Inside the O'Briens
Page 30
“Yeah, she’s practically forcing me to live in sin now.”
“Right.”
“It’s kinda like the universe is telling me to move to Portland.”
“Yup.”
Katie has the sudden, overwhelming urge to move off the stoop. She can’t sit still anymore.
“You wanna go for a run?” asks Katie.
“Me? Not unless someone’s chasing us.”
“A walk? I need to move.”
“Nah, you go. I need a nap before tonight.”
Meghan is dancing tonight in Lady of the Camellias. She finishes her cigarette and stubs it out on the step.
“Don’t tell Ma. See you tonight?”
“Yup.”
“You bringing Felix?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. And yoga in the morning, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay, see you later. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
A memory flashes through Katie as she hugs her sister. It’s Sunday-morning Mass, the priest’s homily, and Katie’s about ten years old. Father Michael is telling a story about a sick girl in a hospital. She needs a blood transfusion, and without one, she’ll die. Her younger brother, the only family member with the same blood type, volunteers to donate his blood to save her. When the nurse is done drawing his blood, the brother asks, “Now when will I die?” Of course, the boy misunderstood and he would live, but he believed that by giving his blood, he would be the one to die instead of his sister.
It’s a beautiful, inspiring story, but Katie hated it, and it haunted her for years. I’d NEVER do that for my brothers or Meghan. She felt physically sick every time she thought about that boy, overwhelmed with guilt and shame. Her heart must be the size of a raisin. If she were a good person, she’d be more like that little boy. She must be evil. She was too ashamed to confess her thoughts to the priests. She didn’t deserve absolution from this sin. She would have to go to hell.
She hadn’t thought about that homily in years. And now, embracing her sister on the stoop, heart to heart, the remembered story of the boy and his sick sister takes Katie to an entirely different place. She thinks about Eric and her blood draw from six months ago now and the test result awaiting her, and an amazing thought sits straight-spined and fearless at the bottom of her heart, radiating selfless love. If she could take away Meghan’s gene-positive result by being gene positive herself, she would. She really would.
Tears well in Katie’s eyes as she hugs Meghan a little tighter. Maybe she’s braver than she thinks.
KATIE BEGINS BY walking to the top of Cook Street, left onto Bunker Hill, then down Concord. She passes the triple-deckers, the flower boxes and oil lamps, the Irish and Boston Strong flags hanging in windows. She wonders what Portland looks like. It rains a lot there. Felix says the Columbia River is huge and beautiful, surrounded by mountains and waterfalls and hiking trails. He says it’s nothing like the Mystic River. What if everything about Portland is nothing like here?
She walks down Winthrop Street, stops at the curb, and looks down. Two red bricks side by side, inlaid in the center of the sidewalk, extending in a line across the street. The Freedom Trail.
She stops, considering the bricks beneath her shoes for a moment, and then follows her impulse. She’s always wanted to do this. She walks along the red line, sometimes brick, sometimes red paint, and follows it through City Square to the edge of Charlestown opposite Paul Revere Park. She pauses, looks back, and then keeps going.
Of course, she leaves Charlestown all the time. She and Felix go to dinner in Cambridge and the South End on a regular basis. She’s going to the Opera House tonight. But she’s never followed the actual Freedom Trail, her childhood Yellow Brick Road, with her own two feet, out of her neighborhood.
She steps onto the Charlestown Bridge and immediately hates it. The pedestrian walkway, lined in red paint, is a metal grid. Looking down, she can see the mouth of the Charles River below her feet, and her stomach feels as if it drops through her. She keeps walking, and she’s terrifyingly high above the black, reflectionless water. Cars and trucks whiz by her right shoulder only inches from where she stands, vibrating the metal floor under her shoes, assaulting her ears. She pauses, tempted to turn around. She feels danger beside and below her, and the comfort of everything she knows behind her, calling her back.
No. She’s doing this. She holds her eyes straight ahead and keeps going forward, one step at a time.
Soon and finally, she is over that horrible bridge. She crosses the street and, still on the Freedom Trail, stands on the corner of the North End, Boston’s Italian neighborhood. She did it! She’s not in Kansas anymore.
She looks back at Charlestown. She can still see the monument, the Navy Yard, the Tobin Bridge. She can practically see her house. She laughs. How pathetic.
She thinks about Meghan, living HD positive, not using it as an excuse to limit herself in any way. Meghan is moving to London. JJ had a baby. Her dad is practicing yoga.
Felix is moving to Portland.
Katie smiles to herself, continuing along the trail into the North End and away from home, wondering where the red line goes next, having no idea.
You’ve had the power all along, girl. Go live your dreams.
CHAPTER 35
It’s a clear, cold April evening at Fenway, the second week of the season, and Joe isn’t standing on duty outside the ballpark on Yawkey Way. He’s finally, blessedly on the inside. He’s sitting with Donny, Tommy, JJ, and Patrick along the third-base line, fourteen seats behind the visiting-team dugout. The tickets were a gift from Christopher Cannistraro. If Joe had known that seeing a lawyer came with awesome seats to a Sox game, he would’ve divorced Rosie a long time ago. He’s only partly kidding.
The game hasn’t started yet. Donny and Tommy leave to fetch beers and food. JJ and Patrick are flipping through the program, talking players and pitchers, batting averages and ERAs. Joe’s content to just sit and take it all in, his senses enraptured with the tradition and beauty of this beloved ballpark.
The infield grass is golf-course green, the dirt like rich Georgia clay. The foul-ball lines and base bags are Tide-commercial white. The air is chilly against his face and smells clean and occasionally of hot dogs and pizza. The cheery organ music makes him think of roller rinks and carnival carousels, good old-fashioned American fun. He feels comforted by the red, white, and blue neon CITGO sign, unchanged since Joe was a boy, and his heart softens with pride as he reads the retired Hall of Fame numbers on the Green Monster: 9, 4, 1, 8, 27, 6, 14, 42.
The players are on the field, warming up in long-sleeved red shirts, blue caps, and white pants worn long to the ankles. Joe misses his police uniform, the visible unity, being part of a team, one of the guys, the brotherhood. His misses all of that. A giddy, childlike wonder washes over him as the players field grounders right there in front of him. They seem larger than life, and Joe feels privileged, as if he’s witnessing a notable moment in American history. Granted, it’s not the presidential inauguration or even a postseason game, but still, this is something special, being here.
Donny and Tommy are back with pizza and Miller Lites. Donny reaches over Joe’s chest, passing beers to JJ and Patrick, and then hands the one with a lid and straw to Joe. The ballpark is filling in, and the crowd is buzzing with anticipation.
The godlike, echoing voice of the announcer asks all law enforcement officers, firefighters, and EMS workers to stand in appreciation for all they have done and continue to do to protect and serve the city of Boston. It’s the week before the second anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, and Boston is reliving the memories, both the horror and the heroism. The images from that Monday in April, resurrected in somewhat obscene numbers by the media, still sicken Joe’s heart. Thankfully, there are new images to counter the old, inspiring portraits of the bo
mbing victims using prosthetics to walk and run and dance again, of runners and spectators who turned out in record numbers last year, determined to show up and take the day back.
And they did. Boston law enforcement was there in full force, fiercely alert and equally determined to see the day through from start to finish in peace. It was a true, glorious win for the good guys. Boston Strong. And Staying in the Pose.
At first, their whole row is reluctant to rise, but Patrick starts fussing and calling attention to them. Donny, Tommy, and JJ stand, and, with Tommy’s insistence, Joe joins them. It’s a well-meant, respectful public nod, but the moment is mixed with a heavy melancholy for Joe, knowing he won’t be on duty with his fellow officers on Patriots’ Day this year. Joe is the first in his row to return to his seat.
They’re standing again in a few minutes for the national anthem, sung by a young woman from the Cape, not particularly well, but the high notes always give Joe the goose bumps. And then it’s the first pitch, and the Sox are playing ball.
The first inning is one, two, three for both teams. Top of the second, Joe glances over at Patrick just in time to see his cup of Miller Lite slide through his hand, dropping to the ground between his feet. Patrick looks down at his spilled beer and then up at Joe. They lock eyes. Patrick’s face is drained of color, replaced with a pale shade of dread.
“Don’t go there, Pat. It don’t mean nothin’,” says Joe.
“Look,” says JJ, holding his beer up on display. “These cups are all wet and slippery, and my fingers are frozen.”
“Don’t worry about it,” says Joe. But Pat is worried, and Joe knows nothing he says is going to shake it loose. “Don’t worry.”
Joe looks around Fenway, betting himself that at least a hundred people drop their drinks tonight. It doesn’t mean anything. So Patrick wasn’t knocked or bumped or juggling too many things in his hands or even drunk yet. So what? It doesn’t mean anything. Tommy flags down one of the boys running concessions and orders another beer for Patrick.
Patrick is still refusing to take the genetic test. He says he couldn’t stomach it if he knew for sure he was going to get HD, that he’d probably go on a bender and never come back. And while he professes without any kind of detailed plan that he’ll be a responsible father to his child, no amount of threatening or pleading from Joe and Rosie has budged him one inch on marrying Ashley. He ain’t doing it. Joe’s next grandchild is going to be a bastard. Joe can only pray the little bastard will be healthy.
Not far from their seats, Joe watches the third-base coach. He’s rolling back and forth from the balls of his feet to his heels. He’s bouncing his knees. He’s touching his hat, his face, his stomach, signaling to the runner on second.
Next, Joe checks out the pitcher. He steps off the rubber. He steps back on. He removes his cap, wipes his forehead, and fixes the cap back on his head. He spits over his shoulder. He squints his eyes and shakes his head. He nods and throws a pitch. The batter doesn’t swing. Strike.
Joe now stays with the batter. It’s Pedroia. He tugs on his left glove, then his right glove. He steps into the batter’s box. He taps the tip of the bat to the plate, then loops the bat once, twice. Then every muscle goes still. Here comes the pitch. Pedroia holds his swing. It’s a ball.
Pedroia steps out of the box. He tugs on his left glove, then his right glove. He steps back into the batter’s box, taps the bat to the plate, and so it goes again. It occurs to Joe that playing baseball looks a lot like having Huntington’s.
Pedroia and the pitcher are ready. The pitcher releases the ball. All loose energy then pulls tight into Pedey’s center before the split-second intuitive decision to swing or hold. Pedroia reaches back, then swings and smacks a looping single into shallow left field. Fenway erupts in celebration.
Top of the sixth, the Sox are up 3–2. Joe checks his watch. It’s almost nine, but the ballpark is brightly lit, tricking the senses into believing it’s daytime. The city and sky beyond the park are black but for the CITGO sign and the yellow window dots of the Pru. Otherwise, there is nothing beyond the Green Monster. Only Fenway exists.
Without cause or warning, Joe jackrabbit-jumps to a stand and, with little legroom to accommodate such a forceful move, begins falling over into the row in front of them. He’s going, with no way to save himself, when Tommy grabs him by the scruff of his coat collar and pulls him back into his seat.
“Thanks, man.”
“No problem.”
His chorea is worsening. The jackrabbit jump is one of Joe’s new signature moves. He pops up to his feet, usually shocking the hell out of everyone in the room, including Joe, and then drops back into his chair, sometimes falling over backward. If he’s got anything in his lap, it’s either broken or spilled. Sometimes he jackrabbits over and over in a series of quick thrusts, like some crazy calisthenics drill. He has no control over it. He hates to think this, but he could use a seat belt.
Several people are now staring, a few even completely turned around in their seats. Donny zeroes in on the rubbernecker closest to them.
“You wanna take a friggin’ picture? He’s got Huntington’s. Turn around and watch the game.”
The guy does as he’s told. Joe suspects he’s sitting there thinking to himself, What’s Huntington’s? What’s wrong with that guy? And he’s probably hoping whatever it is, it’s not contagious.
Joe looks out at the scattered colors in the bleachers. He knows that the colors are people, but he can’t see their faces. In fact, aside from the people nearest him, he can’t see the faces of anyone here tonight. He can only make out the faces of the players if he looks up at the giant TV screen above the Green Monster. A ballpark full of faceless people.
Fenway seats just over thirty-seven thousand, about the same number of people as have Huntington’s in the United States. Thirty-seven thousand. It’s a faceless number, and when it comes to diseases, it’s also a small one. More than five million people in the United States have Alzheimer’s. Almost three million women in the United States have breast cancer. Only thirty-seven thousand have HD. Drug companies aren’t exactly falling over themselves to find the cure for thirty-seven thousand people when they could tackle Alzheimer’s or breast cancer. The risk and cost of drug development is high. There’s no big lotto jackpot to be made with HD.
Joe’s thoughts turn to all the faceless people here battling illness. There are women here with breast cancer, children with leukemia, men with prostate cancer, people with dementia, people who will die before the end of the year. Joe might be the only one here with HD.
The jaded, cynical cop in Joe looks around at the faceless thirty-seven thousand and acknowledges that, statistically, there’s a murderer here. There are husbands who beat their wives, people who didn’t pay their taxes, people who have committed a variety of unseemly crimes. Then Joe looks to his right, beyond Patrick, and focuses on some of the faces he can see. He notices a father with his boy, about ten years old. He’s got his Sox hat on backward and freckled cheeks, and he’s holding his glove up, ready for a foul ball. In front of them, Joe spots a couple of old-timers, guys who’ve probably known each other for sixty years and have been coming here just as long. He’s surrounded by husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, sons and daughters, grandkids and best friends, people with honest jobs and real lives. Real faces.
It’s now two outs, bottom of the eighth. Big Papi is up. The count is three and two.
“Let’s go Red Sox!” Clap. Clap. Clap, clap, clap.
Big Papi hits a fly ball hard toward the center-field wall. There’s a collective inhale and hold. It takes an unpredictable bounce off the wall, and Big Papi is standing safe at second. Fenway is on its feet, loving him.
Joe looks over at Patrick, who is hooting and celebrating, holding on to his fourth beer without a problem. See. It didn’t mean anything. He’s fine. His unborn child is fine.
And without a cure, everyone with HD will die. Joe pictures an empty, silent Fenway, the game still playing without any fans to witness it, and Joe’s heart breaks for every single seat here. The thought is overwhelming, haunting.
It’s top of the ninth, and the pitcher goes one, two, three. The Sox win it, 5–2. JJ is whistling. Patrick is howling and clapping.
Tommy leans over, his program folded into a tube in his hands. “Good game.”
“Great game,” says Joe.
“Yeah, I don’t remember getting Sox tickets when I got divorced,” says Donny. “Cannistraro owes me. We’re doin’ this again.”
Joe laughs, agreeing, and then hoping he’ll be well enough long enough to keep coming back to Fenway.
“You ready?” asks Tommy.
“One sec,” says Joe.
He takes a moment, wanting to remember this, the joy of the win, the beers and pizza, the electric energy of the crowd, a night at Fenway with his best friends and his two sons. His seat ain’t empty yet. And tonight, he enjoyed every wicked-awesome second of it.
“Ready.”
They make their way to the aisle. Donny and Tommy arrange themselves on either side of Joe, JJ spotting him from behind. Joe turns his head to the field one last time.
Good night, sweetheart. It’s time to go.
CHAPTER 36
They’re in the waiting room at the genetic counseling clinic. All of them. Katie, JJ, Colleen and baby Joey, Patrick, Meghan, her mom and dad, and Felix. She brought everyone. How’s that for bringing support?