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Joe nodded. “Lived with my son in North Carolina. Moved back last year, after he remarried.”
“Did you read anything about any controversy over the testing? It was in the paper after 1972 or thereabouts?”
“Never saw a thing. I was down there.”
“Didn’t hear it from anybody up here?”
“No. So when are you gonna file this lawsuit?”
“As soon as possible. This week or next.” My chest tightened, wondering how much time he had left.
“You know it ain’t gonna do no good, don’t you? They’ll never pay a dime. They got too much money to have to pay. The only folks who pay are the ones whodon’thave money.”
“I hope that’s not true. We’re going for a nice, big settlement.”
“I’ll hold my breath,” Joe shot back wryly.
•••
Marcus Hook wasn’t far from where we’d grown up, and I found myself driving through our old neighborhood, in Norwood. The streets that had once seemed so wide were only a single lane, lined by houses smaller than I remembered. Lawns were patches of grass dotted with hummingbird feeders, concrete statuary, and ceramic statues of the Virgin Mary. I hadn’t been back here since we’d moved away, and on impulse, I turned onto our old street.
I cruised past the tract houses, the family names flooding back to me; the McGlaughlins, the Russos, and the Morskis. Our parish was Saint Gabriel’s, where I went to school and memorized the question-and-answers in the Catechism for my First Holy Communion.
Who made you?
God made me.
I reached our old house and stopped out front, overwhelmed by a sense of cominghome. The house was a modest two-story with a brick façade and a white front door, and my father had paid $60,000 for it, which had sounded astronomical to my little-kid sense of numbers. There was a mountain laurel by the door that was the only thing bigger than I remembered. It used to reach midway up the doorjamb but now formed a verdant bower on a trellis over the door. I used to look at its blossoms, shaped like wondrous pink parachutes, and I could picture them now, marveling that God could make something so perfect, far better than me.
I remembered John, big and tall, and I remembered Gabby, too, curly-haired and giggling, drawing hopscotch on the sidewalk. She didn’t matter the way John did, neither of us did. I didn’t remember how I knew, but John was almost as important as my father in my family, a father-in-the-making.
The more I sat in front of the house, the more I remembered about him. I wanted to wear a striped rugby shirt like him and ride a black BMX Stingray like him. He was always doing cool things with his friends. Once on the Fourth of July, we were on the front lawn under the big tree after we had come home from fireworks in the park. John and his friend Tooey were huddled together in the dark, their backs to me.
John, what are you guys doing?
Get lost, TJ!John said over his shoulder.
Can I see?
Catch!John said, turning, and reflexively I put up my hands, then a ball of hot light exploded in my palm.
I found myself coming into the present, looking down at my righthand, then turning it over. One of my three lifelines was puckered in a patch, a burn scar. I hadn’t remembered it until this moment, but now all of it came back, my parents taking me to the emergency room, and me coming home with a bandaged hand.
I closed my eyes, trying to think of what had happened next. I thought hard, but I couldn’t remember anybody asking me what happened. I don’t remember John ever getting yelled at or punished. I don’t even know where Gabby was that night, in retrospect. I only remembered something my mother said, which she said all the time.
Boys will be boys.
It was so strange to think of it now, to try to understand. They had looked the other way. I flashed on fights, bloody noses, swollen eyes, and a broken tooth I didn’t remember until this moment. John used to beat me up and I never fought back, never stood up for myself. I just took it.
I realized I was still taking it. I couldn’t knuckle under to John like a permanent little brother. I had to figure out how Lemaire died and decide what to do about it, even if it meant going to the cops, blowing up John’s million-dollar fee, and halting Runstan’s acquisition.
Grow up, TJ.
My father was right.
I hated that.
I took off, heading for Lemaire’s.
