The Weight of Him(20)

“There’s nothing to talk about. If you really want to help, you can make a nice big donation.” He looked at the unreachable horizon, an illusion like the distant wet spot on the road. Its reminder of the impossible, of the conversations he’d never had with Michael, tormented.

“Billy? Are you listening?”

He fake-panted into the phone. “I’m jogging now, building up to a run, going to break the speed record—”

“Yeah, it won’t take much to break your speed record.”

“I thought you weren’t a fan of sarcasm.”

“Lookit, Billy, you can’t just ignore how hard this is going on Mam and Dad—”

“This isn’t about them, sorry.”

“Would you listen?” she snapped. “You know how private they are, how heartbroken. Do you really want everyone’s eyes on them again, especially if this goes amuck—”

He turned off his phone and shoved it into his pocket. That’s all he needed, Lisa swooping in. She would come down on the weekend and try to take over. Tell him everything she thought he was doing wrong. If this goes amuck.

Despite his earlier determination, and the magnificence of his surroundings—white-crested waves and a sea and sky so blue they seemed more cinematic than real—his willpower faded and his ankles and knees felt filled with broken glass. He turned back.

Clumps of sea foam skittered about his feet and tumbled over the dark sand. The same feeling came over him as when children sent up soap bubbles—that urge to catch the strange lovely thing and hold it in your hands. He grabbed at the rounds of foam but the wind repeatedly lifted them out of reach. This was a game he should have played with Michael, to ease the boy into feeling safe around water. Michael would have imagined the rolls of foam were tiny footballs and delighted in the chase. Once they were caught, the boy would marvel at how the sunlight lent the foam so much color, making the bubbles look like round, miniature rainbows.

Billy squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted Michael back. Wanted time back. He would give anything. His eyes flew open and his breath left him in a burst. He dived once more at the rolling foam, but wasn’t fast enough. From the rocks, seagulls squawked like scornful spectators. He straightened, giving up the pitiful chase, and limped to his car, his right ankle crippling him.

Inside the Corolla, from the squeeze of the broken driver’s seat, he stared out at the sea, tracking its swell and crash. It made him feel a little better, shrinking before the ocean’s staggering size and might.

*

Billy took the long way home, coming at the small woods from the opposite direction and avoiding the village altogether. He walked the now-familiar path through the band of trees, shafts of sunlight shining through the branches. Inside the clearing, he stared at the tree, at the branch Michael had used, as if they might reveal something new. He had returned here several times since that day in January when he’d insisted Sergeant Deveney show him where, exactly. Tricia had visited only once, on the day after Michael left them, and swore she’d never return. “I can’t think of him like that.”

The noise of a bird somewhere overhead startled Billy. It sounded like a phone ringing in the sky. His hand curled around the base of the branch that had taken Michael. Why here? Why this tree, a beech tree? Why no note, no signs, no sense? Why? Patrick Keogh’s furious face annoyed his head. To each his own. But it wouldn’t be for me. Fuck Patrick. All the naysayers. If everyone kept looking away. If no one ever tried to bring about change. He wasn’t going to stop. Wasn’t going to back down. He would save lives in Michael’s name. Make Michael’s life and death matter.

Fired up, he searched the ground for a rock. The tree had claimed his son and in return he wanted to lay claim to it. He picked up a hand-sized, jagged stone. It was warm from the sun, its edges sharp against his palm. He set on the tree, hacking at the bark, to punish and scar it. Above him, the branches trembled and the leaves sighed. He felt movement in his chest, stirrings that mirrored the tree’s sway. Something loosened inside him.

As his anger leaked out, his cuts at the trunk took shape, carving out Michael’s initials. MLB. Next, he etched a circle around the letters. He worried the circle could be mistaken for a noose and set on the tree again. He cut lines like rays of sunshine.

Finished, he reached his finger into the carved trunk and traced the initials. Michael Liam Brennan. With a start, he realized Michael’s initials read backward could stand for Billy Loves Michael. His skin broke out in bumps. He touched his forehead to the cool of the trunk, his fingers hooked to those three letters inside the sun.





Seven

The next day, temptation was everywhere. Billy surveyed its latest lure in the tea shop window, his eyes fastening on the fat éclair. His mouth wetted with the memory of jam, fresh cream, hard, thick chocolate, and sweet puff pastry. Just one bite and the pleasure. The relief. The comfort. How much harm could one little éclair do? He dragged himself past.

Rain needled his nose and cheeks, the clouds bleeding into gray-black and their spill falling sideways. Impossible from here, but he swore he could smell the tantalizing waft from Seanseppe’s. Thoughts of hot chips smothered in creamy, spicy curry sauce made him almost buckle with longing. A young lad approached on the footpath, wearing white earbuds, his head bopping in time to the music—another of the simple, countless pleasures Michael would never again enjoy. The lad shot him an angry look. What’s your problem? Billy hurried on as best he could, his body in bits from his attempts at exercise.