Long Bright River(41)

Bobby is looking at me very seriously now.

—When did they get together, he says. How long were they together?

—I’m not sure, I say. I don’t know how serious they were. I know they were together as of August.

Bobby is shaking his head.

—That guy is no fuckin’ good, he says. He’s trouble.

A little murmur of agreement from my other cousins. I pause.

—In what way, I say.

Bobby shrugs. What do you think, he says.

Then he says, Listen. I’m gonna try to find out more for you, okay? You know I’m not into that stuff anymore, he says, but I still have my people.

I nod. I see in his expression that he will take his mission seriously. That Kacey, in his mind, is family, and protecting her is his new purpose.

—Thank you, I say.

—No problem, says Bobby.

He holds my gaze meaningfully. Then turns away.





Inside again, I search for Thomas for a long time—so long, in fact, that I begin to worry. Ashley walks by and I touch her shoulder, making her whirl so abruptly that she spills her wine.

—I’m so sorry, I say, but I can’t find Thomas. Have you seen him?

—Upstairs, says Ashley.

I walk up the staircase, covered in thin flat carpet, and stand in the hallway for a moment. One by one, I open all the doors: a bathroom, a closet, a room with two single beds that must be shared by Ashley’s two younger boys. Another, decorated in shades of purple, with an italic C on the wall, is for Chelsea, Ashley’s only daughter. A third seems to be Ashley’s oldest son’s.

Ashley and Ron’s room is the one I walk into last. A radiator clanks in the corner, giving off the not-unpleasant smell of warm dust. In the center of the room is a canopy bed, and on the wall next to it is a picture. In it, Jesus holds the hands of two young children. All three figures stand on a road that leads to a shimmering body of water.

Walk with me, it says, beneath Jesus’s feet.



* * *



—

I am still contemplating this picture when I hear the faintest rustle emanating from the closet to my right.

I walk toward it and open the door. There is my son, hiding with two other boys, playing Sardines, apparently.

—Shhhhhhh, they say, in unison.

Okay, I mouth, closing the door, retreating quietly from the room.



* * *



—

Downstairs again, I make a heaping plate of food from the buffet table. Then I stand alone in the living room, eating it ungracefully, guiltily, glancing up from time to time at a TV that’s on in the corner, displaying the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Around me is a din of voices I haven’t heard since childhood, all of them rising and falling together. We are related, loosely, connected by limbs of a family tree that in recent years has atrophied, decayed. Near me, an older cousin, Shane, is telling a story about how much he won at SugarHouse last night. He coughs outrageously. He reaches over his own shoulder to scratch his back.

Ashley comes into the living room then with Ron. Her four children shuffle in behind her, clearly following orders.

She says, Hey, everyone? Hey!

No one shuts up, so Ron puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles.

I’m in the middle of lifting my fork to my mouth. Self-consciously, I lower it.

—Aw, here we go, says Shane. Time for church.

Ashley shoots him a glance. Now, look, she says. We won’t keep you long. But we just wanted to say we love you guys. And we also wanted to give thanks for all of us being able to be together today.

Ron takes her hand and his children, behind him, join hands too.

—If you don’t mind, says Ron, we’re just going to say grace.

I glance around. Everyone looks skeptical. The O’Briens are Catholic, if we’re anything. We’re varying degrees of religious: Some of my older aunts go to mass multiple times a week. Many of my younger cousins don’t go at all. I usually take Thomas at Easter, at Christmas, and whenever I’m feeling low. And at no childhood Thanksgiving, in my recollection, did the O’Briens ever say grace.

Ron is praying now, bald head bowed, and the room is silent. The substantial muscles in his arms are tense with feeling. He gives thanks for the food we are about to consume and for the family who’s with us here today and the family members who have already passed. He gives thanks for their house and their jobs and for their children. He gives thanks for the leaders of the country and prays that they may continue to do their job to the best of their ability. I don’t know Ron well—I’ve probably met him four times in the years he and Ashley have been married, including once at their wedding—but he strikes me as a firm person, hardworking, no-nonsense, someone with very definite opinions about everything that he’ll share with you if you give him an opening. He’s from Delco, which—though it’s just over the border from Southwest Philadelphia—makes him an outsider, and lends him an exotic quality that causes the O’Briens to afford him a certain amount of respect but also, I imagine, to mistrust him slightly.

Ron concludes, finally, and there is a round of muttered Amens and one wiseacre cousin who says, Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat.

Gee’s brother Rich is next to me, suddenly, holding a beer. I don’t know where he came from.