Sorry for Your Loss

by Jessie Ann Foley

  Annemarie relented and accepted the bite. “Mm,” she said. “That’s good.”

  Pup dove into the vanilla buttercream, hoping his interrogation was over. But Annemarie had her lawyer pants on now and she was not about to let him off easy.

  “I just want to know one thing,” she said after they’d polished off the banana walnut. “Does Mom’s injury have anything to do with the fact that Luke got kicked out of the house last night?”

  Pup paused. “Where’d you hear he got kicked out?”

  “He showed up at Noreen’s last night at three in the morning. Drunk out of his mind, of course. Clothes covered in some unidentifiable orange substance. He banged on the door until he woke up all the kids, including Adalyn, who they just got sleeping through the night.”

  “He was crying,” Sal continued. “He was kind of incoherent, but Noreen managed to get out of him that he’d had a big fight with your mom and dad, and that they’d kicked him out of the house. Dylan wouldn’t let him in, but Noreen felt bad, so she gave him a sleeping bag and unlocked the garage for him, told him he could crash there.”

  “The garage?”

  “That was my reaction, too,” said Sal. “I mean . . . drunk or not, he’s still family.”

  “You know what?” Annemarie scraped some frosting off a slice of coconut cake and tasted it. “I don’t blame them. First of all, it’s not like it’s winter. And second of all, the last time they let Luke crash on their couch, he got up in the middle of the night and pissed all over the kids’ Legos.”

  Pup thought of the laundry basket incident from a couple weeks ago but decided it was best not to say anything.

  “So where is he now?” He was trying to keep his voice casual. If he sounded too concerned, he might give away just how bad things had been last night.

  “Who knows? Noreen went out there in the morning to bring him a cup of coffee. He was gone, and the sleeping bag was neatly rolled up and put away on a shelf. She doesn’t even know if he ended up sleeping there at all.”

  “What about everybody else? Elizabeth? Jeanine? Mary?”

  “Trust me, I’ve been fielding phone calls from the sister-moms all day. Nobody’s seen him other than Noreen last night.”

  “So if nobody knows where he is . . . does that mean he’s missing?”

  “He’s not missing. You act like you’ve never seen Luke on a bender. He might not show his face for three, four more days.”

  “Yeah, but this time he was worse than he’s ever been. I mean,” he said, catching himself as Annemarie’s stare intensified, “it sounds like he was worse, anyway. If he’s not at Noreen’s, and he’s not at Carrie’s, and nobody’s heard from him, then where is he? Don’t you want to know where he is?”

  “I want to know that he’s getting his shit together,” Annemarie said. “And until that happens, I don’t care where he lays his head at night. He’s got plenty of friends he can lean on. Me, I don’t want to see him. And neither should you. Or did I not just tell you that our sixty-five-year-old mother is walking around with her arm in a sling?”

  “I told you,” Pup mumbled. “She slipped on Adalyn’s teething monkey.”

  “Aha! I thought you said it was a giraffe.”

  “Monkey, giraffe, what’s the difference? Sorry that I don’t pay close attention to the animal species of my nieces’ teething toys!”

  Annemarie looked at him for a long moment.

  “Man,” she said. “I wish I could get five minutes with you on the witness stand. No offense, Pup Squeak, but I’d tear you apart.”

  “Pup,” Sal said gently, placing her fork on her empty plate, “when you texted him today—did you get a delivered receipt?”

  Pup took his phone from his pocket and pulled up the text.

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So that mean’s he’s still reading your messages and charging his phone. He’s around here somewhere.”

  “That only means that his phone hasn’t run out of battery yet. He could be lying somewhere, dead, and his phone could still be on.”

  “Pup.” Annemarie folded her hands on the table. “Listen to me. Now, I don’t know what happened—trust me, I’ll find out, though—but I think it’s better for you, for Mom and Dad, even for Luke, that he’s out of the house. He’s not some dumb kid who doesn’t know how to make it on his own. He’s a grown-ass man. Just take a deep breath, okay? I’m sure he’s fine.”

  “That’s what you said last time.”

  “What?”

  “With Pat.” He looked at her steadily. “When Jack Rinard called, and Mom and Dad ran out of the house and drove straight to Champaign as soon as they hung up with him. The first thing I did was call you. And you said, ‘Just take a deep breath. I’m sure he’s fine.’ So I did. And he wasn’t.”

  “Well, folks!” The server had materialized beside the table and all three of them jumped. “Decisions, decisions, right?”

  “Yes,” Sal said, smiling at him tightly. “I’m sorry, but I think we’re going to need a minute to make up our minds.”

  “Take all the time you need!” He looked around at their faces, his smile twitching a little, then hurried away into the kitchen.

  “You’re right.” The color had drained from Annemarie’s face. She put a hand to her forehead, as if to ward off a headache. “You’re right. I did say that. I’m so sorry, Pup. I’m sorry. But this is different. The situation is different. The people involved are different. The—”

  “I have to go.” Pup pushed his chair back and it scraped loudly across the hardwood.

  “Wait, Pup. Please.”

  But he was already running for the bus stop, the bells of the bakery door tinkling merrily behind him.

  22

  PUP SAT WITH HIS CAMERA and phone on his lap as the bus made its tedious progress through the afternoon traffic.

  Write back, he’d just written. Please. I just want to know you’re okay.

  No response.

  He jiggled his knees impatiently, until he could take it no more and decided he could probably get there faster if he ran. He yanked the cord, grabbed his backpack, and got off at the next stop, still a couple miles away from his destination. But as soon as he began to run, he felt better. He loped down Lawrence Avenue, the sun at his back, scooting past the Pelatas vendor and the used-rug salesmen, the pair of sisters selling oranges and watermelon from the bed of their pickup truck, moms pushing strollers, mustached men arguing with each other in Urdu, skateboarders, bicyclists, a zonked-out drug addict begging for change outside the Admiral strip club. By the time he’d reached Marylou’s Pizza and stepped into the dim bar at the front of the restaurant, he was breathing hard and pouring sweat. He took a moment to collect himself, hands on his knees, then walked over and sat down in his usual seat at the first red booth. Ronaldo, who was stretching pizza dough behind a glass partition just to his left, gave him a nod, then spun the dough expertly into the air, his face obscured by a cloud of flour.

  Carrie was leaning on the counter, order pad in hand. Her thick dark hair was pushed back with a bandanna and on her feet were the pink Nike high-tops Luke had bought for her that Christmas. Seeing her shoes gave Pup a stab of hope: She couldn’t hate Luke that much if she still wore the shoes he’d bought her, right? Maybe they’d even gotten back together at some point, and Luke had neglected to tell him—which would be a very Luke thing to do—and maybe Luke was sleeping off his hangover at Carrie’s place right that very minute. If Pup could just confirm that Luke was safe, then he could be free to hate him, without having to deal with the awful strain of worry that now squeezed at his heart.

  Carrie had been working at Marylou’s for as long as Pup had known her. It was how she’d bought the dress she wore to Luke’s senior prom, how she paid her way through college, and, now, how she supplemented her preschool teacher’s salary over the summers. In all those years, she’d never let Pup pay for a meal. Her back was turned to him now, and she was chatting with the bartender, Bern
ice, who was the only seventy-something-year-old lady Pup knew who still wore fake eyelashes and miniskirts. As soon as Bernice saw Pup slide into the booth, she whispered something to Carrie, who stiffened, but didn’t turn around. Pup made a point of taking some money out of his wallet and laying it in front of him on the table, so they knew he wasn’t expecting anything for free.

  A short while later, Carrie appeared at his side and set a tall glass of Sprite with grenadine on a cardboard coaster in front of him.

  “Put your money away,” she said.

  “No. I don’t want you to think that’s why I’m here.”

  “I know that’s not why you’re here.” She handed him a straw. “But I still don’t want your money. You want your usual?”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Pup said. “I just had a bunch of cake.”

  “I already put the order in. Should I tell Ronaldo to cancel it?”

  “Oh,” said Pup. “I mean, I guess if you already put the order in.”

  “Good. It’s not like you to turn down food. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She walked away to tend to the lone other table in her section, and Pup stuck his straw into his Shirley Temple and took a long sip. He could feel Bernice watching him, so he took out his phone and pretended to be doing something important.

  A few minutes later, Carrie appeared with a paper container of six mozzarella sticks, well done, and an extra cup of marinara sauce. She placed it on the table and then slid into the booth across from him.

  “I have to ask,” she said. “How’s your brother?”

  “That’s actually why I’m here,” Pup said. “I thought maybe you’d know.” He bit into a cheese stick, and a stream of hot grease gushed down his chin.

  “Me?” She handed him a napkin. “I haven’t talked to him since we broke up last month.”

  “Not at all?”

  “Not one call, not one message, not one word. I mean, I know I broke up with him, so he’s totally within his rights not to ever talk to me again. But I guess I just thought that after eight years together, he might try to fight for me. Or beg me to reconsider. Or promise to change. Instead he just let me go.” She looked out the window at the traffic on Lawrence Avenue. “He almost seemed . . . I don’t know. Relieved.”

  “So you don’t know where he’s staying?”

  “He’s not staying at your house anymore?”

  Pup shook his head.

  “Why?” He could feel her eyes boring into him, but he couldn’t look up to meet them. Pup had always had an innocent crush on Carrie. She was warm and kind and patient, and had golden, lit-from-within skin. She wore her nails long and painted with glittery colors and she always smelled good, even after a twelve-hour shift running tables at a pizza place. “Pup,” she said gently. “What happened?”

  He dunked his cheese stick into his cup of marinara. “He had a fight with my parents. Kind of a big fight. He ended up—my mom ended up getting hurt.”

  “What?”

  “So they kicked him out of the house.”

  “When?”

  “Last night. I know he’s probably fine, but he won’t respond to any of our messages. Not from Annemarie, not from me, and definitely not from the sister-moms.”

  “When you say your mom got hurt. Did Luke—”

  “It was an accident,” Pup said quickly.

  Carrie made a soft sound from the back of her throat. She rested her head in her hands for a moment and her dark hair spilled across the wooden table. When she looked up, her eyes were wet. “He was drunk,” she said. “Wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of course he was. He always is.”

  “Well. Not always.”

  Carrie crossed her arms and leveled him with her cut-the-bullshit look. Pup concentrated on his bitten nails.

  “Sometimes when he says he’s going to study group,” he said, “I think he’s lying. I think he just goes to Mishka’s. I don’t think he’s even studying for the bar anymore.”

  “Well, no.” She picked up a napkin and folded it absently between her fingers. “Why would he be?”

  Pup just looked at her. The question was snagged in his chest.

  “Oh, Pup.” The napkin fluttered from Carrie’s fingers onto the table. “You don’t know.”

  “Know what?” His cheese stick suddenly felt gelatinous and gross in his mouth. He forced himself to swallow.

  “Pup, Luke failed out of law school last year. He’s got thousands of dollars in loan money that he’s been drinking away at the bar instead. How could you not have—I mean, how could he not have . . . How did he hide that from you?”

  “But that can’t be.” Pup shook his head. “He got up with me every Tuesday and Thursday morning this whole semester. He’d give me a ride to school, and then he’d drive down to DePaul for his Wills and Trusts class.”

  Carrie smiled ruefully. “Every Tuesday and Thursday, Luke was too busy drinking at Mishka’s Tap to be worrying about wills and trusts.”

  “At eight in the morning?”

  “Sure. Why not, if you don’t have anywhere to be and you’ve got piles of loan money that you don’t have to spend on tuition anymore? He didn’t seem to be too concerned about what he was going to do when the loan companies started expecting him to pay all that money back—with interest. It was one of the subjects of our many, many arguments.”

  “God.” Pup ran his finger over the divots and bumps in the tabletop, the names and dates and carved messages of love. “I feel so stupid.”

  “Pup.” Carrie reached across the table and put a warm palm on the top of his hand. “You’re not stupid. I’m so sorry. I love your whole family, you know that. And I loved Luke. I still love him.” Her voice broke. “But his drinking—it’s gotten so bad. So bad. And your family . . . you were all so determined not to really see it. But I just couldn’t watch him destroy himself anymore. Maybe I’m not strong enough. Maybe I’m not loyal enough. I knew Patrick. I loved Patrick. But he wasn’t my brother. I don’t know what Luke felt—what any of you felt—” She looked at him and the tears that had gathered in her eyes spilled in two wet tracks down her face. “But it’s like he’s so filled with rage and he’s so angry and he’s put himself in a place that I can’t reach. He’s just gone from me. So what choice did I have? I hated myself for leaving. For giving up on him. But I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

  “It wasn’t an accident, with my mom’s shoulder,” Pup said softly. He ran his finger along a heart stabbed through with an arrow. “Not really, anyway.”

  Carrie shook her head. “Even I never thought it would get that bad. Bad enough that he would hurt someone he loved like that. His own mom. So maybe I was just as blind as everybody else.”

  “Carrie, you’ve got to help me find him. I just need to know he’s okay.”

  She shrugged. “Finding him’s the easy part. Where else would he be but Mishka’s?”

  23

  PUP HAD NEVER BEEN INSIDE Mishka’s Tap before, even though it had stood on the same corner at the outskirts of Flanland for as long as he could remember. It was a huddled brick building decorated with a blue-striped awning that had been bleached gray by years of sunlight, and it didn’t even have a sign, just a neon Old Style logo that blinked in the front window. As Pup opened the dinged-up metal door and stepped inside for the first time, he wondered whether Mishka’s was even its actual name, or just a nickname like his own that the bar had been given long ago and never been able to shake.

  When his eyes adjusted to the relative darkness of the room, he could make out a long, polished wood counter with rows of liquor bottles on one side of it and guys about his dad’s age on the other, drinking beer from glass mugs. The walls were decorated with faded photos of dead Chicago luminaries, and the jukebox was one of those old ones, where you hit a big metal button and a thick plastic page flips behind the glass. A sticky brown carpet covered the floor, curling up at the edges where the staples had come loose, and the who
le place reeked of stale smoke and wet dog. The source of one of those smells was a mangy-looking mutt with a mottled, patchy coat stretched out beneath the jukebox, who barely lifted his lumpy head to glance at Pup as he stepped carefully past it.

  The woman behind the bar was slow-moving and jiggly armed, with bottle-red hair and a low-cut T-shirt that revealed sun-spotted cleavage and said QUEEN OF FUCKING EVERYTHING across the front. When she saw Pup approach the counter, she put down the bottle of vanilla-flavored vodka she was wiping down with a dingy rag and shook her head emphatically.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” she said. “Turn your skinny ass around and walk right back out that door. We don’t serve twelve-year-olds here.”

  A few of the guys sitting at the bar swiveled in their stools to laugh at Pup and his skinny ass.

  “I’m just looking for my brother,” he said.

  “Yeah? Who’s your brother?”

  “Luke Flanagan.”

  A low whistle from one of the patrons, a snicker from another. The bartender set her bottle down on the counter, her face looking suddenly pinched.

  “Well, you won’t find him here.”

  “Are you sure?” Pup asked. “Because I know he’s been hanging out here a lot—”

  “Used to hang out here a lot. Not anymore. He is no longer welcome in this establishment, if you must know the truth.”

  “Fighting,” explained the gravel-voiced old man at the end of the counter, whose neck hung down to his collar in two grayish loops of skin.

  “Oh,” said Pup.

  The bartender replaced the vanilla vodka on the shelf and picked up another bottle, this one bubblegum flavored. “When you find him,” she said, twisting the rag along the neck of the bottle, “you tell him he owes me three hundred bucks for the mirror he busted in the men’s bathroom.”

  As Pup stepped out of the old-ashtray stench of the bar and back into the freshness of the evening, he looked down at his hands and saw that they were shaking. Luke was missing. Luke was lost. He imagined it happening all over again: standing next to a coffin, with eyes that stung and shoes that pinched as the endless line snaked past. Men shaking his hand, women hugging him, some looking him dead in the eye, some looking away, but all of them saying the same thing: Sorry for your loss. Sorry for your loss. Sorry for your loss. He couldn’t bear to go through it again, to watch his family go through it again. To be the only son left. Rush hour was beginning to set in as he stood in the middle of the sidewalk and pulled his phone from his pocket. Professionally dressed people, freed from work for the day, moved past him, absorbed in their own phones, their own lives.