“You sleeping, Dad?” A small finger pulled open one formerly slumbering eyelid. A wild tousle of hair loomed into view, huge brown eyes and an impish smile glowing out from under the golden brown curls. “Wake up! You’re missing everything!” With that the sleep thief, using his father’s chest as a springboard, leapt from the bed and bounded out of the room.
Mallory blinked the tiny fingerprints out of his eye, then shuffled through his home, stretching a stiff back until he felt a small, relaxing crack along his spine. “More like Pop every day.”
Wandering through the living room, kitchen, and then into the family room, looking for family members, he absently adjusted a family portrait on the near wall, refusing to dwell on its similarity to the one hanging crooked in Bill Hill’s apartment. That’s The Job, this is your life, he chided himself.
Despite his best efforts, the family portrait was always askew. It was never one of the multi-frame pictures adorning the other walls, those of the early days in their Bronx apartment before moving up here to Rockland County, or of the kids as babies, or the one of him in dress blues carrying the boys in the St. Patty’s Day parade two years ago (the only evidence of The Job on any wall in the house). No, it was always this one, his favorite.
The portrait reminded him of that great summer, when everything was perfect. He’d just made detective, they’d recently bought this house, every day the kids were discovering something new. The portrait captured all that for him.
Mallory smiled, staring at it as he did most mornings. They were so perfect in this picture. Gina looked amazing, dark brown hair lustrous in the studio lights, her sensuous Sicilian complexion just a shade darker than his and the kids’. And then there were her eyes. Big, deep, brown. Frank got lost in those eyes, always. Tiny china doll lips curled into an open smile. On her hand shone a simple gold ring. His was visible as well. They still wore them proudly after all these years.
Even he looked sort of okay. The hair had a touch more gray these days, the widow’s peak was a bit higher. The green eyes were warm that day, though they often grew cold, especially on The Job. His jaw and cheeks never had dramatic actor angles, but the mustache and goatee helped define them, lending some much needed coherence to his mug. Not a beauty, but hey, he’s all right.
And the kids. First, the older one, now well into his eighth year. Friends and family irritated Mallory when they called Kieran little Frank. Sure their features were similar, but look at the boy; he was so much more handsome than Frank had ever been. Four at the time of the portrait, Kieran’s creamy Irish skin only hinted at the soft sprinkle of freckles to come. Even then, he had a serious mouth, wide, open-hearted brown eyes, lighter than his mother’s, beaming intelligence. The boy was a good soul, loyal, especially to his little brother, and the Yankees — though not particularly in that order.
While Kieran was serious, Max radiated glee. An outrageous swirl of sweeping curls surrounded clearly Sicilian features. His huge brown eyes, however, shimmered with a leprechaun’s unbridled mirth. That day in the studio, Max wore out the photographer, waving, making faces, unleashing The Laugh, waddling away—
Waddling? God, Max was not even two then—
“MOM! I’ll have some bacon!”
Mallory grinned at Max, he of the wild mane of curls, now six-and-a-half (very big on the “and-a-half” part) and reclining on the couch, remote in hand, watching cartoons; the king of all he surveyed. “What, I can’t make you bacon?”
“Nah. You don’t cook it right. Only Mom.”
“Mom barely cooks the bacon at all. She’s got you eating raw meat.”
“That’s enough from you, or you don’t get any.” Gina entered, the relaxed, sensual smile in her huge, brown eyes cutting through early morning sleepiness. She crossed to Max, ruffling his outrageous hair. “And what else may I fetch you, my lord?”
Max giggled his answer. “Pink lemonade.”
“Bacon and pink lemonade, breakfast of champions.” Mallory followed Gina to the kitchen. He picked up a Fruit Roll-Up wrapper one of the kids had left on the dinette table, tossed it in the garbage under the sink. “We need to update that portrait, hon.”
“Yeah, okay.” He bent into the fridge.
“Max was just waddling back then.”
Gina straightened, a package of bacon in her hand. “Wow, I didn’t… Okay, fine. When do you want to do it?”
“Tomorrow? Nothing happening then.”
Gina looked at him with an empathy usually reserved for the mentally challenged. “We have work. They have school.”
“After that.”
“I have to get Kieran new sneakers.”
“We got him sneakers last month.”
She took out a large frying pan with ridges. “He’s outgrown them already.”
“Damn. What are you feeding these kids?”
“Raw bacon, apparently.”
“Told you it was a problem.”
She placed four strips into the pan, giving him a chuckle. “You’re off on Wednesday. How’bout then? Sears has a sale.”
“Spy Wednesday? Can we wear disguises and look suspicious? How about Holy Thursday? We can pose like we’re getting our feet washed.”
Gina laughed in soft, deep breathy tones that made him want to carry her back to bed. “Can you remember Wednesday?”
Mallory rummaged through the utensil drawer for a knife and fork. “Got it. Where’s the other king?”
“He’s still in bed. Watching”—
As if on cue, a voice from across the house shouted, “You STINK!”
“Sportscenter.”
Mallory headed toward the bellow. “Sounds like the Yanks lost.”
The boys’ room was a shrine to the Bronx Bombers. Yankee blue adorned the bottom half of the walls, with white up top, a pinstriped border of their logos at midpoint, pulling it all together. Jeter and team posters covered most of the white, with Pokemon and several Robin the Boy Wonder pictures defiantly staking claim to Max’s territory.
Kieran lay on the top bunk, staring at a small television across the room, wearing a frown that seemed to stretch across his entire body.
“What’s the matter, buddy?”
“Jeter dropped a ball. And the stinking Sportcenter guys showed it. Twice. It’s not fair. They’re mean!”
“Jeter’s doing fine. He’s made a few errors lately, but —“
“Jeter doesn’t make errors, Dad!”
“Everybody makes them, Kier. Errors are just mistakes. I make mistakes, right?”
“But you’re just Dad. You’re not Jeter.”
Gina giggled from behind Mallory.
Mallory shrugged. “Apparently the hierarchy goes Jeter, God, you, Max, everyone else in Major League Baseball including the peanut salesmen, then me.”
Gina caressed Kieran’s arm, patted his ever-present, oversized batting glove. “You know, usually they show Jeter making a great play.”
Kieran sat up. “Yeah!”
“We’ll have to see if they show him making one in today’s game.”
The beautiful face grew serious. “Actually, he should because today they play at The Stadium. Facing the Detroit Tigers, who are struggling lately due to injuries.”
Mom smiled at Kieran, he smiled back, and the world was whole again. “You’re so smart,” she whispered. “Now you get dressed and I’ll bring your cereal right in.”
Gina moved quickly, as she usually did in the morning. Kieran climbed out of bed behind her, starting to remove his Spider-Man pajamas. The television broke for a commercial, “This is Bob….”
Mallory recognized the male enhancement ad, frowned; can’t a kid just watch his hero play baseball? Mallory used the remote to switch to the Yankee station. “They’ll show better Jeter stuff here, bud.” The boy became instantly absorbed in pinstripe lore.
Mallory hurried after Gina, through the Italian living room (the kind where every detail is painstakingly micromanaged until the room looks magnificent, then no one is allowed to use it except on Christmas morning). “Breakfast in the bedroom? My Mom never let me have breakfast in the bedroom. Are we spoiling them?”
“They like to watch different things in the morning. It’s important to let them start their day without agita.”
“Then we shouldn’t let him watch ESPN.”
“Usually they show good stuff about the Yankees. Besides, he loves any kind of sports. The other day I saw him watching women’s college softball.”
“I need to have a long talk with that boy.”
The phone rang. Only two people called this early in the morning: Frannie, Gina’s teacher’s aide, or the Lieu. He hoped it was Frannie.
The ring cut through the house again. An all too familiar and never welcome tightening of his stomach told him not to answer it. I’ll spring for a shopping trip if it’s you, Frannie.
It wasn’t Frannie.