Three months later, I boarded the express train at Wilmington Station with a round-trip ticket to DC. It reminded me of my days in the Senate, except the train was leaving at ten thirty instead of before dawn.
I’d awakened early to do my morning run with Jill. I couldn’t keep pace with her, but I was getting closer. My knee still hobbled me a bit. An MRI over the summer revealed an ACL tear. If I was a professional athlete or under the age of forty, they would have reconstructed my knee. For someone my age, the best they could do was prescribe a regimen of ice, forced rest, and twice-weekly rehabilitation appointments. “That’s it?” I’d asked. The doc said there was one more thing. She wrote me a script for extra-strength ibuprofen to lessen the inflammation. I’d asked how long I should take it, and my doc laughed. Like most drugs people my age were on, I was to take it until, well, the end.
The end, with any luck, would be a long time coming.
The first-class car was less than half full. I took a seat in the back, across from an empty chair. After last call, the train rolled out. The seat across from me was still empty. I was going to have the table to myself, at least until Baltimore.
I spread out the morning newspaper. Earlier in the week, grand jury indictments had come down for several members of the Marauders, and the $1.4 million fentanyl bust was front-page news again. It had dominated the News Journal headlines over the summer, but barely cracked national news. The White House’s daily self-inflicted crisis du jour left little room for stories not originating from Twitter tantrums. Somehow, though, the News Journal had found the resources for an in-depth, five-part story, which was culminating its front-page run with today’s paper.
The paper’s reporting team cast Finn as a hero for blowing the whistle on the smuggling operation. I didn’t think that’s how he would have viewed himself, even though he’d surely known he was committing suicide by turning on the Marauders. The insurance company was going to have a real bitch of a time fighting the life insurance payout now. Especially since Abbey Todd quit on them and Finn’s blood tests came back clean.
The undercover DEA agent had recovered from his injuries and was now back in the field, under a different assumed name. A spokesperson for the agency told reporters that they’d received assistance taking down Dan Capriotti from an off-duty Secret Service agent, who happened to be traveling on the train. The unnamed agent had since been promoted to the Secret Service’s tactical Counter-Assault Team.
There was no mention of either Joe Biden or Barack Obama.
The train rumbled by the Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery. I set down the paper to watch the parade of gravestones. Only a couple of weeks had passed since I’d set foot in the cemetery. The trees were bare now, but when I was there last the cemetery had been a sea of red and yellow. The leaf peepers flocking to Massachusetts and New Hampshire had no idea what they were missing.
I hadn’t been at the cemetery to enjoy the leaves.
I’d been there for another funeral.
I wasn’t alone. Jill had come with me, against my wishes. “You don’t need to keep putting on that brave face for me,” she’d said. “I know you’re brave. Sometimes, however, we just need someone to hold our hand.”
She was right. Like always.
I was wearing a new black suit, which had mysteriously shown up in the back of our walk-in closet a few weeks ago. The tag on the inside of the jacket bore Fred O’Flanaghan’s name. The same tailor I’d been visiting for more than thirty years. Jill hadn’t asked what had happened to my last suit, and I hadn’t offered any details.
Before trying on the new slacks, I’d worried I was going to have to return for an adjustment. To my surprise, I was able to both zip and button them. It wasn’t the most comfortable fit, but it was a welcome surprise—the time I’d been putting in working out was paying off. Besides the knee injury, I was healthier than ever.
The same couldn’t be said for Darlene Donnelly, God rest her soul.
After what happened over the summer, her already precarious health had taken a nosedive. Even though she’d been unresponsive, it seemed she knew Finn had passed, that his visits had been the only thing keeping her tethered to this planet. When she went into intensive care, Jill and I offered what we could to make her comfortable. To our surprise, Grace—who had forgiven me—told us that an anonymous donor had already taken care of her mother’s medical bills. The donor had also started a trust fund for Grace and wiped out her student loans. I had an idea who the mysterious benefactor was, but didn’t say anything. Grace had no idea that Barack had helped me track down her father’s killer. If someday he wanted her to know the full extent of his involvement, he would. The story was his to tell.
“We should go say goodbye,” Jill said, tugging at my sleeve. Darlene’s service had ended. Most of the crowd had already paid their respects, but we were still seated, waiting—for what, I didn’t know. I was the first one to leave at parties, but the last one to leave at funerals. Saying goodbye to the living was hard enough; saying goodbye to the dead was an impossible task.
“Why not hold funerals when people are still alive?” I said. “What’s the sense of getting all your friends and family together, and not being around to enjoy it? It’s rotten, I tell you.”
“We do have funerals for the living,” Jill said. “They’re called birthday parties.”
As we approached the casket, my hands shook. Jill squeezed my fingers. Every death reminded me of the losses I’d suffered in my own life. For once, though, I didn’t turn away from the deceased. I took a moment to look upon Darlene’s face. She didn’t look at peace; she looked dead. I knew, however, that she was with her beloved now. Her husband’s pocket watch, recovered from evidence, was on a chain around her neck. She and Finn were together again, without the pain that had separated them near the end of their earthly lives.
To the left of the hole the groundskeepers had dug for her casket sat a small polished marker. FINN DONNELLY. Beneath the dates of his birth and death, it listed him as CONDUCTOR, FATHER, FRIEND TO ALL.
Despite the excitement over the summer, the world seemed to finally be settling back into its natural rhythms. I’d finished the first draft of a new memoir about hope and hardship, scheduled for publication in the fall. There were still two Wilmingtons—the haves and the have-nots. There were still two Americas. It wasn’t my burden to fix the broken system, but that wouldn’t stop me from trying. I would do what I could. There are certain things worth getting mad about. Injustice is one of them. The greatest sins on this earth are committed by people of standing and means who abuse their power.
Those are my father’s words.
They’re also mine.
“Didn’t see you sneak on. Heading all the way to DC?”
I turned from the window. The conductor—a young woman I didn’t recognize—was examining my ticket. Her eyes were as green as shamrocks.
“Erin. Erin Brady.”
“Irish?” I asked, shaking her hand.
“A wee bit,” she said, affecting the worst Irish accent I’d ever heard.
“My name’s Joe.”
“I thought it was you,” she said with a grin. “I’ve been working this line six months now and was beginning to feel like the only one without an Amtrak Joe story. Would you mind if we took a picture?”
Of course I didn’t mind.
We posed for a selfie, our arms wrapped around each other. I still remember the days when you needed someone else to take a selfie of you. The days when you had to wait a week to know if your pictures turned out.
“I’m sure you hear this all the time, but we miss you,” Erin said.
“I’m still around. I don’t ride Amtrak as much as I used to, but I guess I have fewer places to go.”
“No, I mean, the country misses you.”
I slid back into my seat. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
People hadn’t forgotten me—that much I knew. Book tour events for later in the year were already selling out. Some political prognosticators suspected I was testing the waters for another presidential run. They must have forgotten who the real Joe Biden was. I’d always flown by the seat of my britches. I wasn’t going to start planning ahead now.
The country clearly needed a change in direction; there was no question about that. But did the country need Joe Biden more than my family did? I wasn’t sure I knew the answer.
Barack once told me that, at the end of the day, every one of us is just part of a long-running story. All we can do is try to get our paragraph right. Whether I would make another run at the highest office in the land was still up in the air. I learned long ago to never say never. Fate has a strange way of intervening. All I knew for sure was that I wasn’t done writing my paragraph yet.
On her way out, Erin tripped over my bag of golf clubs, which had been sticking out into the aisle by a hair. She had great balance—you have to if you want to ride trains for a living—and she caught herself before taking a spill.
“Sorry about that,” I said, pulling the bag closer. “Hitting the links today.”
“It’s a good day to be outside. Business or pleasure?”
I smiled. “Meeting a friend.”
I didn’t have to say the friend’s name. Anyone with half a brain could tell by the twinkle in my eye who I was on my way to see. And as long as we didn’t talk business, it would be pleasure. All pleasure.