Absent Friends

Phil watched as the boy sat, as a dark-haired young woman bent to speak to him. Marian Gallagher, that's who she was. Worked for some tenants' rights group, a rising star in the nonprofit world. He'd talked to her. He'd been ready to put her on the stand, a character witness, if Markie's case had gone to trial, if there hadn't been a plea. The book on her: she never lied. A useful reputation for a witness to have, if she's on your side.

Marian Gallagher lifted the child to his feet, brushed dirt from his bottom. The boy scowled, tugged; she wouldn't let him go. Forget it, pal, Phil thought. There's always someone who gets in the way of your work. But take it from me: she's doing you a favor. That hole you were digging, it'll be deeper and wider and better in your head than it ever would've been, if she'd left you alone to dig it.

He waited at the top of the steps for the press of neighbors and family to thin. When it did, he walked down to Sally Keegan, took her black-gloved hand, and told her he was sorry.

She said, “Thank you,” and then she said, “It wasn't your fault.” Behind her black net veil her eyes shone a deep emerald. He was surprised at their color, expecting a paler green, and then surprised at his surprise. They'd only met twice before; when had he noticed her eyes?

She squeezed his hand and held it, though having said what he came to say, he had been about to turn and walk away, leave her to those who loved her. Instead, she bent to the child, truculent in the dark-haired woman's grip, and said, “Kevin, this is Mr. Constantine. He was a friend of your daddy's.”

The child stared up at Phil, eyes narrowed, looking to see if anything about him was interesting at all.

Phil was hit with a gust of childhood memory: his neck aching after Saturday morning services as, not yet allowed to go home and change into jeans and grab his comic books or his basketball, he stood around the anteroom where they made kiddush, looking up at one adult after another, wondering how so many people could find so many stupid things to say to a kid.

Crouching outside St. Ann's, Phil didn't say anything. He met Kevin's eyes; they were the same green he remembered Sally's being, the gray-green he must have been wrong about. Without smiling, he winked. From his pocket he retrieved a roll of LifeSavers. He pried the red one off the top and offered it to Kevin.

Kevin stopped squirming, and his face glowed in an instant three-year-old grin. As he popped the candy in his mouth, Phil heard and ignored a disapproving click of the tongue from Marian Gallagher. He saw and ignored the protesting look she gave Sally. He knew and ignored what it meant: You let your child—Markie's child—take food from the hand of this man?

She never lied, and he guessed she wasn't much on hiding her feelings, either.

Phil winked at the boy again. Kevin squeezed both eyes shut, trying to respond. They grinned at each other, and Phil straightened up. Sally reached for Phil's hand. “Thank you,” she said again.

They hardly knew each other, and she owed him nothing. Yet the morning she buried her husband, standing on the steps of the church surrounded by people staring at Phil in silent accusation (he was an outsider, he was the hired professional who'd failed, he was so easy to blame), Sally Keegan cleared her throat and said again, quietly and forcefully so everyone would hear, the one thing he could not say to himself: “It wasn't your fault.”

A few years later, in the soft darkness, six-year-old Kevin asleep across the hall, she was saying the same thing again.

Phil rolled onto his back. “Your neighbors disagree.”

“They'd get used to you.”

“Oh, I don't think so.”

“Kevin would like it if you were here more often.”

He turned his head to her. “Kevin gets a kick out of Uncle Phil because I bring him funny presents and take him to the ball game. If I lived here, everything would be different.”

“He needs a father.”

“I'm not his father. Sal, he knows that.”

Sally fell silent then. An hour or so later Phil left. Riding home on the late ferry, watching as the bridge slipped by and the towers grew, Phil tried to tell himself he was wrong. Who the hell cared where he lived? How well did he know his neighbors now, how much time did he spend at home? Maybe Sally's neighbors really would get used to him. Maybe Kevin really would like it. Why not move to Pleasant Hills, if that was what Sally wanted?

Because of Sally's eyes.

Because when Sally asked him to come live in Pleasant Hills, her eyes darkened. They went from clear green jewel to troubled water. No matter how close she held him, how she promised him it would be the right thing and it would work out, he knew it never would, when he looked in her eyes.

BOYS' OWN BOOK

Chapter 8

First In, Last Out

September 11, 1978: The Girls (Sally)