The Lucky Ones(67)

“Can I ask what sort of behavior problems he had?” Allison said. She’d never pried into people’s private lives like this before and it felt as strange to her as smiling probably did to Kathy.

“You don’t know?” Kathy asked Roland.

“We had a rule at the house,” Roland said. “Dad’s rule. Don’t talk about the old life. He wanted us kids to get past our pasts.”

“There are some things in your past you can’t ignore,” Kathy said. “That was Ollie’s trouble even after your father helped him. I guess you don’t know that he...he killed my baby.”

Allison couldn’t manage a response to that. She looked at Roland, whose eyes were wide but who also remained silent in the face of this news.

Kathy dragged a ragged hand down her face. She seemed more exhausted than sad at this point. “He threw his baby brother, Jacob...he threw him against the wall. Killed him.”

Allison gasped, covering her mouth with her hand in shock. Kathy had spoken the words in monotone, without flinching, barely blinking. In her hands she clutched a rolled recipe magazine. As she spoke she twisted the magazine until the pages ripped, then folded it over and twisted it again.

“Jacob cried a lot,” she said. “So, I had to be with him all the time. Ollie was very jealous. But that wasn’t Ollie’s fault. Your father—” she nodded at Roland “—he explained that Ollie had a problem here...” She tapped the side of her head. “A tumor. Made him act out.”

“Dr. Capello operated on Oliver, yes?” Allison said, composing herself.

“I called his office because some lady at child services said Dr. Capello was a miracle worker with kids like Ollie. And we needed a miracle. He agreed to see Ollie and he fixed that tumor. Didn’t even charge me a dime. And it was...” Kathy paused, waved her hand like she was waving a magic wand. “Night and day after.”

“What do you mean?” Allison asked.

“Oh, before Ollie was a hard kid to live with. He lied all the time. He stole all the time. You couldn’t punish him. He’d laugh it right off. And he’d mess with your head, too. He’d...play games. Ugly games. One second he’d kiss me and say, ‘Mommy, I love you, I love you, I love you...’ and soon as I said I loved him back, he’d stab me in the arm with a fork.”

Allison felt her stomach roil. Kathy held out her arm to show an old scar, an inch long, pink and white and ugly.

“He’d never been a normal boy,” Kathy said. “Not since he was born. Never cried much. Your father, he said that was a bad sign. Crying meant a baby was feeling what he was supposed to feel. And he was always like that, even as a boy. Too quiet. Intense. Like a time bomb, you know. But after the surgery, he wasn’t like that anymore. The first week when he was in the hospital, he barely talked at all. Just ate and slept. One afternoon he asked for a Sprite and I got him a Sprite and he said, ‘Thank you, Mommy.’ And I waited for him to turn on me, but he didn’t. He just drank his Sprite. Then a couple days later he said he was sorry for what he did to Jacob. He’d never...” She pursed her thin lips. “He’d never apologized before for anything in his life. Not even stabbing his own mother in the arm. I wanted to take him home, but your dad said Ollie needed time away to really heal. The house, me, everything would remind him of what he did. He needed a new start. So he went to live with you all at that house. Maybe I should have left him there. Bringing him home sure didn’t help, but I wanted my son back. I wanted...I wanted both my boys back. But I’d take what I could get.”

Her voice was hollow and wispy as a reed.

“I know this isn’t any of our business,” Allison said. “And I’m sorry for asking, but can you tell us about how Ollie died? Why he died? He was our brother for a little while. We just... We were so shocked to find out.”

“I think it’s my fault,” Kathy said.

“I’m sure it’s not,” Allison said.

“I don’t know about that,” Kathy said. “Before the surgery, Ollie couldn’t care less about what I was feeling. When I brought him home from your house, he was like a...” She snapped her fingers, searching for a word. “Like a sponge. Whatever I was feeling, he’d soak it all up. And I was pretty low then. Depressed. Cried a lot. Ollie would cry with me, and even after I stopped, he kept right on crying. Every day he’d tell me he was sorry about Jacob. One day, he just got too sorry to go on. A neighbor kept a shotgun in his garage. Ollie found it.” Kathy looked at Roland. “I shoulda listened to your dad.”

“What did he say?” Roland asked.

“He said I ought to leave Ollie with him,” Kathy said. “But he was my son. And I wanted my boy back.”

Kathy dropped her chin to her chest. She hadn’t cried the whole time they’d been talking. Allison had a feeling she was cried out and then some. Slowly she raised her head.

“That’s all I have to tell you,” Kathy said. “Hope that’s what you wanted to hear.”

“I never want to hear about kids suffering,” Allison said. “We weren’t trying to be nosy. The thing is, someone tried to hurt me when I was living there at Dr. Capello’s house. I fell down a flight of steps and hit my head. Dr. Capello said he thought it might be Oliver who’d done it. I guess he did have a history of hurting his siblings.”