The Weight of Him(79)

“I did.”

“You did?”

She shrugged. “It was stupid all these years. I think I got it into my little-girl head that my getting my ears pierced against my parents’ wishes and my mother dying the very next day was somehow connected, like my being bad was to blame, and then I could never let the holes close up, even though they made me feel sick.” She shrugged again. “Maybe I wanted to keep punishing myself.”

Of late, she’d confided in him more than she ever had. “Fair play to you,” he said, even while wishing she hadn’t taken the intimacy away from him. “On giving up the cigarettes, too.” He hadn’t made nearly enough of her beating the killers, either. Hard to, given her reaction to all his changes. It hit him again the cost, to her mind, of his changes coming so late.

“Me?” she said with a rasp. “Look at all you’ve done.” She turned off the light. While he tried not to watch, she undressed, and pulled her nightdress over her head. She slipped between the sheets. He tried to suck himself in, hoping to make himself ever smaller and less objectionable. They lay together in the dark in silence.

Just as he was about to give in and say good night—she never said good night first—she spoke. “You did great tonight, really.”

“Thanks.” He was afraid to say any more, in case he ruined something.

“Where did all those ideas come from, to sell the seconds and make a whole new line of toys?”

“All mine. Actually, Tony wants me to head up the entire project.”

“Are you going to?”

He hesitated, unsure where this was going. “Yeah, I am.”

“You’re full of surprises these days,” she said kindly.

“Yeah, well.” A deep sadness settled over him. He would always be trying to make up for the past.

Her hand covered his under the blankets and squeezed. “Good night.” She rolled over, turning her back to him.

“Good night.” Long after she appeared to have fallen asleep, he stayed awake, marveling at how good something so small had felt—John clasping his shoulder, Tricia squeezing his hand.





Twenty-five

The next morning, Billy sat at his kitchen table enjoying a wedge of grapefruit, a small heap of scrambled eggs, and a feeling of satisfaction unlike anything he’d ever known. He’d appeared on national TV, on Matters with Maeve, and he’d done well. Better than well. The house phone rang, shrill and surprising. So few people used that number now, not since they’d all gotten mobiles.

Tricia answered. “Howaya, Maura.” She swung around to face Billy. “No, of course not,” she said, sharper. “Okay, fine, yeah.”

She ended the call. “She and your dad are on the way. She wanted to know if you were still wearing the army uniform.”

If the comment had come from anyone else, Billy might have chuckled. Instead, he felt heat in his face and a hardness in his stomach.

Minutes later, his parents arrived, both bundled in dark coats. While Tricia made tea, they sat at the table, shifting on the wooden chairs.

“Hard to believe, seeing you on the telly last night.” His father sounded almost admiring.

His mother sniffed. “Hard to believe that uniform.”

“Do you know?” his father said. “You’ve surprised me, so you have. I didn’t think you’d do as well as you’ve done, never thought you’d get the response you’re getting.”

All his life Billy had craved this kind of praise from his father, but now that it was here, he felt unbearably uncomfortable, as if his nerve endings were exposed.

His mother gave her shoulders a little shake and nodded at his father. “Give it to him, can’t you?”

“I’m getting to it,” his father snapped, reaching inside his coat.

Tricia set two steaming mugs of tea in front of his parents and a small plate of biscuits glittering with sugar. Billy’s stomach sighed. The truth annoyed his head. He would always struggle with food, with his parents.

His father handed Billy the folded check.

“Before you take that,” his mother said. “We want your word there’ll be no more of that awful uniform or shaving your hair. I thought my eyes were going to fall out of my head when I saw you in that getup on national TV.”

Billy glanced at the check. Eleven hundred euro. An amount no doubt chosen to exceed Lisa’s donation. “You needn’t worry, I’m not planning on wearing the uniform again. It did its work.”

“And the hair?” she said.

He rubbed his hand over the top of his head, a part of him missing his curls, curls just like those on his three sons. “We’ll see.”

His mother clapped her hands together, years seeming to fall away from her face and shoulders. “Thank God for that much at least.”

She and his father left a short time later, seeming pleased with themselves. Billy remained pinned to his chair. Outside, from Magda’s decorated birdbath, the chirp of birds that sounded part song and part whistle. Tricia leaned back against the sink, her arms folded over her scant stomach. She spoke, a faraway quality to her voice. “Just once, after my mother died, I broke down crying in front of my father. He kept going about his business, saying nothing and polishing his shoes faster, blacker. The more he ignored me, the harder I cried. I couldn’t stop.