Absent Friends

The autumn night when Jack died had been sticky and hot, a night of slamming doors, screeching brakes, and lovers' quarrels. Because he had not died naturally (though there were those who muttered that death from a gunshot wound was a natural one for Jack Molloy), because an investigation was under way, criminal charges pending, the laws of the city demanded that the Medical Examiner conduct an autopsy. Thus the wake and funeral were delayed by days, and the weather turned colder. The morning the bells tolled to summon them to St. Ann's, a raw wind marauded through the streets, driving before it a thin cruel rain. Marian walked to church beside Jimmy. All of Pleasant Hills was scurrying along the sidewalks, shivering in hastily unearthed coats and dark wool suits, converging on the vortex of St. Ann's, with their umbrellas held like shields.

Marian clutched an umbrella with two hands, unreasonably angry with the wind for coveting it, for attempting to wrench it from her and leave her unprotected. Jimmy carried no umbrella, and he wore no hat. The rain darkened his hair and ran in glistening trails down his cheeks, and it occurred to Marian that rain like this was a perfect disguise for hiding tears. Jimmy's hands, for warmth on this bitter day, were thrust deep, deep into the pockets of his good coat, and Marian struggled with the umbrella, and so perhaps it was not surprising that he had not put an arm around her shoulder or taken hold of her elbow to steer and steady her. Or perhaps it was.

From the night Jack had been killed, and Markie arrested, Jimmy had spoken little. Marian sat with him in soft silence over their morning coffee, kissed him, and smiled into his eyes when he left for his shift at 168. At night she held him, and he nestled tight to her both awake and asleep, though she knew he slept very little, and not deeply. Once, in a night syncopated with bursts of lightning and rumors of thunder but without rain, he turned suddenly (did he know she was awake also, waiting for the storm?) and made love to her with a furious urgency she had not known in him before. Afterward the thought came to her that this might be what it was like for him in a fire: to act before thought prevented action, to seize the chance before the chance was gone.

So Marian held Jimmy close, and lay awake, and the weather changed. The authorities, their work complete, released Jack's body for burial. The police made their arrest, and after an unexplained delay—but the police never explained, and who could insist?—charges were filed and a lawyer assigned. Jimmy traded shifts with a fireman brother to be free for Jack's funeral.

The day was dark, and the church was dark. Watery trails crisscrossed the tile in the echoing entryway. Parishioners plunged umbrellas into brass stands as though they were swords thrust into rock to attest to an oath (of community? of justice?) that everyone had sworn.

Marian furled her umbrella and placed it with the others, though gently. She reached for Jimmy's hand as they walked toward the front pews where the Molloy family already sat. Peggy Molloy's head was bent forward; black lace hid her face. Vicky, married to Tom in this same church, as Sally had been to Markie, sat beside Peggy, whispering something, holding her gloved hand. Tom and Big Mike stared straight ahead, their unblinking eyes keeping watch over the bronze-handled coffin before the altar. The air smelled of damp wool, of cedar and camphor. Jimmy's hand in Marian's was rough and cold, as though he had been laboring for hours in the icy morning.

Marian looked around for Sally. Some days before the funeral, Sally had asked Marian what to do, what the right thing would be.

“But, my God, you grew up with Jack,” Marian had answered. “It was an accident. No one blames Markie.”