This feels like dangerously slippery terrain. We’re edging along to what Max has hinted at. The great mystery and horror of the Jackson house.
“I’m sure it’s very personal. I don’t want to pry—about your family.”
“They’re your family, too, I suppose? Depending on how you look at it. Biology does matter. It leaves a mark. Nature and nurture, hand in hand.”
“Then tell me.” I take a breath. “About your parents.”
“I haven’t talked about it in years.”
The waitress comes over then, a tired middle-aged woman lacking Ginger’s uniform flare, and I wonder if the moment is lost. She tops off our coffee mugs to the rim.
I order first, and then Elliot says, “Same thing, minus the blueberries.”
As she walks away, he looks over at me and smiles. “Good call on the extra syrup. Even if it’s the fake plastic-tub kind that’s more corn than maple. All delicious in my book. Sugar is sugar.”
Mama would of course passionately disagree. I don’t tell him this.
He takes a minute, fiddles with the top of a creamer container and then sips his coffee black before saying, “I thought we’d be talking about lighter things today. But might as well dig right in. My dad—your biological grandfather—was a drinker. To put it mildly. Always was, even when I was a boy, but it got worse every year. More constant. He was a mean drunk, as drunks tend to be, headstrong and pushy. Had an opinion about everything. And he was never wrong. Never. He found a new reason to scream at my mom every night. She took it. Probably for my sake. I didn’t realize that then, though, and got angry at her for being so weak. Some son I was.”
His eyes are fixed on mine the whole time he talks, but he’s not really looking at me. I could slip away under the booth and he probably wouldn’t notice. He’s looking backward, into the shadows. A time and place he hasn’t thought about in a long time. The expression on his face makes my skin prickle. I asked. I brought this on. This dark, heavy sadness.
“I was fourteen when it happened. It started just like any other fight. I can’t remember what they were yelling about, the snippets I heard over my music. I’d lock myself in my room with Guns N’ Roses blaring every night. Practically shaking my walls. The fight was so loud, though. So angry. Enough to rattle me, and I had a thick skin by then. I remember feeling so scared for my mom—it was just this overwhelming feeling that took over me. Something bad was coming. I knew.” His eyes close, deep wrinkles fanning out from the edges. I can see his age in a new way. He wears his experiences—they’ve left marks, not all invisible. “I watched then, through a crack in my door. They were on the staircase, and Dad was screaming, and for once—for once she was screaming back. He got in her face and she backed away… and her foot slipped, I guess. Missed the next step. There was no stopping her. Or if there was, my dad’s instincts were too dulled from all the booze in his blood. She fell backwards, and…” He puts his hands over his eyes, kneads his fingers into his temples.
There it was. The story.
The Jackson tragedy.
Not a murder. But a woman did die.
“I’m sorry. That must have been terrible.”
“I’m sorry, too.” He lowers his hands. His eyes are damp and red-rimmed. “The cops filed it as an accident. And he didn’t push her—not with his actual hands—I could vouch for that much. But still, it was his fault and we both knew it. We didn’t have any family really, and she’d been kind of a recluse, at least in the end. So, no funeral. Just my dad and me watching her get put in the ground. I probably said ten words to him in the next four years. Then I graduated, and I never looked back. College and then law school and then Philly. I put myself through and the bills were real. That’s why I—why I ended up at the cryobank. You know the rest: I wasn’t dad material.”
“Your dad, old man Jackson, as locals called him. I saw him a few times, growing up—at the grocery store, walking down the road. He didn’t seem to leave the house much. Or talk to anyone when he did. I know he died, but what happened?”
“Drank himself to death. Seven or eight years ago now? Something like that. No funeral for him either. I suspect some townies would have come out of curiosity, but no one actually knew him. No one cared. Even I didn’t mourn. I hadn’t talked to him since I walked out the door at eighteen. He didn’t know I was married. Didn’t know he was a grandfather. Twice over. I thought about calling him the day Max was born, you know. Thought about it. Never did. He didn’t deserve any life updates.” He stares into his nearly empty mug, his knuckles white from gripping it so tight. I take a sip of my own coffee, because I need to do something. Anything. “Anyway,” he starts again. Lifts his mug up and drains the rest of his coffee in one swig. “I hired someone to clear out most things from the house, and that was that. Joanie and I couldn’t decide what to do with it. We talked about leaving the city so many times. Fought about it so many times. I hate that house, I do, but it’s more complicated than that. Work was good, I wasn’t hurting for money. So, it was locked up, put on hold, until we finally decided to move this summer. And here we are.”
I nod. Here we are. But instead of moving on, for some reason I
