Marine Park(56)

            The room, facing the avenue, was quiet in the morning. Jamison woke first, although Lorris had been up and down before. He wasn’t used to sleeping at home again. He always took some days to get accustomed to new beds, the new sounds of people breathing, the walls and creaking pipes. It had taken him a long time to fall asleep with his brother’s breathing. Sleep OK? said Mr. Favero. The pullout bed was close enough to the real bed that he could lean in between both of them. Lorris nodded, and Jamison groaned. He rolled over and reached to the nightstand for the clock.

            Mrs. Favero was the last one to get dressed. She had spent a long time picking between the dark navies and black blouses that she had in the closet. Mr. Favero was already downstairs, in a suit, looking at his watch and drinking coffee with the boys. Each of them took a mug. We should leave, Mr. Favero yelled up. You wait a minute, Mrs. Favero answered. She was talking to herself in the mirror.

            The whole avenue was blocked off. There hadn’t been any notices, nothing hung on trees or bus stop poles, but everyone had known to park their cars on the side streets. Mr. Favero led them off to where the car was on Kimball, reached around and opened the passenger-side door. Lorris and Jamison squeezed their legs into the back. Jamison fingered the broken handhold above his head. We need gas, said Mr. Favero. We’re fine, Mrs. Favero said. There were other people getting into their cars on the side streets. Mr. Favero stopped at the stop sign. The Dentons’ house next door to them was empty and quiet, and there were flowers on the sidewalk.

            It was difficult to find a parking spot. Mr. Favero circled the church lot twice. Lorris remembered having youth baseball awards nights here, all the kids from the different teams in their different colors. Lorris’s favorite had been yellow, the one year when they let him pitch. He’d been on the youngest Denton’s team that year; they’d both played outfield together. They’d been in the same school until ninth grade, though now they weren’t close. As they passed the entrance to the church hopelessly for a third time, Lorris was struck suddenly by the memory of one of those awards ceremonies, early in the summer, a lazy blue tinge to the night. Four ice cream trucks had been double-parked on the street fighting for customers. Someone finally came out of the gates to tell them to turn the jingles off. You couldn’t hear the league commissioner, who was also a fireman and lived on Thirty-Sixth. Lorris had gotten the Most Improved Award, he remembered, and Tyler Denton had been MVP. Tyler was playing in college, though Lorris wasn’t. For God’s sake, Mrs. Favero said. I’ll try Avenue V, said Mr. Favero. As they passed Avenue R and the front of the church they saw the long line of firemen walking slowly in through the front doors. They all had their dress uniforms on, like a September 11 memorial, year after year, the tenth anniversary just like the fifth. Lorris barely remembered it, though he was old enough to. He and Jamison had slept in the same room for weeks. The firemen walked down the double yellow line, in the middle of the closed street.

            Good Shepherd was not a big church, though it wasn’t a small one. It wasn’t particularly well decorated. There was a large skylight stained-glass window up over the altar, which was supposed to be the crowning work of art, but looked strangely geometrical and out of place, almost like an Islamic mosaic. Mrs. Favero had once felt strongly that the boys go to church. Her mother had been like that. But it began to feel less and less important. Just the year before one of the deacons was accused of improper sexual conduct. I knew it, Lorris had crowed, over the phone. He had already been at college. He always used to look at me funny, Lorris said. Mr. Favero had put an end to such jokes quickly. Enough, he said. The small bronze font for holy water at the front of the church was almost empty, and the ground was squeaky and damp around it, when the Faveros crossed themselves. They sat in the back row, because it had been so difficult parking. Lorris had only seen a coffin once before. The new priest, from some foreign country, stood up.

            Later, at the house next door, everyone said what a nice service it had been. Genine Denton, the wife, was nodding quickly, her chin jutting out too far. People had said such nice things, Lorris heard someone say. He heard someone say, almost excitedly, I didn’t know he went to Midwood! I didn’t even know Midwood existed back then. The Stanton family was all there, showing the new family the ropes. No one played whiffleball on the corner of Thirty-Fourth and R, where the green sign was, the Fire Captain Thomas J. Stanton memorial corner. I didn’t know his firehouse had been so close to the World Trade Center, a woman near Lorris gasped. The closest one, someone else answered. Make it through that and then. Lorris shook Tyler Denton’s hand, but Tyler walked away before he could say much. Eventually Mrs. Denton went with Mrs. Favero next door, where they put the food that wouldn’t fit in their fridge into the Faveros’. Then she sat on the couch next to Mrs. Favero. They talked about when their children used to play in the living room there. Mrs. Favero asked if she remembered Legos. Mrs. Denton said that she did. Mr. Favero came in the door with his hands in his pockets looking for them. He stood in front of the couch. He suddenly didn’t know what to do.