“Rapist,” Amy whispers, breaking my daydream. We watch Mr. Ronan walking his beautiful driveway, a bluebird on the branch of a Japanese maple singing on his American Dream front lawn.
“Do we wait until he’s inside?”
“No. Park the car and let’s go.”
And just like that, we’re commandos, we’re the Justice League of America, we’re Bonnie and Clyde, Mr. Ronan turning as he hears the engine stop, the doors of the Porsche slamming shut. We’re twenty yards away, and he smiles…we must be looking for the Coopers next door, he thinks, though maybe he recognizes us in some layer of his reptile brain because the smile seems to freeze, Amy like a panther as she heads for the driveway. Maybe in that moment when he sees her, twenty years older but still the same girl, he knows that there’s always a time to answer for one’s sins. He turns toward me, his eyes shifting between us, and he must know, the realization must click, his star pupil back from the past, and Michael Rooney is once again Michael Ronan, and Amy’s hand is in her purse, her fingers curled around the hidden handle of a .22.
“Can I help you?” he says, his voice apprehensive. We cross the border of his property, and I can feel it—he knows, he knows it’s us—and what do we do if he breaks into a run? Will Amy turn vigilante and pull the trigger, his blood splattering in raindrops over his perfectly manicured lawn?
And then—a little blonde girl in maroon pants and a yellow-flowered T-shirt comes running from the backyard.
Amy and I freeze, only one thought possible. Sarah Carpenter. If the girl turns around, will she be holding a vanilla ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles and a maraschino cherry?
“Daddy, will you push me on the swing?” she says, and then she sees us, two strangers standing at the lip of her driveway.
Ronan looks at the little girl, looks at us. He knows.
“Daddy,” the little girl says, moving toward him, taking his hand. Except for the blonde hair she looks nothing at all like Sarah, but it is enough. Amy’s hand, empty, slides out of her bag.
“You have the wrong house,” Ronan tells us. “The wrong person.”
His four-year-old daughter looks up at him. “Daddy, who are those people?”
Amy grabs my arm, pulls me close. Turns.
We’re back in the Porsche, twenty miles down the highway, when we both fall apart.
-18-
At the pizzeria Uncle Dan was all business, sorting through documents and cursing at a paper cut as we sat in the booth near the counter. Since nobody ate pizza at 10:30 AM in Holman Beach, not off-season, the place was empty except for the two of us, and Nancy, too, seated at her table in the back, folding napkins with her one hand and humming what sounded like The Blue Danube Waltz.
“Okay, it’s this one,” Uncle Dan said, scanning a page as he pulled it from the stack. “I set it up a few years ago when I was having some chest pains. It’s a basic trust agreement.”
“You never told me you had chest pains.”
“It’s no big deal.”
“Maybe, but I should know about it.”
“Yeah? Last month I had a case of the runs. You want the details?” He handed me the papers, leaning back.
“Fine. But next time, please tell me.”
“I’m not planning on a next time. My heart is fine. But if it’s not …things are in order.”
Legal documents gave me a headache. I leafed through them, catching the highlights, avoiding any paragraph over six lines. The trust had been established for the “well-being and maintenance” of Kathleen Marcino, to provide for her comfort and care for the rest of her life. Its total value shocked me.
“I never realized you had this much money.”
He shrugged. “Some of it are the proceeds from the sale of our parents’ house after they died. Taking anything from those people, for myself, would never happen, but she might need it someday. That’s when I set up the trust. Over the years, I’ve contributed some. It builds up, but if she ever needs extended care, it’ll dry up fast, believe me. There’s also this place…” The Jaybird, of course. “…but that goes to you. I’m hoping you keep it, but if you do sell out, you’ll do okay.”
All this talk about his dying left me nervous. “You’ll be making pizza for another twenty years.”
“Probably,” he nodded. “But I’m tired, you know. And there’s really no reason for you not to stay and be part of this. I’d be happy cutting back my hours. Jorge could step up and run the place, probably, but I’d want you around, too, keeping the Marcino blood in the game. We can arrange the finances anyway you want it. And you’d look after the trust, and Nancy …your mother…once I’m not around anymore to do it myself.”
Neither a question nor a statement, it sounded more like a prayer, something you kept repeating, hoping that with enough recitations it would somehow come true.
“The way I see it, you’ll be sticking around anyway…for her,” he said, meaning Amy.
“I’m not so sure about that.”
Since our encounter with Ronan, Amy and I had barely spoken. On the drive home she had curled in her seat and slept or pretended to. So far she had ignored about thirty texts, and I still had no idea where I stood with Kelly. “I really care about them both. It’s complicated, you
