relieved flickered in his eyes. Later, Lola sketched a replica of the tattoo and hung it in her room.
By the time Lola attended the same college Ray had gone too, his arms were covered in ink and his eyes were empty. He dropped out before he finished, got arrested a number of times, and spent more nights in jail than he had spent days in class.
He visited Lola at school a few times. When he did, she would call me, two states over where I was in school. I wanted to see Ray, but I used the distance as an excuse not to. I was afraid to see what he had become.
I remember one of the first times Ray had stormed out of the house, leaving the rest of us to wonder if he’d be back. I remember Dad sitting on the floor outside Ray’s room. I watched him through a compact mirror I held out around the corner. I could see him in the little circle of silver. He was whispering, and then he made the sign of the cross. We hadn’t been to church in years. I looked at my Hello Kitty clock. It was three in the morning. I heard Ray’s car in the driveway and Dad jumped to his feet. Now there were just legs in the mirror. They started back down the hall to my parents’ room, and then they returned.
The car door shut. The front door opened. I saw legs turn in a circle of indecision. I tilted the mirror up and saw hands ball into a fist, then relax. I heard the whispering again and tilted the mirror back to his legs so that I wouldn’t see his hands cross over his chest again.
I heard Ray walking down the hall. His footsteps were loud and heavy like he could break the house down one step at a time. I saw his legs stop beside Dad’s, and I tilted the mirror up, up, trying to find their faces. Dad reached out to Ray, tried to put his hand on Ray’s arm. Ray jerked away.
“You’re drunk,” Dad had said.
“I’m back,” Ray nearly spat the words out. “So don’t give me a hard time.”
“Give me the keys,” Dad said, his voice as angry as his fear would allow.
“They’re on the kitchen table.” Ray reached for the doorknob.
“Apologize to your mother in the morning,” Dad said.
“Why? She doesn’t even know I was gone.” Ray opened the door and disappeared.
I tilted the mirror up again and could see the side of Dad’s face. His lips were moving, but there was no sound. He slid out of view. I moved the mirror around, looking for him. Down, to the left, down and over. He was sitting on the floor beside the door to Ray’s room with his hands over his face, his shoulders shaking.
10
I reluctantly drop off Cassie at Jack’s office. Another weekend with her dad. I want to say something, but I’m well aware that the less
