RONAN
I slept for fifteen hours after leaving Dom and Attalah down at the boat launch. After Attalah took my heart in her hands and ripped it in half.
Not that she was wrong. That’s why the breaking hurt so bad. Why I slept for so long. Why I would have slept forever if I could, or stopped breathing altogether.
My ticket was bought. By 7:00 P.M. Winter Fest would be under way, and I’d be on a southbound train speeding under the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, returning to my real life. For a glorious couple of months I’d been able to convince myself that this was my real life, this was my place, but that couldn’t be true. Attalah was right. Someone as twisted up inside as me could do nothing but damage here. My accidental white savior act had ruined everything. I’d had a dream that I belonged somewhere, and it was a wonderful dream. But now I had to wake up.
I packed. The suits and nice shirts I’d bought—I left them on the floor. They belonged to that other Ronan, the one who could move in the same circles as the obscenely rich. Who could smile in their faces, shake their hands, drink their single-malt scotch. Trick them. Manipulate them. Make them fall screaming into his traps.
My father still wasn’t in his recliner. I made coffee, enough for two. Set out our mugs.
Could you break a power of attorney? Or sign it over to someone else? I’d give it to Margie if I could. Hand her a chunk of Jark’s blood money. Too late to get the butcher shop back; too late to stop the Renaissance from snapping the spine of whatever was left of the Old Hudson. I’d have to live with that. Another thing Attalah was right about: even if the Pequod Arms were folded forever, we couldn’t stop what was coming. Not without horrific violence, or unthinkable effort exerted by both sides.
“Dad?” I asked, knocking on his bedroom door.
No answer. I pressed my ear to the door.
Wind whistled. I dropped to my knees, pressed my fingers to the floor. Freezing.
I jumped up, tried the door. Locked.
“Dad!” I cried, and pounded hard against it.
Here’s a thing I never thought I could do: break down a door. But I did it. Rammed my body into it as hard as I could, three or four times. Fucked my shoulder up something fierce. Door didn’t budge. So I got a hammer and broke the doorknob off, then hammered the lock all the way out. Door swung in.
Window wide open. Drift of snow on the sill. So cold in there I could see my breath.
“Dad?” I whispered, waiting for my eyes to adjust, knowing he wasn’t there.
His bed was made. The way he used to make it—folded corners, turned-down bedspread—not the simple spread sheet and flattened spread that Marge favored. I checked in the closet, and under the bed, but he wasn’t anywhere.
I called Margie. It went to voice mail. I hung up.
Beeps from the kitchen: the coffee was ready. I poured myself a mug—my father’s—and plopped myself down in his recliner. Sat there in despair for ninety seconds and then dialed her number again.
Margie, please, I said in my message. Call me back? It’s Ronan. Whatever you did with my dad—I just, I need to know he’s okay. Okay? Just call me to tell me he’s okay.
I was halfway through that pot of coffee when the doorbell rang. I leapt up, ran to it. Yanked it open, all eager idiot optimism, so that my right shoulder screeched in agony.
“Hi, Ronan,” Attalah said.
“What’s up?” I asked—suspicious, hopeful.
“Can I come in?” she asked. “I wanted to tell you something.”
“Sure,” I said, stepping aside. “Did you want coffee? I just made some.”
“No, thank you,” she said, her heavy body pressing against mine as she navigated the narrow space. “I’m sorry, Ronan. I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, Attalah,” I said, but I only had a split second for euphoria—Everything is okay! She forgives me! We can be a family again! I’ll never touch her husband again but the three of us will be best friends and we’ll go bowling and on photo shoots and to the diner and we’ll fight the power and be together forever here in our city, our home, our life—astonishing how many words a desperate human brain can manage in a split second—before I saw that she wasn’t sorry for what she’d said down at the waterfront. She was sorry for what she was doing now, pushing me hard against the door and clamping a wet handkerchief to my mouth. Tastes like bitter fruit, I thought, and then I didn’t think anything.