What Have We Done (37)
O’Leary says, “I’m sorry about your friend.”
Nico doesn’t understand. “What friend?”
“Oh shit, I forgot you’ve been in a hole. Your friend, the one who helped us with that thing, someone offed him.”
Nico feels a ripple of something vibrate through him. “You mean Ben Wood?” The kite takes a plunge and O’Leary grabs the strings from him.
“They caught the guy, one of the mopes he locked up. I think the news said the funeral’s tomorrow. Gonna be a big production. That’s why I thought you were in town.”
Nico doesn’t say anything, quickly flicks away a tear on his cheek, still watching the tail of the kite dance in the sky.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
DONNIE
“Can we meet for dinner tonight?” Reeves asks. “I hear Jean-Georges is amazing.” They’re standing in the check-in line at the Four Seasons in Center City, Philadelphia, at the front desk on the sixtieth floor.
“For sure, Hemingway. I gotta go see Ben’s wife and my goddaughter. Then I’m all yours.”
Reeves nods. “I just read a story about Ben.” He holds up his phone. “He was quite a lawyer before becoming a district court judge. He was on the short list for the federal appellate court.”
“That was Benny. When we were kids, he was always the smart one. And in Chestertown it wasn’t exactly cool to be the smart kid at school. But Benny also was six foot tall by the time he was fourteen, so nobody messed with him.”
“The news says he was top of his class at Harvard Law, unanimously confirmed to the federal bench, which is pretty rare.”
“When we were kids, he watched the O. J. Simpson trial and that was it. It was like when Mr. J
gave me my first guitar. We both knew.” Donnie smiles. “Benny would go around rhyming everything like Johnny Cochran— if the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.… If you want some food, don’t shade Mr. Brood. ” Donnie shakes his head and smiles.
“One of the stories I read said he was adopted by a cop who arrested him?”
Donnie nods. “When we ran off to Philly, we didn’t have any money and Benny went into the ShopRite and stole a loaf of bread and some peanut butter. The cop who arrested him was an amazing lady. Her kids were grown, so she let us crash at her house. After I joined the band, we hit the road, but Benny stayed behind. She ended up adopting him.”
“That’s incredible.”
Donnie gives a sentimental smile. “That was Benny. To meet him was to fall in love with him.”
“Why’d you guys leave the foster home?”
The hotel clerk calls Donnie up to the counter, sparing him from holding back the true answer: After Mr. Brood went missing, they knew Savior House would be closed down and the foster kids placed in new homes, separated. Exactly what happened.
Donnie secures his room key and heads toward the elevator bank. He sees a father lifting his young son to sit on the railing that separates the lobby from a coffee shop inside the atrium. The boy balances on the metal railing and Donnie feels a wave of terror rip through him.
A memory surfaces: his feet dangling over the black water slapping the side of the cruise ship
below.
“Everything okay?” Reeves asks, snapping Donnie out of it.
“Sure thing, partner,” Donnie says, trying to steady his breathing. “Sure thing.”
An hour later, he stands at the doorstep of the beautiful mansion in Chestnut Hill. The woman at the door looks similar to when they first met in Benny’s dorm room in Cambridge—smooth dark skin with large eyes framed by full eyebrows and a mouth that curls upward even when she isn’t happy.
But she’s even more beautiful, more elegant, now. Mia had not been equally impressed with Donnie back in the day. In her defense, he’d been erratic, cocaine speed-talking. Benny, then president of the Harvard Law Review, didn’t seem to mind. And from that first day forward, to when she’d wagged her finger in his face about the bachelor party, to her headshake at his best man’s speech at the wedding, to her grudging agreement that Donnie be godfather to Bell, Mia tolerated, rather than liked, Donnie. Today, she stands at the door, lips pinched tight, eyes red and puffy.
“Can I, ah, come in?” Donnie asks.
Their home is as he remembered. Classic. Expensive. They were the it couple on the Northwest Philly cocktail party scene—the prominent lawyer and daughter of a wealthy business leader, the dashing federal judge. There’d been stories about Mia and Ben in the papers, Ben told him.
Philadelphia’s elite ate up the aristocrat marrying the poor kid from Chestertown. Ben didn’t care about such things. He shrugged off the casual racism he encountered at the county club or in the courthouse when he wasn’t wearing the robe and wasn’t recognized as His Honor.
Mia reluctantly lets Donnie inside. In the living room, the television is on a news channel.
Mia says, “I’d offer you a drink, but you’re not staying. I want you out of here before Bell is back with the nanny from the park.”
“Mia, I don’t understand. Why are you—”
“Save it, Donnie.”
“You’re clearly upset, but talk to me. What did I do, why are you—”
“This is your fault.”