“I was thinking of Maureen tonight, that’s all,” he said. “I think of her every day, but sometimes…like that night when you were in that tunnel… God, did that worry me.”
“Who’s Maureen?”
He seemed surprised I didn’t know, then looked down at his coffee. “Was…who was Maureen.”
After a long silence, he told me the story of his missing sister, and how he blamed himself because he had not walked her home that night. He talked of the misery his family had experienced, of the years of waiting for her to return. Of how even the discovery of her remains, while a relief of one kind, hadn’t brought him the peace he had hoped for. He spoke with bitterness over the fact that her murderer had not been caught. He seemed to blame himself for that, too.
I thought of the many times, over the past few months, when we had talked of unidentified bodies and missing persons. Not once had he mentioned Maureen. I realized that not even the loss of Jack could compare with the painfulness of this wound.
“We had been so close,” he said quietly. “I miss her to this day.”
I couldn’t think of a thing to say or do to comfort him. I wanted to hug him, and while in later years that would become a natural part of our friendship, it was not yet. Finally, I said, “When you told me about the way she felt about your work-she was proud of you. I think she still would be proud.”
“Do you?” he asked. “I wonder.”
“I’m sure of it.”
He smiled softly then said, “It’s late, Kelly. Will you call me to let me know you’ve got yourself home safely? Don’t worry you’ll wake me.”
I called him when I got home, thinking of that night when he searched for me along the bluffs, and of his admission tonight that he had been afraid for me. I vowed that if he ever again wanted to see me safely to my door or wanted me to call him when I got home, or check in with him during the day, I would not fight it or refuse to do as he asked. These requests were not, I saw at last, overbearing protectiveness. His fears came out of a devastating loss, one that had haunted him all his life.
At work the next day, thinking of how drunk he had been, I wondered if he would remember telling me about his sister. He drew me aside and said, “I know you heard my sad tale with a kind heart, Irene, so I won’t regret the telling of it. But I have no right to use my sister’s memory in such a way. I would be grateful if we did not speak of it again.”
We never did, directly. We often did, in a thousand other ways.
Neither of us ever forgot Maureen O’Connor.
PART III. LEX TALIONIS
“Did I appeal to the law-I? Does it quench the pauper’s thirst if the king drink for him?”
– MARK TWAIN, Life on the Mississippi
February 2000
51
W HEN THE DOGS STARTED BARKING, FRANK WAS IN THE SHOWER AND I was in the bedroom, getting dressed. I had just pulled my pantyhose up around my knees when the doorbell rang. I glanced at the clock. Seven-thirty on a Wednesday morning. Who the hell was at my door at this hour?
I hastily pulled the pantyhose up the rest of the way, got a big run in them as I quickly put on some shoes, swore, and went to the door. I opened it to see-to my utter surprise-Kenny O’Connor.
Kenny was not the same man who had walked into that cafe all those years ago. He and Barbara had married and divorced, and were talking seriously about remarrying now.
Over those twenty years or so we had all changed to some degree, I suppose, but Kenny’s growing up had been recent. He had received a savage beating at the business end of a baseball bat, a beating that had left doubt about whether he’d live, and, if he survived, whether he’d walk, be able to speak without slurring his words or stop seeing double. The latter two problems cleared up fairly quickly. After years of rehabilitation work, he was walking now, with the help of a cane, and although his features were perhaps not as handsome as they had once been, anyone who had seen him immediately after the beating was now a believer in the wonders of plastic surgery and dental prosthetics.
He still worked in construction, but had been forced to sell his own company to pay medical bills. Now he was employed by O’Malley’s company, as a supervisor. Working for O’Malley had been good for him-better for him, in many ways, than working for himself. These days, Kenny never took his job- or much of anything else-for granted.
“Hi, Irene. Mind if I come in for a minute?”
“Sure, great to see you. I was just about to make breakfast. Have you eaten?”
“Yes-I’ve eaten. But don’t let me hold you up.”
I motioned him inside. “Come and talk to me while I get busy in the kitchen.”
“Is your husband here?”
“Yes, he’s in the shower. Let me tell him you’re here.”
“That’s okay-I came here to talk to you, anyway. I just thought-well, I’ll ask him later.”
He followed me into the kitchen, sat at the counter, and accepted an offer of coffee. He watched while I put a couple of slices of bread in the toaster.
“So, what’s up?” I asked.
“Barbara tell you we’re moving?”
“Yes. A house not too far from here, right?”
“Right. Thought we’d make a fresh start this time around.”
“You’ll like the area,” I said, not commenting on the fresh-start part. I kept trying to make myself forgive him for some of the horrible things he had said to Barbara when he was going through man-o-pause. For fooling around on her. I supposed I should get over it, since obviously she had.
There is a distance between “should forgive” and “have forgiven” that is sometimes hard to cross.
“Well…” he said, then stalled.
I waited. Eventually he started up again. “I have some old stuff of my dad’s. I thought you might like to have it.”
“Stuff of your dad’s? Kenny, I saw what was left of his house when he was…when he died. Everything burned to the ground. You lost everything…right?”
“Yeah, everything.” He fell silent again. The toast popped, and I set it on a plate. Maybe Frank would want it. My appetite was gone.
Deke, one of our big mutts, sidled up to him. “Well,” Kenny said, reaching down to pet her, “you might not remember this, but after Barbara and I separated, I moved back in with my dad. He had filled my old room up with a lot of papers and stuff, and so when I came back home, he dumped it into boxes and carted it all over to this storage place.” He opened his wallet and pulled out a business card and handed it to me.
“U-Keep-It Self-Storage,” I read. I flipped it over. Scrawled on the back, in a hand I would have recognized anywhere, O’Connor had written “#18B.”
“It might just be junk,” Kenny said quickly.
“Haven’t you looked through it?”
He paused, went back to petting Deke, then said in a low voice, “I can’t.”
After a moment, I said, “I understand.”
He nodded, not looking up at me. Dunk, our other dog, saw what he was missing and crowded him on the
