Missing You(57)

“Yeah, okay. Got it.”

Brandon was oddly quiet on the subway back uptown. Kat had expected him to be all over her, demanding to know why he had to leave and what Martin Bork had told her. He hadn’t. He sat in the subway car, deflated, shoulders slumped. He let his body sway and rock without putting up the least resistance.

Kat sat next to him. She imagined her own body language wasn’t much better. She let the truth sink in slowly. Jeff had proposed. Or should she call him Ron now? She hated the name Ron. Jeff was a Jeff. He wasn’t a Ron. Did people really call him that now? Like “Hey, Ron!” Or “Look, there goes Ronnie!” Or “Yo, It’s Ronald, the Ronster, Ronamama . . .”

Why the hell choose the name Ron?

Dumb thoughts, but there you go. It kept her mind off the obvious. Eighteen years was a long time. Old Jeff had been so antimaterialistic in the day, but New Ron was crazy in love with an über-rich widow who was buying him a house in Costa Rica. She made a face. Like he was her boy toy or something. Ugh.

When they first met, Jeff was renting this wonderful craphole overlooking Washington Square. His mattress had been on the floor. There was always noise. The pipes shrieked through the walls when they weren’t leaking. The place always looked like a bomb had just exploded in it. When Jeff was writing a story, he’d get every photograph he could on the subject and randomly thumbtack them to the walls. There was no organization to the process. The mess, he said, inspired him. It looked, Kat countered, like when the cops on TV break into the killer’s hidden room and find pictures of the victims everywhere.

But it felt so right with him. Everything—from the smallest, most mundane activity to the crescendo, if you will, of making love—felt true and perfect with him. She missed that wonderful craphole. She missed the mess and the photographs on the wall.

God, how she had loved him.

They got off on 66th Street near Lincoln Center. There was a chill in the night air. Brandon still seemed lost in his thoughts. She let him stay there. When they got back to Kat’s apartment—she really didn’t think it would be good for him to be on his own right now—she asked, “Are you hungry?”

Brandon shrugged. “Guess so.”

“I’ll order a pizza,” Kat said. “Pepperoni okay?”

Brandon nodded. He collapsed into a chair and stared at window. Kat called La Traviata Pizzeria and placed the order. She took the chair across from him.

“You’re awfully quiet, Brandon.”

“I was just thinking,” he said.

“About?”

“My dad’s funeral.”

Kat waited. When he didn’t say anything more, Kat prodded gently. “What about it?”

“I was thinking about Uncle Marty’s—that’s what I call Mr. Bork—I was thinking about his eulogy. Not so much what he said, though it was really nice, but what I remember most was when it was over, he kinda rushed out of the chapel or whatever you call it. So he finished and he hurried out. I followed him. I don’t know. I was still blocking on the whole thing. It was like I was just at some service and I was removed and it had nothing to do with me. Does that make any sense?”

Kat remembered the numbness at her own father’s funeral. “Sure.”

“Anyway, I found him in some back office. The lights were out. I could barely see him, but I could hear him. I guess he held it together for the eulogy but lost it after. Uncle Marty was on his knees and crying his eyes out. I just stood in the doorway. He didn’t know I was watching him. He thought he was alone.”

Brandon looked up at Kat.

“Uncle Marty told you that my mother called him, right?”

“Right.”

“He wouldn’t lie about that.”

Not sure what else to say, Kat went with “That’s good to know.”

“Did he tell you why she moved the money?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re not going to tell me.”

“He said your mother asked for confidentiality.”

Brandon kept his eyes on the window.

“Brandon?”

“My mom dated another guy. Not someone she met online. He lived in Westport.”

“When was this?”

Brandon shrugged. “Maybe two years after my father died. His name was Charles Reed. He was divorced. He had two kids who lived with their mom in Stamford. He got them on the weekends and some night during the week, I don’t know.”

“So what happened?”

“Me,” Brandon said. “I happened.” A strange smile came to his face. “When you visited Detective Schwartz, did he tell you I’d been arrested?”

“He said there had been some incidents.”

“Yeah, well, they cut me a lot of slack, I guess. See, I didn’t want my mom dating anyone. I kept picturing, you know, this guy taking over for my dad—living in my dad’s house, sleeping on his side of the bed, using my dad’s closet and drawers, parking his car in my dad’s spot. You know what I mean?”

“Of course,” Kat said. “Those feelings are natural.”

“So that’s when I started ‘acting out’”—he made finger quotes—“as my therapist used to say. I got suspended from school. I slashed a neighbor’s tires. When the police would bring me home, I’d be smiling. I wanted her to suffer. I’d tell my mom it was all her fault. I’d tell her I was doing this because she was betraying my father.” He blinked hard and rubbed his chin. “One night, I called her a whore.”