Spare Change (Wyattsville #1)(53)

Tom Behrens turned to wiping down the front window of the station; oblivious to the sound of sloshing water and the squeak of the squeegee as it slid from the top of the glass to the bottom. The memories were pricking pins at his brain, and the only thing he could hear were the moans of his mama—lying in bed day after day, her color growing pastier, her breath more shallow. When it got near the end, he’d have to lower his ear to her face to determine if she was breathing at all. “You want a pill, mama?” he’d ask nervously; then he’d try to steady her trembling hands as she lifted the glass of water to swallow it down.

For several hours Tom fiddled around, moving things from one side of the station to the other, straightening storage cabinets and cleaning things that didn’t need cleaning. Long about four o’clock his fingers began twitching like he had an itch to play the piano, so he hung a ‘closed’ sign on the door of the station and grabbed hold of his fishing pole.

Alongside of a creek with the sound of water splashing against rocks was the one place a person could go for clear-headed thinking. Tom Behrens knew that as well as anybody did; it had been his salvation, even though it was also the very same spot his Daddy had let go of the fact he’d be leaving. It was an August afternoon when the sun was a ball of fire that would blister your face if you turned to look at it, but still they’d gone fishing. Tom remembered his mama saying it was too hot for such a thing, but nonetheless his daddy loaded him into the truck and headed for Donnigan’s Creek—a place thick with weeping willows and cypress trees, a place so quiet you could hear the chipmunks breathing. They sat together on a rocky overhang, Tom lying on his back watching a family of squirrels scamper up and down the tree, his daddy drinking beer after beer. Without any conversation whatsoever, his daddy stretched his legs toward the edge of the rock and dropped a line in the water, even though he knew it had been a summer when the fish were too lazy to bite. They sat there all afternoon without speaking a word to each other, but on the drive home his daddy grumbled, you gotta understand, it ain’t my way to stick around and watch what’s happening to your mama.

At the time, Tom gave the statement little attention, figuring it to be what his mama called a man feeling sorry about his lot. But, the very next morning when he got up there were two twenty dollar bills on the kitchen table and his daddy was gone as gone could be. There was never even so much as a postcard after that.

In September, when the other boys his age were lined up in Miss Brannigan’s sixth grade classroom, Tom was missing. He was at home, watching over his mama and fearing at any moment she would take her last breath; which didn’t happen until the day before Christmas. He could still envision the look of sadness that settled in around his eyes that year; a look of worry far beyond what any boy should know. On the day they planted his mama in the ground, Tom caught a glimpse of himself as he passed by a mirror. Any resemblance to the boy he had been was gone; the person looking back was an old man, a man well-acquainted with misery.

Tom could still picture that reflection; it had a bitter, rock hard look, the same sort of look he’d seen on the face of the boy—Jack Mahoney.

Tom fished for three days straight; leaving the door to the gas station locked tight and pushing aside thoughts of customers who’d be standing at the pump waiting to purchase fuel for their automobile. He sat alongside the creek and dangled his line in the water—all the time remembering that summer when he’d been the most miserable boy on the face of the earth. Every so often a silvery bass swallowed down the bait and started yanking on the line, but Tom was interested in thinking, not catching, so he’d cut the fish free and send it on its way. He kept reminding himself that he’d been just thirteen—what more could a boy of that age have done for a mama that was dying?

On the fourth day, Tom returned to the gas station with a ball of resolve pushing up against his chest. As a boy he’d had no choice but to stand there and watch his mama slip away. But, he wasn’t a boy anymore; he was a man now and he could sure as hell do something about the sorrowful condition of Jack Mahoney’s mama.

Tom wished he had asked where the boy came from, or what his mama’s Christian name was—but he hadn’t, so that was that. All he knew about the boy was that his last name was Mahoney and he’d traveled south along the Eastern Shore headed for the mainland, which probably meant his mama lived somewhere on the island. Unfortunately, nine different counties ran end-to-end along the narrow peninsula, and each one had their own telephone directory. Tom, scooping up every loose dime in the cash register, positioned himself at the pay telephone on the outside wall of the gas station, the telephone stood alongside a rack of directories. He opened the first book—Flaubert County—dropped in a dime and dialed the number listed for Albert Mahoney. Albert, who answered on the first ring, claimed he had no knowledge of a boy named Jack, nor a Mahoney woman who might be lying on her deathbed. Tom thanked the man, hung up, and tracked his finger down to the next name. He dropped in another dime and dialed Allen Mahoney; after that it was Anna then Charles, then Daniel, and, he continued on until one by one he had called every Mahoney in Flaubert Country.

At eight-thirty, after a number of people had complained he’d interrupted their dinner, he stopped calling. He had gone through three counties, but so far no one knew anything about a boy named Jack Mahoney.

The next morning he was back at the telephone a full two hours before the gas station was scheduled to open. Eugenia Mahoney was the first call. She answered on the second ring, her voice registering the sound of a sob ready to follow, “hello.”