Пэм Дженофф – The Last Embrace (страница 13)
The sun shone down brightly on the worn pavement. But a breeze, sharp for early December, cut across the street. I walked south, past shops on the bottom floor of buildings, shoe stores and a dry cleaner’s. I turned east toward Pennsport, the Irish neighborhood where the Connallys lived. Soon the streets began to change, like an unmarked border crossing between countries. Breathless, I slowed to a walk. Though Christmas was nearly three weeks away, almost every house sparkled with lights, one brighter than the next. I passed a tavern, noisy through its open door even before lunchtime. Older, noisy boys played stickball on a corner lot. My skin prickled as I recalled Uncle Meyer’s admonition months earlier about the dangers of this strange neighborhood. Perhaps coming alone had been a mistake.
But soon I reached the Connallys’ and knocked. No one answered. The house was usually bustling with activity, so it had not occurred to me that no one would be home. I considered leaving. Instead, I turned the doorknob and stepped inside the house, looking around the empty living room uncertainly. “Hello?” I called out. “Mrs. Connally?” I eyed the piano in the corner, as I had so many times on my past visits. I made my way toward it, taking off my coat and then stroking the keyboard. It was a grand piano, so much bigger than the creaky old upright we’d had wedged into the dining room back in Trieste. I sat and played now, a simple piece that Papa had taught me back before his arrest when he still played. The notes rose above me like bubbles.
Hearing the door, I stopped abruptly. Mrs. Connally walked in and removed her coat, revealing her cornflower-blue dress. “Addie!” she said, taking off her hat. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
I stood hurriedly. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have come in.”
“Not at all.” She waved away my concern. “We were at church for the O’Neill baby’s baptism and there was lunch and the boys stayed to help with the nativity. They should be home soon.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask first.”
Mrs. Connally waved her hand. “Don’t be. It does my heart good to hear it make music again. You should come play it whenever you want, and I hope that will be often. I’m going to change out of my good clothes. Why don’t you play something else for me?”
I sat and began to play again, “Torna a Surriento,” a song that Papa knew could always get my mother to smile. Once I had struggled with the notes, but now my fingers seemed to move of their own will, as if he was here, leading me. I finished the piece, the last notes echoing through the house.
There was a noise behind me and I looked up, expecting Mrs. Connally. But Charlie stood watching me from the doorway, more handsome than ever in his navy church suit. How long had he been there? Our eyes met. Several seconds passed, my throat too dry to speak.
He took a step toward the piano bench. “Hey.” Something seemed to shift with that single word, in the quiet space between us. At school, he was larger than life. But here it was just the two of us away from the eyes and remarks of the other kids. Despite my fantasies of being his girl, this was the part I really wanted, the two of us alone, away from our families and the world.
“That was just beautiful, Addie,” Mrs. Connally said as she appeared on the stairwell. Then she stopped. “Charlie, I thought you were helping with your father.”
He tore his gaze from me, then cleared his throat. “I was, but I ran into Coach and he said there’s a scout from Georgetown coming tomorrow. I want to get in some extra practice.” Though football season had ended weeks earlier, Charlie continued to work on his game with a few of the fellows, hoping to catch the eye of one of the colleges.
“Georgetown? That’s great, honey, but...” Conflict washed across Mrs. Connally’s face. I suspected they couldn’t afford a school like that. “Maybe somewhere closer.”
“There are scholarships, Mom.” I knew Charlie had never even contemplated forgoing college for a job at the factory as his father had, or even applying to a lesser school. He had always known he was meant for something great. “I’ve gotta go.” He disappeared upstairs.
A minute later Jack walked in with Robbie in tow. “Dad’s still at church finishing up,” he told his mother. “Hi, Ad.”
I followed them to the kitchen. “Addie, the boys had sandwiches at church. Have you eaten?” I nodded, thinking of the leftover gefilte fish and reheated soup from Shabbes that was a Sunday staple at my aunt and uncle’s. She pulled a carton from the icebox. “Chocolate or vanilla?”
“Both!” Robbie interjected.
“Not too much. I’m putting in the roast and dinner is at four.” Mrs. Connally handed me a bowl.
“Thank you.” I broke off a bit with my spoon. Ice cream here was harder than Nonna’s creamy gelato. It almost needed to be cut.
“I spilled!” Robbie wailed as his ice-cream bowl tipped, sending a creamy pool onto the linoleum.
Jack quickly set the bowl straight and scooped some of his own into it, evening things out as he so often did. “Want some help with the science homework after this?” he asked me.
“Sure,” I said, grateful for the excuse for having come over later.
“Can I help, too?” Robbie asked eagerly.
Jack knelt by his brother. “How ’bout you give us a little while, and then maybe we can all play dominoes?”
“Marbles,” Robbie sniffed.
“All right, but no cheating,” Jack teased.
But Robbie’s face was serious. “I’m going to beat you, fair and square.”
“Why don’t you let the dog out first?” Mrs. Connally suggested to Robbie.
He leapt up, whistling for Beau. “Come on, boy.”
When he was out of earshot, Mrs. Connally turned to Jack. “Have you seen your brother?”
“Which one?”
“Haha, wise guy. Where’s Liam?”
Jack shrugged. “I’m not his babysitter.” But worry creased his face. Though Liam hadn’t been in any more trouble since the fight in school nearly two months earlier, he was more withdrawn and absent than ever.
“Jackie,” his mother pressed. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He was hanging out with some of the fellas.” He did not sound as though he was talking about the kids from church.
Mrs. Connally cringed. “I told him to come home right after you were finished.”
“I know. I reminded him. He told me to mind my own business.” I followed Jack up the stairs. Through an open door, I could see where Robbie had constructed a giant city out of his blocks, using cardboard boxes when he ran out. He loved to build and Jack loved to read, and Charlie loved football—but what did Liam love? Perhaps it was the lack of a passion that stirred him to trouble.
“I’m worried about Liam,” Jack confided when we reached the room he and his twin shared.
“You should be. He’s gone from school more often than he’s there and those kids he hangs out with are awful. We have to do something.”
“Like what?”
I searched for an answer. Liam wouldn’t listen to us. Telling the Connallys and getting him in further trouble would only make things worse. “I’ll be right back.”
I raced downstairs and outside after Charlie, who had changed into his practice jersey and was climbing on his bike, shoulder pads slung over the handlebars. He turned and my breath caught, as it always did when he was near. “What is it, Ad?” he asked. “I’ve got to practice.” But his eyes were soft, his voice warm. What would he do if I kissed him right now?
“I’m worried about Liam.” He cocked his head, not following. How could he not have noticed? “He’s missing school a lot.”
“He’s always been a wild kid, Addie. He just loves to give Mom and Dad the business.”
“But it’s different now. He could be drinking.” Though I had not seen Liam with beer or liquor, I knew from conversations I’d overheard at school that some of the wilder kids drank. “Or worse.”
“It’s a phase. He’ll get over it.”
“What if he doesn’t?” I pressed.
Charlie’s brow wrinkled fleetingly. “I’ll talk to him, I promise. But right now I’ve got to get to practice.” He rose up on the pedals and started forward. “Don’t worry,” he called over his shoulder as he pedaled away, his voice fading in the wind. Longing tugged at my stomach. If only he would see what was going on with Liam. If only he would see me.
I started back through the living room toward the stairs. “Addie,” Robbie called in a stage whisper, though no one else was around to see or hear. His head stuck out from a doorway beneath the stairs. He’d first shown me his secret hiding place in early fall, waving me in from the dining room during one of my visits while the others were busy debating the Lend-Lease Act to a small door that I had always assumed was a broom closet. I lowered my head and peered inside. “Come in,” he’d urged. The tiny space with its low ceiling was barely big enough for the two of us, but he had decorated it with photos and pictures he had done at school and put two pillows on the floor. I’d squeezed onto one of them. “My hideaway.” I understood. The house was so overrun, two boys to a bedroom, noise in every corner. This was the one place he could call his own. “No one else knows,” he’d whispered. Though quite sure his mother did, I nodded solemnly, flattered that I was the one with whom he had shared his secret.