A House on Liberty Street

by Neil Turner

  His eyes flicker to mine before dropping back to the table. He’s a million miles away. The two topics most likely to capture his interest are his daughter and Brittany, not that there’s any good news to impart in either case. Though Amy has been dead for years, Papa still mourns and clings to any mention of her. I wonder how he’ll react to the idea of the Trib going public with the truth about her death. As for his granddaughter, Brittany flatly refused to return to school at the end of her suspension last week. The conundrum about her school plans was resolved by an email from Michelle this morning announcing that she’s purchased our daughter a plane ticket to Brussels for this weekend. After managing to fend off Michelle for over a week, I was allowing myself to imagine that she may have had a change of heart about letting Brittany stay in Cedar Heights. I should know better than to get my hopes up about anything these days.

  After a deep breath, I decide to lead with my sister. “Pat O’Toole from the Tribune knows what really happened to Amy. She pitched the idea of running the story in the paper. Would you object?”

  Papa looks up. “This Pat, she is the woman you go to school with?”

  I nod.

  “Your Mama, she would not like this.”

  “I’m not asking Mama. Would you like to see it happen?”

  His eyes search mine. “Why do this now?”

  So someone can finally hold those Pentagon bastards accountable—whatever accountable means for an institution that seems to operate beyond the reach of the law. Instead of venting, I simply reply, “Why not?”

  After a lengthy pause, he nods. “Maybe now is time for truth.”

  Goddamned right it is. I squeeze his hand. “It was time for the truth many years ago.”

  He shrugs and nods. “Yes.”

  When tears well up in his eyes, I decide to switch gears. “Brittany’s going to Europe.”

  “To Michelle?”

  “Yes.”

  “When she come back?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  The imperious father of my youth surfaces. “You no tell me everything, Anthony. Why does Brittany leave?”

  I freeze. There’s either the truth or something close to an outright lie. I’ve never been a guy who lied to his parents. Well, not much anyway, and that was many, many years ago.

  He isn’t put off by my prevaricating. “You tell me what is wrong! Brittany has trouble at school?”

  If the topic can’t be avoided, I can at least downplay things. “Kids, you know,” I say airily. “They squabble and do stupid things.”

  Papa’s eyes bore into mine. “What stupid things?”

  “She had an argument with a teacher.”

  “This happens because of me?”

  “She’s a kid, Papa. It wasn’t a big deal.”

  My father leans closer with fire in his eyes. “Anthony, you no lie to your Papa!”

  Well, if nothing else, I’ve put a little fight back into the old coot. “It was about the shooting,” I admit.

  His lips tremble and a moan escapes him while tears begin to stream from his eyes. “Now she run away. She leaves from shame!”

  Well, there’s some truth in that, isn’t there? I wrap him in my arms. “There’s more to it than that. She misses the life we had in Atlanta. She misses private school.”

  He sobs for a moment longer before he eases out of my arms and straightens up. “This divorce is wrong. Brittany, she need her Mama and her Papa. This is not right for her.”

  “Marriages don’t always last,” I reply weakly.

  He stares at me for a long moment while another tear dribbles down his cheek. “Because people now not do what is right, only what is easy.”

  I can’t argue the point, nor can I explain modern sensibilities to Papa—I don’t always understand them much better myself. Maybe, instead of putting the work into our marriage that I’ve always heard is necessary, Michelle and I simply masked the shortcomings of our union with relentless material acquisition and the pursuit of career advancement. I’m rescued from this unaccustomed self-reflection when the door opens and Mike Williams walks in. His eyes quiz me after he looks at Papa, who has turned away to stare at the ceiling while he wipes the tears from his eyes.

  “Brittany got into some trouble at school and is going to stay with her mother for a bit,” I explain.

  “Sorry to hear that,” Mike says. “What happened?”

  “I’ll fill you in another time,” I reply with a shake of my head to wave him off the topic. Perhaps upset to have Mike find him in tears, Papa has broken into a fresh outbreak.

  Mike glances at Papa and nods his understanding.

  I decide to steer the conversation somewhere less painful. “You got any kids?” I ask Mike.

  “Nope, and I’m not married—much to my mother’s dismay.”

  “Does she scout prospects for you?”

  He rolls his eyes. “Only every unmarried young lady at her church.”

  Papa wipes his eyes a final time and tunes in. Family talk—anyone’s family talk—always catches his interest.

  “The hours I work are a problem,” Mike continues with a resigned shrug. “At least that’s what my last couple of girlfriends told me. That, and an inability to leave work at the office.”

  “You want the wife and kids?” Papa asks him.

  “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  “An obsession with work isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” I say. Mike should listen; I know what I’m talking about.

  “My work and what you do are worlds apart,” he replies.

  He’s right. Not for the first time, I’m reminded that the weight of responsibility he carries is crushing—especially given his passionate devotion to the work. Still. “All work and no play isn’t good for you.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  I reluctantly get back to trial business by asking, “How’s discovery coming along?”

  Mike leans back in his seat and crosses an ankle over a knee. “The prosecution gets a month to start producing documents. They’re starting to trickle in.”

  “It’s been seven weeks!” I fume.

  “Just over six since Francesco was arraigned.”

  I’m impatient to get started. The plan is to have me pore over the discovery documents: police reports, ballistics, witness statements, autopsy, toxicology reports—every scrap of paper they’ll use to build their case. Mike will do his own review of the State’s evidence, then we’ll compare notes, hoping to find a mistake or something we can use to build our defense case.

  “I’m anxious to see what they’ve got,” I say.

  “I think we can anticipate most of it.”

  Maybe he can. I have only the barest grasp of what to expect.

  “You’ve got a big job ahead of you once that stuff arrives,” he continues. “Hours and hours reading piss-poor photocopies, many of which will say the same thing over and over.”

  “You make it sound so glamorous. Why doesn’t everyone do it?”

  “Only a select few of us are dumb enough to be public defenders. Be patient, my friend. This is how it goes in the early stages… a whole lotta nothing for days at a time.” After a pause, he asks, “Anything new on the job front?”

  “As a matter of fact, I accepted an offer.”

  He smiles. “Whereabouts?”

  “Fleiss Lansky LLP.”

  “Big firm. What’ll you be doing?”

  “Managing legal for the Fafnir America account.”

  “The hell’s a Fafnir?”

  “It’s a Scandinavian multinational. Norwegian or Swedish—I can’t remember which.”

  “You might want to brush up on that a bit,” he suggests with a grin.

  I return his smile. “I know a little! Fafnir bought up a bunch of American consumer goods labels and didn’t re-brand them. That’s probably why you haven’t heard of them.”

  “When do you start?”

  “Next Monday.”

  “Ain’t that something to be th
ankful for, huh?”

  “Definitely,” I agree.

  “What’s happening with the house?” Mike asks next. “Francesco tells me you beat the eviction notice.”

  I nod. “The foreclosure’s on hold, too.”

  “Outstanding!”

  “I forgot to tell you that the contractor called,” I tell Papa. “They’ll be out to fix the garage next week. I paid the tax arrears.”

  He nods without comment.

  Mike’s eyes light up and he turns to Papa while hooking a thumb at me. “This guy tell you about our little basketball competition?”

  Papa shakes his head no.

  “Whupped his ass, dressed him out, and wiped the hardwood with him when I was done,” Mike says with a hearty laugh.

  My mind drifts back to an image of Mike towering over me on legs resembling the Pillars of Hercules. He reached down to hoist me off the hardwood as if I weighed twenty pounds. I’d just been manhandled through three games of one-on-one that whistled by in a painful, confused blur. Team building exercise, my ass. With my hands braced on my knees and my head hanging almost as low, I was struggling to suck in precious thimblefuls of air while dreaming of smacking the smug smile off his face.

  Mike’s smirk from the gym returns when he looks back at me. “Let’s hope you’re a damned sight better in a courtroom than you are on a basketball court.”

  Doing what I can to stifle a chuckle, I hold his gaze with mine. “Don’t get too cocky, Williams. There’ll be a rematch.”

  He gets to his feet and claps me on the shoulder. “You turning into a man to be reckoned with, my friend?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Pat O’Toole snaps at me as soon as the bathroom door closes behind Brittany. My daughter’s flight to Brussels leaves this afternoon at five-thirty. At Brittany’s insistence, Pat is here for a farewell lunch.

  “What are you talk”

  Pat cuts me off. “This is gonna be a great memory of her last day here. You’re surly, morose… an absolute bundle of joy.”

  “I can’t help how I feel,” I reply like a petulant little boy in a sulk—which isn’t far off the mark.

  “Save it for the morning. You want her to stay in Brussels?”

  I shake my head miserably and begin collecting the Chinese carryout containers from lunch. Leftovers go in the fridge and the empties disappear into the garbage under the sink. Deano stands by, his eagle eyes scouring the floor for even a single grain of fallen rice. Pat has followed me and we’re face-to-face when I turn around.

  “Hold it together for the rest of this afternoon, for Brittany’s sake,” she says while tossing an empty rice container into the trash. “Give her a reason to come back.”

  “I’m angry she’s going. Worse, I’m afraid of losing her for good.”

  Pat’s eyes soften. “You need to set that aside for now. Let’s talk about something besides how much you’re gonna miss her.”

  Tough to argue with someone who’s right, although I’ve tried it many a time. I sit down and manage a grin when Brittany walks back into the kitchen. “Gonna miss eating Chinese?”

  “Like they won’t have Chinese! I bet the Europeans like it, too,” she says confidently. Then she steals a glance at Pat for confirmation. Tales of Pat’s European travels have featured liberally in past conversations.

  “Sorry, kid,” Pat replies as she settles back into her chair. “Chinese can be found but not on every corner. Don’t worry, though, they’ve got plenty of good food.”

  “Like what?”

  “You’ve gotta try the wiener schnitzel in Austria.”

  Brittany’s eyes go wide in surprise. “Wieners? You mean hot dogs?”

  “Heavens no,” Pat replies with a laugh while she leans back and crosses her legs. “Not friggin’ hot dogs! They’ve probably never even heard of Oscar Mayer. Veal schnitzel is my favorite. Great stuff!”

  Brittany wrinkles her nose. “Mom’s against veal.”

  But pouring gallons of Coca-Cola into kids is okay.

  “The Germans use pork, if that meets with your mother’s approval,” Pat says. “I happen to think the Austrians do it up right.”

  “I’ll try some,” Brittany says with a decided lack of enthusiasm. She’s still standing, leaning her butt against the sink.

  “You will insist on seeing more than Brussels, right?” Pat asks.

  “What’s wrong with Brussels?” Brittany counters with a hint of combativeness.

  “Nothing,” Pat replies easily. “It’s just that there’s much more to see and it’s all easy to get to. Hell, a girl can spit clear across Europe. You can be in London or Paris or the Alps in a matter of hours—all without flying.”

  “Really?”

  Pat nods. “Sure.”

  Brittany is catching Pat’s enthusiasm. She sits down and leans her elbows on the table. “Sounds pretty cool.”

  “It is!”

  Thanks, O’Toole, I say to myself. Try to remember that I hope Brittany comes back.

  Pat winks at Brittany and then makes a point of looking at her watch before she stands up. “I’ll let you two visit. I’ve gotta be somewhere soon.”

  I’m not about to argue. I’m glad she came and hope to patch things up, but I want a couple of hours alone with my soon-to-be departed daughter.

  “You can’t stay?” Brittany asks while following Pat to the front door. I seem to be the only one hoping for a final hour or two of family time.

  Pat shakes her head. “Naw, I’m picking up my niece and nephew and we’re going to The Field.”

  “The museum?” Brittany asks.

  “Yup!”

  I’ve tagged along to the front hall. “How old are the kids?”

  “Six and eight.”

  “Taking six- and eight-year-olds to a museum? That’s gotta be child abuse,” Brittany deadpans.

  Pat’s eyes travel from Brittany to me and back. “I don’t suppose you two have been?”

  We shake our heads, me with some degree of guilt and Brittany with unabashed satisfaction.

  “They’ve got some artifacts from the Hermitage and Catherine’s Palace in St. Petersburg,” Pat says. “Fabergé pieces, paintings, even a couple of items from the Amber Room.”

  “The what?” Brittany asks.

  “The Hermitage is one of the greatest museums on earth,” Pat replies. “Perhaps the greatest. I plan to go next summer. This’ll be a great preview.”

  My daughter looks embarrassed. “We’re not talking about Florida, are we?”

  Pat chuckles. “Like I’d be this excited about going to rub shoulders with a bunch of fat old Americans in Florida. I’m talking about Russia! Home of Tsars, Catherine the Great, onion domes.”

  “Whatever,” Brittany says with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “It’s still a museum.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Pat replies with a laugh. Then she turns to me. “A chip off the old blockhead, isn’t she? At some point, somebody’s gonna have to civilize this kid.”

  “You volunteering?” I ask hopefully.

  She shrugs. “Maybe we should start by civilizing you and hope for osmosis of some sort.”

  “Take him to the museum,” Brittany suggests. “Give the kids a break.”

  Pat laughs again. “They’re gonna love it.”

  “Uh-huh,” Brittany mutters. Then, with tears welling in her eyes, she wraps Pat in a ferocious hug.

  “You’ve got my email address, right?” Pat asks.

  Brittany backs out of the hug, digs a scrap of paper out of the back pocket of her designer jeans, and holds it up. “Right here.”

  “I expect to hear all about your exploits traipsing around the Continent.”

  Brittany manages a weak smile. “Okay.”

  “I’ll keep you up to date on Chubby’s adventures here,” Pat says before surprising me with a brief hug. “Hang in there,” she whispers in my ear. Then she steps away and gives me a sad smile. When the
door closes behind her, I wonder when I’ll next see Pat… or if I’ll see her without my daughter here to facilitate a visit.

  Two hours later, Brittany is again in her room, completing “final packing” for the fifth time since Pat’s departure. I’m in the kitchen flipping through brochures we collected from a couple of private schools we toured. Michelle and I exchanged a few emails about finding a school in Chicago with an International Baccalaureate program. Michelle is in favor of an IB program but was non-committal about my daughter returning to Cedar Heights anytime soon. Pursuing the IB angle wasn’t much more than me clutching at straws, pretending my daughter will return to Cedar Heights in the foreseeable future.

  When Brittany finally arrives back in the kitchen and sits down, I slide the brochures across the table. “Got a favorite?”

  “Anything without St. Aloysius over the door,” she replies grimly with barely a glance at the brochures. “You gonna buy a house pretty soon?”

  “I thought we’d do that together when you get back. I’ll stay here until then.”

  “I don’t wanna live in this shitty old house.”

  My hackles rise at her callous dismissal of the Valenti family home. Things remain a little strained until it’s time to go. Brittany plugs into her iPhone and bops away listening to who-knows-what all the way to the airport. I stew on that for a few minutes before realizing that she’s simply being the daughter we raised her to be. As great a kid as she is, in some respects we haven’t done well with her. That’s hardly her fault. If she’s inclined to indulge herself without much regard for those around her, the inclination surely came from watching her parents. As for her recent moodiness and uncharacteristically volatile behavior, is it really so different from my own? Through no fault of her own, her life has been upended and turned into a living hell. No wonder she’s anxious to escape.

  Because Brittany is a minor, I was allowed to accompany her to the gate. I’ve been studiously avoiding any mention of Brittany’s possible return since Pat chewed me out for being all morose and shitty, but anxiety gets the better of me when the gate agent announces that boarding will begin shortly. I reach over and gently tug the ear buds away from her head. “Any idea how long you’ll be gone?”