Empty ever after

CHAPTER TWENTY

The sun wasn’t particularly bright nor the sky severely blue. The clouds that drifted overhead weren’t shaped like angels’ wings nor were they ominous and gray. The wind blew, but only enough to disappoint. It was a plain summer’s day that no one would ever sing about or write a poem about or paint a picture of. In this way, it was like most days of most lives: a nearly blank page in a forgotten diary. I think if we could remember our individual days, life wouldn’t seem so fleeting. But we aren’t built to work that way, are we? We are built to forget.

The Maloney family plot was, as Father Blaney had pointed out on that dreary Sunday in the rain, a pretty place to be laid to rest. And the priest, in spite of himself, presided over the third burial of Patrick Michael Maloney. It was a small gathering: Katy, Sarah, Pete Vandervoort, and me. I had thought to invite Aaron and Miriam and their families, but Sarah confided in me that she had had to lobby her mother just to let me come. Katy was still pretty delicate, her feelings raw, nerves close to the surface. We all had new things to work through.

Wisely, Katy had waited for the press to lose interest before putting her little brother into the ground for a last time. It was a hot story, but only briefly. Most of the reporting focused on the sensational aspects of the kid’s homicide and the Martellos’-senior and junior-history of misdeeds. There were only a few oblique references to my involvement and nothing about Katy. I’m sure the press would have made more of it if they could have, but no one was talking. A story is like a fire, rob it of oxygen and it dies. Y.W. Fenn taught me that.

No one claimed the kid’s body and John James was buried out in a field somewhere with the rest of the unclaimed, unwanted, and anonymous human refuse New York City seemed so proficient at collecting. I think in my younger days I might have made some gesture, maybe to pay for a decent burial or to find the kid’s people. Not this time, not anymore. My time for the useless grand gesture had come and gone. I just couldn’t muster much sympathy for the kid, even if he had gotten in too deep and hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. It was petty, I know, but I was still pissed at his lying to me about his name. I also couldn’t ignore the fact that his antics had helped shatter whatever fragile bonds that remained between Katy and me after the divorce. Sure, things might someday have collapsed under their own weight, but I would never know that now. Ray Martello had his revenge.

The day after the murder, I put in a call to Mary White to let her know how things had turned out. The awkwardness between us that began during my visit to Dayton had a long shelf life. I heard the strain in her voice during our conversation. I guess she just wanted to move on after all these years. Who could blame her? I wanted the same thing. There was genuine surprise in her voice when I told her about Martello’s revenge.

“Really?” she said. “The police are certain it was him?”

“One hundred percent. His car was full of evidence linking him not only to the murdered boy, but to the plot itself. There were cash receipts, fake IDs, just a ton of stuff.”

“If you’re sure then…”

“Well, yeah. Jack’s grave will be left alone from now on. I’m sorry for your troubles. Be well, Mary.”

Blaney kept it short and managed not to scowl during the graveside service. Maybe the priest did have a heart. Still, he used it sparingly. Fallon hung back, waiting for us to clear out before filling in the earth atop Patrick’s newest coffin. The caretaker had already done a masterful job of repairing the damage to the plot. The grass bore none of the scars of the desecrations, the hedges were trim and perfect, but Fallon was no miracle worker. It would be another month before my father-in-law’s new headstone arrived, so Fallon had fashioned a serviceable wooden cross to mark the grave. The simple cross suited him well. In the end, Mr. Roth was right; Kaddish and ashes was the way to go.

With the last Amen of the day, the Prager family of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York, broke fully and finally apart. I found myself thinking of what Howard Bland nee Judas Wannsee had said a few days back about the soft tissue of dinosaurs and how it was lost to history. So it was for us, the bonds that had tied us together as one were gone. In the grand scheme of things, the dissolution of my family was no more significant than the death of a may fly. The earth kept turning. There was now only Katy and Sarah, Sarah and me. I pulled Sarah aside.

“Listen, hon, I’m going to get out of here.”

“I think that’s best, Dad. Mom will be okay. This is her shit she’s dealing with. Someday she’ll be okay and we can be-get together, the three of us. What are you smiling at?”

“You really are the best of us, kiddo. So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to stay with Mom until mid-August, then I’ll head back up to school.”

“I don’t suppose the cute deputy sheriff has anything to do with your staying up here.”

She cat-grinned. “Robby? Maybe a little.”

“Stay away from cops. They’re nothing but trouble.”

“Not all of them.” Sarah slipped into my arms and kissed me on the cheek. “Not you, Dad.”

“Me most of all.”

“I love you.”

“Me too. Come down and visit before you go.”

I watched Sarah and Katy get into Katy’s car and drive off. Sarah looked back at me. Katy never did.