“You can’t just leave me here,” I said, turning. Her breath was warm against my neck as she leaned closer, her lips brushing the side of my cheek.
“Please don’t follow,” she whispered. “This is hard for me, too.”
She caressed the back of my hair, and then she was gone, the echo of her footsteps diminishing as I closed my eyes and counted each step until all I could hear was the steady white noise of the air conditioning.
I sat there feeling sorry for myself for another ten minutes, then walked around the museum, trying to shake off enough lethargy to make the drive home. As I wandered through the exhibits, too distracted to focus, most of the paintings passed unnoticed, except for one: a Roy Lichtenstein that captured it perfectly, a hand dominating a stark red background, an angry finger pointing straight at the viewer, the accusation clear: it’s your fault.
-14-
I didn’t know what else to do, so I started making pizza.
One good thing about Uncle Dan: he never tried to get inside your head. If you showed up at The Jaybird wearing a vicious scowl, refusing to say a damn thing except “hello” while you tied on your old apron and starting kneading dough, he wouldn’t ask you what the hell was wrong; he’d just tell you about the order for twelve large pies due in forty-five minutes and let Jorge, his helper, knock off early. (No worries, Jorge, you’ll still get paid for a full day’s work.) He didn’t ask about Kelly or what I’d been up to since I’d last seen him. It was all “hurry up with that dough” and “pass the minced garlic” and “can you believe this clown wants pepperoni with a white spinach and mushroom?” Maybe it had something to do with Vietnam, or maybe that was just his DNA. Growing up, it had mostly worked. Instead of a helicopter parent, he was more like a field scout observing the terrain of my adolescence through telescopic field glasses. Once a week, usually Sunday, as if he’d written it on a calendar, he’d look me over and ask, “Everything okay?” A simple “yep, I’m fine” would end the discussion, and we’d go back to making pizza or watching TV. Now I wondered if his hands-off approach had doomed Amy to a similar treatment from me. When her drinking became a problem, I never thought to ask why. It had seemed normal; half our high school got drunk or stoned every day. But I should have asked questions.
I was just a kid, I thought, but it didn’t fly. If I was smart enough to win all those Young Playwright awards, I should have sensed that something was wrong. I grabbed an onion and chopped the hell out of it, the knife blade mincing the layers down to the pearl of its core.
Suddenly the phone buzzed, a generic ring tone I didn’t recognize but hoped was Amy or Kelly calling from a different number. Instead it was Cobb, the lawyer.
“We couldn’t find a death certificate,” he said, “because your man is still alive.”
I made him repeat it.
“He’s alive and well and living in Ohio,” Cobb said. “There’s a name change involved. Your man is now Michael Rooney, but it’s definitely him. These things are easy to chase down if you know where to look, and like I said, Sharon is the best. He’s a real estate broker, which means licenses in three states, and a very clear paper trail. Doing well financially, from what we can see. If you still want a copy of the death certificate, it’ll be a while. Maybe twenty-five years.” He chuckled. “Should I set up a retainer?”
So Amy was right—Clyde had been lying. Mr. Ronan was still alive.
In a fog, I thanked Cobb, who said he’d email me the search results along with the bill. I slipped the phone back into my pocket and started slicing pepperoni and dicing tomatoes, my hands switching to automatic pilot as I strangled clumps of dough into fist-sized knots. Mr. Ronan was still alive. I smashed the mozzarella against the grater, grinding it back and forth as ribbons of cheese oozed through the other side. Still alive. I thought about that cigarette I’d seen in Amy’s driveway the night of the shooting. It had been twenty years, but Mr. Ronan had smoked. My body tingled, as if every cell needed to escape.
The only thing that saved me was a take-out order for a roast beef and capacola sub I needed to assemble. I’d once heard Uncle Dan tell Father Toby there was no better way to work through PTSD than time in the kitchen with a take-out order due in ten minutes. “Everything fades, and your body goes to work.”
Mr. Ronan is alive.
Okay, I thought. I’d only found out he’d died three days ago. This was a reset, nothing more. But what would I tell Amy?
My mind rushed around, connecting dots. I sliced a pound and a half of roast beef before snapping out of it.
I was wrapping up the sub when I heard some familiar voices out by the counter.
“There’s a sign on the boardwalk,” Maddie said. “No one’s allowed on the beach after sunset. What if we get arrested? It screws up financial aid.”
“I don’t care. Do I look like some college application zombie? We’re artists, Maddie. We’re the mad ones.”
I popped the sub into a paper sack and walked up front. Jill’s Ginsberg reference felt like a pinch; Amy’s old copy of “Howl” must have found its way to her daughter, who sounded exactly like her mother during her “I’m with you in Rockland, Carl Solomon!” phase. Jill, Maddie, and a thin, pale girl in a baggy, polka-dot dress stood by the counter checking out the slices. Uncle Dan, relieved to dodge all that young estrogen, stepped aside so I could help them.
“Well,
