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Chapter 38
It ended up being a day for more than just one catharsis. Maybe it was because Christmas was just around the corner, or maybe it was because, as of the new year, Brandon would officially have nothing else to do but serve as a name partner at a firm at which he no longer had any clients. But the day of personal cleansing continued when he asked David to drop us in Cambridge instead of driving all the way into Brookline.
"What are we doing?" I asked after David drove off, leaving Brandon to lead me to the nearest T-station, the red line stop off Kendall Square.
I had to smile a little––it was the same station where I'd insisted on going on our first real date, the one he said made him feel like he was himself again. This was also the first time in months we hadn't been accompanied by a bodyguard. Another weight lifted. Freedom.
Brandon said nothing, just swiped his Charlie card––the one I knew he'd bought that very night––with a half-smile, and waited patiently as I swiped mine. Then he took my hand and led me down into the depths of the station.
"I want to show you something," he said. "I want a fresh start with you. New house. New life. Dr. Jefferson says I never said goodbye to the old. Will you come with me?"
I didn't need to think twice.
For once, the train was quick to arrive. It was a Friday evening, so we were quickly swallowed by students heading to parties at Northeastern and UMB, or commuters from the MIT campus on their way to the other side of the city.
Brandon was quiet the entire ride as we stood in the slowly dispersing crowd. He held the bar over the seats with one hand, the other wrapped firmly around my waist, protecting me with his big body. I didn't fight it or insist on conversation. The hum of the train, the clamor of the people; it was enough for now, while I knew he was still processing the visit with his father.
Slowly, more and more people filtered off until all that was left were the stragglers––the construction workers, the waitresses, the people who were really the salt of Boston's earth.
The train continued to rumble out of the underground tracks and on to later stops. UMass. Savin. When the conductor announced our arrival at Field's Corner, Brandon squeezed my hand, and I finally realized just what we were doing. This was his old neighborhood, the one he hadn't returned to in over fifteen years. Why we were here, I had no idea, but I followed him off the train without a word.
He led me onto the platform, pausing for a moment to look around.
"Well, this is new," he murmured as he took in the gleaming new station, with its steel beams and relatively clean floors. But it didn't take long for him to regain his bearings, particularly once we were outside.
I had been close to Dorchester a few times before, mostly to visit friends who lived in the neighborhood or somewhere close. But they lived on the side by the harbor, by UMB; I hadn't ever ventured this deeply into South Boston, the part that was still economically depressed and fairly rife with crime.
Brandon kept me pinned to his side as he strode down Dorchester Avenue. It wasn't the stereotypical Irish, working-class neighborhood you would see in Ben Affleck films. There were shades of that, but Fields Corner was actually incredibly diverse––I saw almost as many Vietnamese restaurants scattered around as Irish pubs.
"Was it always like this?" I asked as I pointed at a pho restaurant that looked like it had been there a while. Somehow, I couldn't really imagine John Sterling enjoying bowls of vermicelli.
"What?" Brandon followed my finger. "Oh, you mean the Vietnamese places? It started when I was kid. My dad didn't like them much, when they were first popping up."
He then turned down a residential street, and then another. I trotted beside him, taking in the neighborhood that bore a lot of signs of gentrification, but was still mostly comprised of dilapidated row houses, colonials and walk-up apartment buildings with peeling paint and chain-link fences. The pastel colors of most of the buildings seemed to be a joke, tagged with graffiti or just peeling completely off.
The street steadily became emptier and emptier, and I noticed more than once Brandon keeping his head low any time we passed others. Was he afraid of running into someone he knew? Was it because he thought they would recognize him? In his jeans and parka, Red Sox hat pulled low over his face, he looked exactly like most of the other people pacing through the streets.
Then, at last, we stopped, so quickly that I walked straight into Brandon's shoulder. He cracked another half-smile as I rubbed my nose.
"You could give a girl a little warning there, Sterling."
"Sorry," he said guiltily. "We're here."
It was a townhouse, probably about four or five stories high, although it had clearly been split into multiple apartments. There wasn't a surface on it without peeling paint, and at the edges of the plain, sturdy trim and gutters, I could see evidence of mold and moss growing. Dilapidated satellite dishes hung crookedly off several balconies. The chimney that ran up the left side of the building was crumbling, and the chain-linked fence out front was half-smashed to the pavement in one spot.
"Is this where..."
Brandon nodded. "This is where I grew up, Red."
We stared at the old place in silence. It was one thing to know that Brandon was born into abject poverty, that he had experienced extreme neglect and abuse at the hands of his parents. It was another to actually meet the man who had done the abusing, and then see the place where it had happened.
Fury started to mount inside me like lava in a volcano. Suddenly, I was shaking and red, my hands clenching and unclenching at my sides. I knew no one related to Brandon lived in this building anymore––more likely it was full of hip college students looking to be adventurous on the cheap. But behind the crooked fence, I could see so clearly a beaten little boy. Behind those doors, I could see the child who was locked in his room for hours, even days at a time, left to rock himself to sleep.
It wasn't until Brandon wiped my tears off my cheeks that I even realized I was crying. I hurled my arms around his neck, and he caught me easily, holding me flush against his body so that my feet dangled off the ground.
"You're safe now," I murmured into his ear. I couldn't seem to hold him tight enough. "You're safe with me."
He sighed, squeezed me just a little tighter, then slowly set me down.
