47
The thought of going back to his house and Claire’s nearly empty room made Mickey want to drink. Not just a couple of pops or whatever it took to get him buzzed and comfortably numb but the entire bottle. He knew the reason behind the urge: he was terrified of being alone.
Big Jim, Mickey knew, was going out for a well-deserved night on the town with his wife. What would he do tonight? When the idea came into his head, he didn’t question it. He dialled the number, feeling a burst of gratitude when Darby picked up.
‘You free tonight? I’m asking because I’d like to take you to dinner. To thank you for everything you’ve done and to apologize for, you know, being somewhat of an asshole.’
‘Somewhat?’ Darby teased.
It surprised him, the grin that spread across his face, how good it felt. Mickey sat with it for a moment.
‘I’m only busting your balls,’ Darby said.
‘I know you are. And thank you for that.’
‘For breaking your balls?’
‘For treating me like I’m a normal human being instead of some sort of freak show. Like I’ve got the plague or something. So, how about it?’
Darby agreed, and had only one condition: she wanted to get out of ‘Bedlam’, which was fine by him. She suggested one of her favourite restaurants in the city, an Italian place called Antonio’s in Beacon Hill. They agreed to meet on the earlier side, at five-ish, to avoid the long wait for a table.
The few memories Mickey had of Boston’s Beacon Hill area were from his early twenties: drunken nights spent running from bar to bar with Big Jim, Heather and some of their other friends. His recollection was that of a brick-lined haven for the elite and the superrich, complete with bad parking and antique lantern streetlights that had been converted from gas to electricity. Beacon Hill seemed small until you actually walked through it and then it resembled a hedge maze, its narrow one-way streets lined with brick sidewalks and tall brick-faced condos and townhouses, the price of one more than the cost of three or four upscale homes in the north side of Belham.
The narrow streets and bad parking still held true, as did all the brick, but the streetlights had been converted to solar power. As Mickey walked across Charles Street, taking in the neighbourhood feel of Beacon Hill, he found himself actually enjoying the winter evening, the distraction of watching people going in and out of stores or on their way to dinner, the college students with backpacks drinking coffee and talking and texting on their phones, parents out pushing strollers.
Antonio’s was small, located right across the street from the entrance to Mass General, and inside it was roughly the size of a large bedroom. It fitted ten tables, all of which were full. He didn’t have to search for Darby: she was sitting in a corner table by the window. She was dressed in the same clothes he’d seen her wearing since she arrived in Belham: nice jeans and a collared white shirt and dark-brown harness boots. A lot of bikers he knew had them, and she wore them well, Mickey thinking how she was the only woman he had known who could dress in something so basic and simple and yet make it look sexy and elegant.
He slid into the chair across from her, Darby smiling – a bit wearily, he thought, like she was in possession of an uncomfortable piece of information.
‘Everything okay?’ he asked.
‘Long day. You?’
He nodded. He had spent the day resurrecting ghosts.
The waiter came by to take their drinks order. Darby ordered a bourbon neat – Knob Creek, the single barrel.
‘Great choice,’ Mickey said, and then surprised himself – and Darby – when he ordered a soda water, which they didn’t have, only sparkling water, which probably came in a fancy bottle and cost more than a pack of cigarettes. He wanted a break from the booze. Not permanently, just for right now – which, in his estimation, proved that he wasn’t an alcoholic.
When the waiter left, Mickey sensed Darby was tense. She lapsed into silence, Mickey getting the feeling she was trying to figure out, exactly, what to talk about, what topics were safe. He didn’t want to talk about himself or his day with Sean. He wanted to get out of his own head for a bit.
‘Why this place?’ he asked.
‘I came here a lot when I lived here.’
‘You lived in the Hill?’
‘Had a condo here for a long, long time.’
‘It was. I miss it.’
‘Why’d you move?’
‘It was time,’ she said.
‘I haven’t been here, Christ, in years. My mother liked to come into the city, especially around Christmas. Back when I was a kid, she’d always take me into the city and we’d go to see the Christmas tree on the Common. After that, she dragged me to this holiday-stroll thing where we’d get a walking history tour of the Hill that always ended up in that square there, you know, the one where the Kennedy family lived once upon a time.’
‘Louisburg Square.’
Mickey snapped his fingers. ‘That’s the one.’
‘Louisa May Alcott lived there too.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Writer from the late 1800s. She wrote Little Women.’
Mickey smiled a bit. ‘I’m pretty sure she read that. My mother was a big reader. Carried books with her everywhere she went. You probably would have liked her.’
‘I’m sure I would have.’
‘And she would have loved to live here – especially Louisburg Square. She loved to –’ Mickey cut himself off, a memory stabbing him.
It must have shown on his face, because Darby said, ‘You don’t have to tell me. I’m not trying to pry.’
‘I know you’re not. Something just occurred to me – something I didn’t realize until now, about our last Christmas together. I remember her walking around Louisburg Square, and the homes there, those big Greek Revival homes, some of the windows facing the street didn’t have the curtains or the shades drawn, and you could look inside, see the people who lived there, catch a glimpse of these enormous Christmas trees. My mother would point them out to me, and I just realized how sad she sounded when she talked. She sounded real sad towards the end, you know, before she left, and I always thought it was because of Sean, being married to him. But now I think she was also sad because she knew she’d never be like one of those people – wouldn’t have nice things.’
‘Not too many people get to live like that.’
‘True,’ Mickey said, but he was thinking about what Sean had told him earlier about how much his mother had loved expensive things. And nothing, and I mean nothing, Sean had told him, got your mother more excited than the topic of money, as in having lots of it.
There was something else he remembered about their last Christmas together – something he’d forgotten, or blocked out, until now. The last time they had come into the city for the Christmas tour, after it ended his mother had lingered around because she said she was waiting for a friend. Mickey remembered how it had surprised him, his mother saying that, because she didn’t have any friends – at least none that she’d spoken about to him. And he remembered how he’d been even more surprised when this friend of his mother turned out to be a man.
Mickey didn’t know the man’s name, or whether his mother had introduced him. He couldn’t recall what the man looked like or how he had been dressed, but Mickey had a vague memory of shaking the man’s gloved hand before he and his mother moved away so they could talk privately, the conversation seeming to go on forever. Mickey felt sure he was recalling an actual memory and not something his mind had constructed to give weight to Sean’s story.
Was this man Timothée?
The waiter came back with their drinks and told them the dinner specials. Darby said they needed a few more minutes. Then she moved her glass to the side, put her elbows on the table and leaned forward.
‘What’s going on?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk about you.’
‘I’d rather talk about what’s bothering you.’
He wanted to talk about it and didn’t want to talk about it. What the hell? he thought, and said, ‘Can I get your opinion on something?’
‘Sure.’ Darby gave him her full attention, another trait he admired, the way Darby could not only listen – but really listen – and make you feel as though you were the most important person in her world, but also actually empathize.
‘Back when we were together,’ he said, ‘I told you about my mother, how she just packed up one day and disappeared, right?’
Darby nodded. ‘You never told me specifics,’ she added.
Mickey started with the day his mother had left and the reasons why she did; took Darby through his conversation with Sean at the prison; and ended with the second letter in Sean’s tool-box, and the lie about St Stephen’s.
‘So now you’re thinking your mother never had any intention of coming home,’ Darby said. Her voice was low, almost fearful, like she was afraid to ask the question.
‘Did Sean go over there and take pictures of my mother with this guy? Yes. Do I now think she was having an affair? Most likely. Do I think my old man tried to talk her into coming home? I highly doubt it. People who cross him disappear. That’s a fact.’
‘True,’ Darby said. ‘Still, we’re talking about your mother here.’
‘The guy lies for a living. It’s as natural to him as breathing.’
‘He was telling the truth about paying for your tuition. You said the priest confirmed it.’
Mickey held up a hand, willing to concede the point. ‘Still, my mother wouldn’t just vanish. If she were alive, she would have written or called, you know? She would have done something. When she disappeared, the police came around. A lot. Sean had those pictures. He knew exactly where she was and who she was with. All he had to do was to hand those pictures and that information over to the police and he’d have been free and clear of any suspicion.’
‘If he had done that, the news would’ve spread through town. What if you’d found out about the affair? Imagine what that would have done to you. How old were you then? Nine? Ten?’
‘Eight,’ he said. ‘I see where you’re going, but I just don’t buy it. This guy is – okay, this one time when I was a kid, around fifteen, I was sitting in the car with Sean, driving through Charlestown, when he suddenly stopped the car, told me to keep my ass parked in it. He reaches under the seat, comes back with a lead pipe and gets out. I find out later this guy was big into debt with one of Sean’s buddies. Guy’s on the ground, crying, begging for his life, saying he’s sorry, and Sean keeps beating the shit out of him. Then Sean gets in the car, acts like nothing happened, like he had just stopped to grab a newspaper, and when we get home he goes and takes a nap.’
‘Mickey, I’m not going to try to suggest your old man isn’t a son of a bitch. He is. What I’m saying is, it’s possible that, instead of showing you the pictures of your mother, he decided to shelter you from the truth.’
‘You honestly believe that?’
‘ “Believe” is the wrong word. I’m only responding to everything you’ve shared with me about him while taking into account his actions. We know he took the pictures of your mother. Maybe he wanted to use them to confront her. Maybe he had plans on showing them to you. Maybe he’s not even sure why he did it, as strange as that may sound. What we do know is that he kept those pictures from you all this time – kept the truth from you. The question is why.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think it’s possible that on some level he believed that having you hate him would be easier than your knowing the truth.’
Mickey felt a sudden exhaustion that seeped all the way into his bones. He rubbed his eyes.
‘Look,’ Darby said. ‘I could have this all wrong. Having a degree in nut-jobs doesn’t mean I know everything about them. What I do know is that people are messy. That’s all I can say with any authority. Good people, healthy people, the sick and the demented – everyone is messy.’
‘What’s your advice?’
‘About my mother. All this time I thought, you know, Sean had done something to her. Buried her somewhere. Because if she were alive, she would have come back for me, like she promised in her letters. At least that’s what I’ve told myself all this time.’
‘And now you want to see if you can find her.’
‘The second letter my mother sent me had an address on the envelope.’
Her expression changed, Darby putting on what he called ‘cop face’ – her features turning flat and her eyes looking empty as she retreated deep within herself. ‘And now you want to see if you can find her.’
‘I take it you don’t think that’s a good idea,’ he said. ‘Trying to find her.’
‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’
‘You’re – what do you shrinks call it? – deflecting?’
‘I’m not. This is a decision you have to make because it affects you. There’s no right or wrong answer. What it comes down to is whether or not you’re ready to open these doors.’
‘Because I might not like what I find.’
‘Or may not find.’
‘I’ve been thinking about that all day,’ Mickey said, nodding. ‘And the thing is, I don’t think I can walk away from this. Actually, that’s wrong. I know I can’t. I need to know what really happened to her. Will you help me, Darby? Will you help me find my mother?’