“I’m coming home.”
Sean sat forward in a rush. “You are?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Month or so.”
“Are you out?”
“Think I could stay with Billy? In Boston?”
Nicely dodged, that discharge question. “Of course. You want me to tell him?”
“Yeah. When I get closer to my release date, I’ll let him know.”
“Release date? So you’re really getting out?”
“Take care, Sean. Same to Billy. I’ll be in touch.”
The call ended. And Mac was gone like a ghost.
But at least he was coming home. God, how long had it been since Mac had been to the States for any period of time? Years.
Idly, Sean wondered what his brother looked like now. He’d be forty.
The BlackBerry went off again and this time Sean checked who it was before answering. Billy. Finally.
“Mac just called,” he said instead of hello .
There was a sharp inhale. “He did?”
“Yeah, he’s coming stateside and wants to stay with you in Boston for a little while.”
“Whoa. I mean, of course he can bunk at my house here. Thing’s big enough for an army.” Billy paused, then asked, “What did he sound like?”
“The same. Distant. No idea where he was. Call lasted all of about half a minute.”
“At least he’s coming home.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” After a brief pause, Sean switched the subject. “So did you see her?”
“No.”
“What?” Sean frowned. “Lizzie didn’t show?”
“Didn’t have to because she’s not the one taking over the house. She gave it to the Roxbury Community Health Initiative. The director came with a power of attorney. Said they’re going to use the sale of it to start the center’s endowment. And get this, Lizzie asked that the fund be named after Dad.”
Sean felt all the blood drain out of his head. A horrible, surreal feeling of doom cloaked him until he was mostly blind and mostly deaf and almost dead in his chair.
Gold diggers most certainly did not give away assets like that.
“I gotta go, Billy. Call you later.”
***
Chapter Eighteen
As night eased over South Boston, a blanket of black heat came in and settled down for the evening.
Lizzie sat in the armchair, right next to the air conditioner, holding her phone in her hands. She tried to dial Sean’s number again. And failed.
She just couldn’t complete the call to him. One reason was the obvious issue of the way things had been left between them. The other was far more complex.
The tool box had to be returned and it wasn’t the kind of thing she felt comfortable just leaving outside the apartment upstairs. As she’d long forgotten how to reach Billy, that left Sean. But what to say?
She collapsed back into the chair and her eyes slid over to the tool box. For the millionth time, she thought about the papers she’d read.
Mr. O’Banyon, her old friend, was not who she’d thought he was.
Or maybe he’d transformed himself through the years into someone else completely. She couldn’t imagine the man she’d known doing what those papers had stated, except it was clear he had.
Things to atone for indeed.
And Sean…Poor Sean. Her heart ached for the little boy he’d been. Ached also for Billy. And for the brother she hadn’t met.
The papers had been a report of a domestic abuse complaint and its follow-up. Evidently, the oldest boy, Mac, had missed several days of school. When he’d finally shown up again, he’d gone to gym class, taken off his shirt and one of the teachers had seen the faded marks on his body. Which had triggered the complaint and investigation.
The boys had been taken from the home for two months then returned. All three of them had maintained Mac’s contusions had come from street fighting, not their father. Which was, of course, not unusual. Often children protected their parents out of love or fear of retribution or any one of a number of rationales.
Lizzie was willing to bet things hadn’t improved when they’d come home. The two months of anger-management counseling Mr. O’Banyon had received back in 1979 likely hadn’t turned things around. Especially if he’d continued to drink. Which she was willing to bet he had.
Goddamn it, she would never get answers out of him, would she? She would never be able to confront him. She would never know how long or why or whether what he’d done had eaten him alive as she hoped it had.