Through the windshield, I looked at the new wiper blades. "You get that linkage problem straightened out?"
"Last night. After dinner. Fixed it myself."
I stared at the five o'clock shadow, his hands on the wheel, smiled.
On Monday, August 28, 1995, Adam left for Dayton with Bobby Swiss's address and phone number folded into the back pocket of his jeans. Jeanne and I watched him drive down the street, the August morning lightening in the east. He hit the horn once, quickly and lightly, a wave out the window, then was gone, around the corner.
Twenty-one, I thought. When anything is possible.
I looked at Jeanne. "It's early. Why don't we treat ourselves to breakfast?"
"Where?"
"McDonald's?" I got the smile from her, the one I wanted, the one that tells me how lucky we both are.
"Big shot. You always know how to treat a woman." Her eyes held me: a touch of Kentucky rain, soft. "You still think he'll be okay?"
I looked at her. "He'll be fine." The street was empty, the air beginning to warm. "If there's a kid out there with his head screwed on better than his, I'd like to meet him."
She was quiet. Then: "Thanks."
"For what?"
"Everything."
"The McDonald's breakfast?"
"Yeah. Right. The McDonald's breakfast."
Then the smile reappeared, a summer's end smile, melting me.
III
We didn't hear from Adam all week. Then, after dinner, Friday, September 1, five days later, he came through the front door. He was home.
Jeanne lit the outdoor candles and we sat on the back deck. I remembered she and I alone here, a few weeks earlier. I remembered she and I sipping warm beer from long-necked bottles of Bud, on the veranda of her place in Ashland, Adam with a Coke, a summer evening, eleven years ago. The past and the present, together.
Adam took a swig of cold Sleeman's ale, put it down on the plastic table, let the ring of condensation form at its base. "Good," he said, sighed. "It was a long drive."
I filled two glasses with what was left from the bottle of white chardonnay in the fridge, placed one in front of Jeanne, sat down with mine. "Cheers."
We clinked bottle and glasses.
Waited.
Adam looked down, thinking.
Without tension, the moment stretched. It would happen, I knew. Words needed to be chosen. You can tell too much. Adam knew it too.
"I took your advice, Leo. Stayed on the outskirts, at a Days Inn." He touched the beer bottle, made a line in the droplets. "Phoned him Tuesday, told him who I was, said I was in town, asked if I could see him."
He paused, but not for any dramatic effect. It was an honest pause. We could see that the words were coming slow, not doing justice to memory, feelings.
"He seemed pretty surprised at first. Then he was quiet for a minute." He shook his head. "Jesus, we were both quiet. I was almost dizzy."
I was almost dizzy listening. I glanced at Jeanne, saw her jaw rigid.
"He asked me to hold the line while he talked to his wife, then came back and said that she thought I should come to dinner the next night, what did I think of that? I asked him if he'd like that, and he said, yes, he thought he would, if I would." Adam shrugged. "So I went. The next night."
"We had meat loaf. He asked me if I'd like a beer with dinner. I said whatever he was having, so he opened two." Another pause, thinking. "I met his wife, Pam. And I met his son, Donny."
I watched Jeanne's face, but couldn't read it.
"I have a brother." And then he smiled. And when he smiled, Jeanne relaxed, and I saw the edge, the touch of relief, the start of something close to wonder, close to happiness, and found myself smiling too.
"He has a life." He was talking to his mother now. "He works at Delco. His wife takes care of Donny, who is sixteen, but has a medical problem and needs her." When he didn't elaborate, didn't dwell on it, my admiration for him stirred. "We had a nice evening." Then he nodded, remembering. "Very nice." He reached in his pocket. "He gave me this."
I stared at the audio cassette he placed on the table between us: Roy Orbison—In Dreams: The Greatest Hits.
"I listened to it in the car on the way back. Good stuff. He knows a lot about music."
Looking around me now, at the two of them, at the city, the August night, I could hear the music.
"Will you see him again?" It was the first thing Jeanne had asked. I watched Adam lock eyes with his mother.
He was quiet for a moment, then shrugged. "Maybe."
We listened. Waited.
"It's not as important now." He was still staring at his mother. "But I'll keep in touch with Donny. I'm going to write, phone. I'll see him again. Somehow." Then he turned to me, spoke to me. "He told me I didn't need him. Said I had a good father already."
Our eyes met.
"Said to say hello to you, Leo. And that Donny loved his guide to Dayton."
Jeanne looked at me.
"He also wanted me to tell you that you owed him a buck for a pool game. And that Mamma DiSalvo says you're a good tipper."
Jeanne and Adam were both still staring at me when I closed my eyes. That was when I heard him say it to her.
"He said, tell your mother that I'm sorry."
When I opened my eyes, Jeanne's cheeks were wet. But she was smiling. She was smiling. And so was Adam.
"Only the Lonely," "In Dreams," "Running Scared," "It's Over," "Crying." Adam put the tape on in the living room and we left the screen door open so we could hear it on the back deck. We finished our drinks, talked. We listened to Roy, to that unearthly voice, heard him hit those high notes, way up there.
IV
It was the second weekend in October, the beginnings of oranges and yellows, when I finally stood back, placed the paintbrush in the tray, admired it, proud of myself. I'd knocked out the old one, measured, framed it, bought the replacement at Home Depot, screwed it into place, caulked the seams, and had just finished the final coat of paint.
The air outside had cooled. Everything would change, then return again, the seasons rolling round. The past, the present, the future.
See, I said to him. You got your new window. Slides open like a dream, anytime you want. Wide open. Look out there. Feel that breeze.
He smiled. I know he did. He didn't want much. He never had.
And that night, lying in bed, eyes open in the dark, Jeanne beside me as always, Adam just down the hall, the walls of his room lined with new cracks, always new cracks, I thought of Brendan and Darla, on a mountain in the west of Ireland, beneath wild skies, taking turns lying in St. Patrick's Bed. I thought of Uncle Jim, of Nanny's parents, dealing with the cards life had dealt them, adopting children, of Phil Berney, Jeanne's father, with a baby in a laundry basket at his feet. Then I closed my eyes and looked through the microscope again, saw the life that was teeming, coursing through my body, through all our bodies, swimming upstream against all odds, thought of the plastic bottle of water on the shelf at the back of our bedroom closet, of a silver flash beneath dark waters of a mountain lough. It could still happen, I thought. Yes. It could happen.
About the Author
Terence M. Green was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1947. He is the author of seven books, among them the novels Shadow of Ashland and A Witness to Life, both of which explore the same family that is at the heart of St. Patrick's Bed. A five-time finalist for the Aurora Award (Canada) and a two-time World Fantasy Award finalist, Mr. Green is a graduate of both the University of Toronto (B.A., B.Ed) and University College, Dublin (M.A.). Married with three sons, he lives in Toronto. For more information, you are invited to visit the author's Web site at www.tmgreen.com.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Excerpts from Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C. G. Jung, copyright ©1963, are reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.
Copyright © 2001 by Terence M. Green
Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN 978-1-4976-2907-3
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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St. Patrick's Bed (Ashland, 3) Page 15
