Kiss of the Wolf

JOANIE

Services on good Friday, Stations of the Cross — my mother was one of those Catholics who excused herself from a lot of the duties because she had a hard life. That’s what she said. The idea was that God let her off on that.

I think her mother always had the harder life. My father’s always been good to her, and they’ve never been poor. Her mother had to come over from Italy with her husband and four kids, start up from nothing. When I remind my mother of that, she says, Yeah, but she didn’t have to put up with being me.

By that I think she means that her mother expected a lot of unhappiness.

My mother had this thing she would say to herself to cheer herself up: It could always get worse than this. She’d say it in this tough way, like she’d taken somebody’s best shot. I remember her saying it once when she’d taken me shopping with her at Read’s. I was six years old. I hadn’t even known she was unhappy.

She said that to me when Gary left. I said to her, “How could it get worse than this?”—even though even then I could think of ways. She said, “It just could.”

Now I say to myself, It could always get worse than this. I repeat it.

My mother’s got no patience for unhappiness. She says she has less now even than she used to. Which means she has less patience for anything that might be adding to the problem, like my father or the Church. She was secretary of the Rosary Society for two weeks, they started busting her rocks about the way she wrote up the reports, that was the end of that.

So she joked that God let her off on stuff like that. It was like going to the eleven-o’clock Mass: the really great Catholics, they were there on the dot for the seven-o’clock. My mother and I figured God appreciated that, but he also had the later one for the rest of us. If you spent Saturday night hiding bottles from your husband or bailing your kid out of juvenile detention, or you just felt so bad you wanted to lie there in bed an extra three hours, there was still that last Mass. It was like Mass for the shirkers and the exhausted.

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe, even in the Church. She just picked the rules she thought were important, for her sake and ours. Lent she never went for, for example.

She tried to bring me up right. She sent me to Blessed Sacrament. The building was falling apart; the building should have been condemned. There was a hole in the floor of the seventh-grade classroom near the heating vent: the seventh-graders could spit down onto the third-graders.

I had a sister there, Sister St. John of the Cross. I had these Martian cards then, cards about Mars invading the Earth — the whole story took up fifty-something cards. A boy I liked, Lawrence Harrigan, gave me his doubles. I was amazed by them. They had things like frost rays and heat rays: skin coming off the bone while the guy looked down and watched, these Martians grinning. Giant insects that picked guys out of cars. There was one gave me nightmares of a woman with hair like my mother on a web with a huge black-and-red spider. Lawrence said it was like Hell. Lawrence was always looking for ways to bring his problems in line with the Church.

Once a day, I asked Sister St. John of the Cross if I could go to the lavatory. I moved the time around so it wouldn’t look suspicious. I carried the cards in my skirt pocket and spread them out around the toilet in the stall. The third day I did it, wham, the stall door opens, there’s Sister St. John.

She said, “I knew you were up to something. I knew.”

I was trying to get my cards back. I would say anything. I asked her how she knew. She said she could see it in my face. She said the guilt was in my face. She said, “I can tell everything you’ve done.” And I knew she could. She’d seen through me. She knew what a horrible girl I was all along, and she’d just let me make things worse, pretending I wasn’t, her knowing all the time.

You know the only prayer I ever had that was real, that was from my heart? It was a prayer I said whenever I was really scared: PleaseGod pleaseGod oh pleaseGod, pleaseGod. That was my prayer.

When we were reading about the Passion in the garden, when the apostles were asleep and Jesus said, “Let this cup pass from me”—when he wanted more than anything else to just get out of things — that was the closest I ever felt to Jesus.

They spent the morning in the house like two sick people. Todd didn’t get dressed. Joanie didn’t answer the phone. They ate cereal. He went back to bed.

In the afternoon he woke up half off his mattress. He could hear Audrey playing “Chopsticks” down in the living room. The radio was on in the kitchen, turned low.

His dog could play the piano when someone held her paws. They’d bought her the piano, a toy piano, as a joke. His mother liked to make her play “Some Enchanted Evening.” Audrey had to be in a certain mood to stick it out for any length of time.

He was sweaty. He was in just his pajama bottoms, but he was hot. He kicked off the covers.

He’d had a dream about the Holy Trinity. Jesus had looked thin and pale and seemed too disappointed to speak. God the Father had done most of the talking. The Holy Ghost had been behind them, the way it usually was in the pictures, no help.

He got up. Maybe she’d called. Maybe things were starting to work out, the police on their way.

He was standing at his bedroom door, squeezing the nap of the rug with his toes. He strained to pick up what was on the radio. It changed to an ad jingle.

What he was wearing was suddenly stupid. He wasn’t going to be arrested wearing Minnesota Viking pajama bottoms. He changed into soccer shorts and padded downstairs.

His mother and Audrey were playing the piano. She was kneeling, the dog was sitting. They were just plunking around. The piano was half a foot high and had quarter and eighth notes painted on the sides. They were doing one paw at a time.

This was not Audrey’s favorite way to spend the morning. When she saw Todd, her tail thumped the carpet.

“There’s some breakfast out there,” his mother said, concentrating on the keyboard. “I cut up some honeydew.”

“What’re you doing?” he said.

“Audrey and I’re riffing around,” she said. “You know. We’re just noodlin’.”

He went into the kitchen. The radio was on top of the refrigerator. The guy was doing the national news. The local news was after that.

Todd’s place was laid out, the honey dew in a Tupperware tub. He thought of the catechism stories of boys tested by God in various ways: one boy gave his lunch money to the beggar with sores, one didn’t. One sat down and ate the breakfast he was offered, knowing he’d committed a crime.

He sat down. His mother still hadn’t called. He hated that he had to bring it up. He hated the fight they were going to have.

She came into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door and stood there. She was always after him to not leave the door open.

She had pretty skin, with freckles, and was wearing her hair longer now, down to her shoulders. He liked the color, but she said she was an Italian brunette, like she wasn’t happy about it. He watched her mouth while she bit her lip, deciding what to have. He imagined guys she’d meet in the future wanting to kiss her, because she wasn’t like some women he’d seen who had almost no lips. She used a little tub of Carmex a lot instead of lipstick, and it picked up the light from the refrigerator door.

She pulled out a box of raisins and a tub of vanilla yogurt. She always bought something like the seventy-pound size. She spooned yogurt onto his plate and pointed to the honeydew.

“That’s enough,” he said.

She opened the raisin box and shook it over his plate. Nothing happened, and then they came out in a clump and spattered the yogurt. She got a paper towel and wiped it up.

When she finished, she sat down opposite him.

He didn’t eat.

She got back up, poured him a glass of milk, and brought over her coffee mug and a spoon. She spooned coffee from her mug into his milk. She worried about caffeine and he wanted coffee and that was their compromise. He’d liked it also because she’d sometimes make fun of Mass when she did it.

She gave him four spoonfuls. The milk barely changed color.

“You didn’t call,” he said. She was wearing the same pants from the night before, but a new shirt.

The local news came on. They listened. There was no story about the accident, or any accident. Audrey padded through the kitchen and collapsed near his feet.

“Are you gonna eat?” his mother said.

“Are you gonna call?”

She got up from the table and went outside.

He sat in front of his breakfast, wondering what to do. He wanted all of this to be handled by someone else. He felt like a wind was coming and going on his forehead.

Audrey went to the door, and he let her out and watched to see where she went.

His mother was weeding on her hands and knees in the garden.

The phone rang. He saw her sit up and look back at the house. He thought, Let her get it.

It kept ringing. She was still looking toward the house. He stomped around in little half circles with his fists at his sides and then finally tore the receiver off the cradle.

It was his friend Brendan. “You get it?” Brendan said.

It took him a second: the lacrosse helmet. They’d figured Todd’s father would get it for his confirmation. Todd had mentioned it in a letter to his father with that in mind.

It felt like if he was going to say something, he had to do it now, before he kept going with this other life.

It took him too long to answer. Then he said, “The helmet?”

“Du-uh,” Brendan said. “No. The Uzi. Whadja think?”

Again, it took him too long. “What’s wrong with you?” Brendan said. “You get it or not? You didn’t get it?”

“Yeah,” Todd said.

“Yeah you got it or yeah you didn’t get it?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“What colors?” Brendan said, exasperated. “J’ou get any team?”

“White,” he said. “It’s all white.” He pulled the phone cord over to the window. His mother was still sitting up, looking at the house.

Brendan was doing something on the other end while he talked. “I thought you were gonna get Syracuse. You gonna be around?”

“Now?” Todd said. He put his hand over his eyes.

“No, Easter. What ‘now’? Acourse now.”

“I was goin’ out,” Todd said. He looked around the kitchen, like a lie would be written there for him to say. “I was gonna go do something.”

Brendan asked him what. Todd didn’t know.

Brendan was getting fed up. Todd put his hand on his hair and rubbed it like he was shampooing, and said to come over now, then.

Brendan made a big sarcastic point about how grateful he was and said he’d be over. Todd wanted to say, You can’t come over because my mother killed somebody last night. He hung up the phone.

His mother was still looking toward the house. He went onto the back porch and cranked open the window.

“Who was that?” she called. He could hear the shakiness in her voice, and he felt like a terrible son, suddenly.

“It was Brendan,” he said. He wasn’t sure she could see him, with the morning sun on the screen. “He said he was coming over.”

She kept looking a minute and then turned back to the garden. Audrey was in her sphinx pose in the dirt between two rows of tomatoes, watching.

He wandered around the house doing nothing.

He sat on the back porch with his hands together.

Brendan took his time. When he finally got there, Todd let him in the back. Brendan walked in and sat at the kitchen table like someone going to a restaurant. He was wearing surfing jams and a white Portland Trailblazers tank top that had a picture of their front line standing there with their arms folded under the words JUDGMENT DAY. He found Todd’s dish of M&M’s from the night before and ate a few. Todd felt like the M&M’s had given him away, somehow. He stood there until Brendan finally said, “So where’s the helmet?”

Todd looked at him a second longer and then realized the helmet was in with all the other presents in the car.

“The helmet,” Brendan said.

“It’s in the car,” Todd said.

Brendan dropped an M&M back in the dish and stood up. He stretched. Todd realized he was supposed to be leading the way. When he didn’t move, Brendan gave him another look and headed out the door. Todd followed him.

His mother turned around again and said hello. She waved a little three-pronged rake or scraper. She watched them head to the garage. She peered at Brendan’s tank top.

“Where’re you going?” she asked Todd. Her voice was a little high.

Todd said he was going to show Brendan his stuff.

“In the car?” his mother said. Did Brendan have to see it now? She started to get up.

But Brendan was already in the garage. He went right to the backseat and opened the door and pulled out the lacrosse helmet. On the floor next to it, he found the Viking helmet.

Todd kept trying to lead him out of the garage. Brendan kept pulling free and going, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about the Viking helmet. He put the lacrosse helmet on the hood and tried to pull the Viking helmet onto his head. Todd could see the dent on the bumper right below the lacrosse helmet.

His mother put her hand on his shoulder. She asked if they didn’t want to get out into the sun instead of hanging around the damp, smelly garage. She gave his shoulder a squeeze.

“Let’s get out and look at it in the sun,” he said.

Brendan was having trouble getting the helmet over his ears, even though it was a large and it was the real thing. He sat up on the hood of the car and held the helmet in front of him by the earholes.

Todd squeezed around to the front and stood by the dented bumper. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. His mother headed back outside.

“Todd, are you coming out?” she asked.

He reached for Brendan, who pulled his arm away. “Let’s sit in the grass,” Todd said.

“In a minute,” Brendan said. The helmet was halfway on and was squeezing his head like a grape.

“Todd,” Joanie said.

“Ma—” Todd said. She left the doorway.

“So can you give me a ride Wednesday night?” Brendan wanted to know. He pulled the helmet all the way on and snapped the chin strap. It made his face skinny. He looked around, enjoying the view through the facemask.

“A ride to what?” Todd asked, distracted.

“Ad Altare Dei,” Brendan said. He was playing with his wristbands. He and Todd always wore wristbands. They thought it was cool. Todd wasn’t wearing his. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Oh, God,” Joanie said, outside the garage. She was out of sight around the corner.

Ad Altare Dei was the religious medal Todd had signed up to go for. All the old altar boys had. You were eligible right after confirmation. It meant “to the altar of God.” It was like six weeks of classroom work at night about the Scriptures and catechism, and then interviews with your priest and the bishop, and if you passed you got a medal. They gave it out at a ceremony in front of the whole diocese.

“What’d you, forget?” Brendan said. “Wednesday night’s the first night.” He was whapping himself on the side of the helmet with his open palm.

“You look sick,” Brendan said. “You gonna yack?”

“I gotta get outside,” Todd said. “You can stay in here.”

He left the garage and sat in the grass. The grass was warm, but the damp came through his pants immediately. He imagined Brendan in there alone, in his Minnesota Viking helmet, noticing something, looking closer at the front bumper.

Nina’s car cruised up the driveway, popping gravel on the blacktop. Audrey stood up in the garden and trotted over, barking.

Todd’s mother put her hand to the back of her neck. “Just what I need right now,” she said.

Brendan came out of the garage.

Nina rolled her window down. She drove with the windows up, even if it was 104 out. She worried about getting colds in places like her ears.

“J’ou hear what happened?” she called to Joanie. She was leaning her head out the window and squinting. Audrey came over to the car and put her front paws up on the door, licking the air near Nina’s face.

Todd’s mother returned her hand to her side. Her eyes reacted.

“No, what happened?” she said. She turned back to the garden, like she expected to hear Nina say they called off the sale at Stop and Shop.

Nina said it was terrible. Tommy Monteleone: they killed him out on Route 110. Somebody, hit-and-run.

Todd stood there. His armpits sweated.

Brendan sat in the grass next to him. He was trying to eat a KitKat bar through the facemask instead of under it.

Todd’s mother turned around. When he saw her face, he thought it was all going to come apart right then.

“Tommy Monteleone?” she said. “It wasn’t Tommy Monteleone.” Then she put a hand up to her mouth, as if realizing what she’d done. He looked away. It was like even their mistakes seemed fake, now.

“How do you know? Were you there?” Nina said. She sounded irritated. Todd recognized her tone: nobody ever listens to me.

“Tommy Monteleone?” Joanie asked.

“Not Tommy Tommy the father,” Nina said. “Tommy the son.”

“Little Tommy?” Joanie said.

“Little Tommy,” Nina said. “Tommy Monteleone. Lucia’s son.”

Todd’s mother stood there, her mouth open a little bit. She braced herself with one leg.

“I know. It’s a sin,” Nina said. “Terrible. Just terrible. Let’s go.”

Tommy Monteleone: Todd was trying to picture him. He’d met him twice, maybe, at a wedding and a wake.

She was leaving the car running. What’s the rush? Todd thought. Is he still on the road?

It was another one of those times he imagined God peering down into his soul the way he might peer into an old garbage can.

“I’m going over there now,” Nina said. She revved the car, like she was demonstrating. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” Joanie asked. She shook her head like there was a fly around it. She was still holding the little three-pronged rake.

“Lucia’s,” Nina said. “Are you all right? C’mon. Let’s go.”

“I don’t think I should go,” Joanie said. “Maybe she doesn’t want to be bothered—”

“Get in the car, you don’t think you should go,” Nina said. “The woman’s boy is run over on the street, you don’t want to pay your respects? What do I tell her, you’re working in the garden?”

Joanie looked at the garden and then at Todd. “Isn’t it a little early? They just got the news.”

“They heard last night. We’re not gonna stay long,” Nina said. “Just stop over. I got some soup and some lasagna. They can heat it up.”

“I better change,” Joanie said.

“Go like that,” Nina said.

“I got dirt all over me,” Joanie said. She hurried for the back door. “I’ll be one minute.”

Inside the house, she called, “Todd, get the dog off Nina’s car.”

Todd took Audrey by the collar and pulled her down from the driver’s-side door.

Nina settled back to wait. She put her head against the headrest.

“Is he going to be able to get that helmet off?” she asked, nodding her head at Brendan. “Wait’ll Bruno sees everybody else wearing it but you.”

“How did you hear about Tommy Monteleone?” Todd asked.

“I called Lucia, I was trying to organize a bus trip,” Nina said. “You imagine? I’m calling about that, her son’s dead.”

Todd let go of Audrey’s collar. She shook herself and stretched and drifted back to the grass. “They know who did it?” Todd asked.

“They don’t know. What do they know? I didn’t hear a thing about it on the news,” Nina said. “Put the dog in the house. You gonna go like that?”

“Me?” Todd said. “I’m going?”

“Sure you should go,” Nina said. “It’s not gonna kill you. It’s a nice gesture. She’ll remember. We’re only gonna drop the food off.”

“Brendan’s here, and stuff. Maybe I should stay with him,” Todd said. He felt a rush of air that seemed to start at the top of his head.

Nina peered at him. “Did he just lose a son?” she asked. “What is it with you people today? Don’t start with me. We’re talking five minutes here.”

“He just came over,” Todd said.

“What’s he, live two houses down?” Nina said, exasperated. “Get in the car. Put the dog in the house and get in the car.”

Todd grabbed Audrey by the collar without calling her and dragged her toward the house. She thought she’d been bad and went limp, so she was harder to pull. Brendan watched him struggle, with a little smirk.

“Take the helmet off,” Todd said, frustrated. “I gotta go.”

“Can I keep it on till you get back?” Brendan said.

Todd’s mother came out of the house. She looked grim. “Let’s go, if we’re going,” she said.

“Take it off,” Todd said. “I gotta go.”

“You’re going?” Joanie said. “You don’t have to go.”

“He should go,” Nina said. “Don’t you start with me now. I just went through all of this with him.”

“Ma, what’s he have to go for?” Joanie said.

Nina swore.

“You got the other one,” Brendan said. “Why can’t I keep this one till you get back? You ain’t gonna use it.”

“Ma, he can’t go,” Joanie said.

“He can’t?” Nina said. “Why can’t he?”

Brendan was hitting his facemask with his palm from different angles. Audrey sniffed the air around him to try and sort out what he was doing.

“Get in the car,” Joanie said, angry. “Grandma’s decided you have to go.”

“I’m going,” Todd said. “I’m going.”

“So I can keep the helmet till then?” Brendan asked.

“Take it off,” Todd said.

Brendan yanked it off his head like someone pulling taffy. When he got it off, his ears looked like he’d been out three hours in the dead of winter.

“I’ll see you later,” Brendan said disgustedly.

“You can come back,” Todd said.

“Yeah. I’ll get right over here,” Brendan said.

Todd got in the car. Nina put it into gear. They backed down the driveway. They passed Brendan, who didn’t look up. “Now he’s mad at me,” Todd complained.

“Don’t worry about him,” Nina said. “Worry about me.”

They drove without anybody saying anything. Todd rolled his window down.

The Monteleones lived in Lordship, ten minutes away.

Todd’s mother was looking out her window. He was dizzy and a little sick. He had a fantasy that they had the body there and they were going to make him touch it.

Nina adjusted her side mirror, and he could see his eyes. He thought, What you’re doing now: this has to be some kind of sacrilege.

“You gotta move outta Milford,” Nina said. “You’re not near anybody. Milford. You know whose idea that was.”

She meant it was Todd’s father’s idea.

They went over the Devon bridge. The metal part in the middle made the noise under the tires he remembered from the Merritt Parkway bridge the night before.

“Lucia said they said he was dead before he hit the ground,” Nina said. “He wasn’t dragged or anything. Least he didn’t suffer.”

“Ma,” his mother said.

Nina shrugged. Todd closed his eyes so tightly he saw lights behind them.

“How old was he?” his mother asked. She was still looking out her window.

“How old could he a been?” Nina said. “He was born five, six years after you. So what’s that make him? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine?”

They drove on. Bradlees’, Spada’s Blue Goose Restaurant, Avco-Lycoming Industries.

“It’s a sin,” Nina said.

“Have they told Perry?” Joanie asked. Perry was Tommy’s younger brother. He was in the Navy.

Todd’s hands were in his pockets. He heard one pocket starting to rip.

Tommy was coming back to him. He’d been an usher at the wedding. He’d been behind Todd in the line to use the men’s room. He’d said something to him. He’d had his jacket and bow tie off and his sleeves rolled up.

“Try WICC,” Nina said. “See if they got anything about it.”

Joanie fiddled with the stations. She got WICC. The local news opened with contractors and fraud on a municipal project near Seaside Park, a lot of money disappearing. It ended with a mention of the Bridgeport Rosary Society’s bake sale, still a week off.

“I don’t believe it,” Nina said.

They passed Sikorsky Airport and the decommissioned runway. Grass was growing through the cracks in the tarmac. At the light, they pulled up next to a terrier with one of its front legs in a splint, apparently waiting to cross the street.

“They’re probably waiting to make sure they notified the family,” Joanie said.

“The family knows,” Nina said. Todd flashed on all the crying and misery. He imagined himself in the middle of it, responsible.

The Monteleones lived on Spruce Street. There was only the one car there when they pulled in. “She’s all alone?” Joanie said.

“Maybe Tommy Senior went out,” Nina said. She shut the engine off and opened her door. She waited for a minute, listening. Then she got out. She leaned into Todd’s open back window. “Stay here. I’ll see if she’s in any shape. Give me the box.”

Todd handed up to her the carton with the Pyrex dishes of soup and lasagna. She crossed the lawn to the front steps and set it down to get a better grip on it.

“I can’t believe this,” Joanie said. She put her fingers to the bridge of her nose, and Todd could see them shaking.

“Are we gonna tell them?” he said. But he couldn’t imagine doing it. He couldn’t imagine anything that was about to happen.

Nina climbed the steps, holding the box with both arms. She tapped the screen door lightly a few times with her foot.

“You didn’t recognize him?” Todd said. “When you went over to him?”

“I didn’t look that close,” his mother said. She was upset.

He slid down in his seat, hiding from the house.

“How often have I seen Tommy Monteleone?” his mother said. “Three times in my life?”

The Monteleones’ screen door was open, and Nina was handing the box through.

“He had a mustache,” his mother added. “The guy we hit didn’t have a mustache.”

“I don’t wanna go in there,” Todd said.

“Didn’t he have a mustache at the wedding?” she asked.

Nina was talking to whoever was on the other side of the door, probably asking if this was a bad time.

“Of course this is a bad time,” Joanie said.

“She’s probably like you, after Dad left,” Todd said. He meant Mrs. Monteleone. “She probably doesn’t want to see anyone.”

His mother didn’t say anything.

The screen door swung closed, and Nina grabbed it. She turned to the car and waved them in.

Todd scrunched down lower. “Ma, we can’t do this,” he said.

His mother brought both hands together over her face and then moved them apart, rubbing her eyes. She opened her door. “C’mon,” she said.

He had his hands between his thighs. She crossed around the car behind him. He thought for a second she’d gone on without him.

She poked her head in his window the way her mother had. “C’mon, sweetie,” she said. She needed to clear her throat. “We’ll make it. C’mon.”

He opened the door and got out and followed her to the front steps. The grass on their lawn was still shaded, so it was wet. The neighbors two houses down had a blue-and-white Virgin Mary, set in a shell in a rock garden. His mother held the screen door for him, but he let her go in first.

The blinds were pulled in the living room. It took a little time for his eyes to adjust.

Nina and Mrs. Monteleone were standing in the hallway off the other side of the room. Mrs. Monteleone had one hand on the sofa back and another on the wall, as if to steady herself. She nodded at them, once.

She had a TV tray set up in front of the sofa. It had a bowl of polenta on it. There was a pat of butter, unmelted, in the polenta. On the lamp table at one end of the sofa there was a big picture of Tommy Monteleone and his brother, Perry. Tommy was in a blue-plaid jacket and tie, and Perry was in his Navy uniform.

“Ma, we’re interrupting her lunch here,” Joanie said.

“No, come in,” Mrs. Monteleone said. She rubbed her temple with the heel of her palm. “You want some coffee? I’m making some coffee.”

Todd stayed where he was, a few feet from the front door. Nina waved her hand to tell him to come closer.

“I was just getting some—” Mrs. Monteleone said. She was heading toward the kitchen. She trailed off.

Nina followed her. “Lucia, don’t fuss,” they heard her say.

“It’s already made,” Mrs. Monteleone said from the kitchen.

Joanie sat on the edge of a recliner. She gestured with her head toward a big-backed maroon chair near the window for Todd.

“C’mon in here,” Nina called.

When they came into the kitchen, she was setting the table with plates next to the coffee cups. She put a glass tray of cookies in the middle and pulled off the Saran wrap. Mrs. Monteleone was scooping coffee into the coffee maker.

“Ma, we don’t need anything to eat,” Joanie said. “She shouldn’t fuss.”

“Just cookies,” Nina said. “Sit.”

They sat. Nina put milk and sugar on the table. She set two cookies on Todd’s plate.

“You want some polenta?” Mrs. Monteleone asked.

“We’re fine,” Joanie said.

Mrs. Monteleone was gesturing at Todd.

“Todd,” Nina told her.

“Todd,” Mrs. Monteleone said. “Some chicken? I got chicken in there.”

“No, thanks,” he said. “I got cookies.”

She sat at the table, her hands in her lap. The coffee was brewing.

They looked at her. It was like they had to.

“You’re sweet, coming over here,” she said. She looked at each of them.

Nobody was doing anything or saying anything. Todd lifted one of the cookies on his plate.

“Tommy,” Mrs. Monteleone wailed. She covered her eyes and started crying.

Todd froze. His mother looked like she was lifting something very heavy.

Nina patted Mrs. Monteleone on the side of the head. She cried herself out after a minute.

She wiped her eyes and got the coffee.

She went around the table pouring it. Todd was still holding his cookie. He put it down.

His mother was rubbing her hands together like she was soaping them up. “We wanted to say how … sorry we were,” she said. He felt like he was going to fly apart.

Mrs. Monteleone sniffed and put the coffeepot back on the counter. Nina was looking at Todd and Joanie.

Mrs. Monteleone sat back down. Todd could hear a radio, on quietly in another part of the house.

“Do they have any more news?” Nina said.

Mrs. Monteleone shook her head.

“How’s Tommy Senior? He okay?” Nina asked.

Mrs. Monteleone shook her head again. Todd recognized the face: when you don’t want to move because you’re afraid you’ll throw up.

“How could they do that?” she cried. “How could they just leave him there on the road?”

Nina patted her arm and then squeezed it. Todd and his mother stared straight ahead in agony. Todd was looking at refrigerator magnets.

Nina stirred Mrs. Monteleone’s coffee for her. They listened to the sound of the spoon in the cup.

They heard a car in the driveway and then a car door slam. They all sat there, everything on hold until this new person arrived.

“Ho,” Bruno called from the front door. “Anybody home?”

Nina got up to let him in.

He came into the kitchen carrying a grocery bag. He looked upset. “I got some cake,” he said to Mrs. Monteleone. “Dominic’s was closed, don’t ask me why. I went to Stop and Shop. All they had was Sara Lee.”

Todd had no idea what Bruno was doing there. He was emptying the bag: more coffee, a plastic half gallon of spring water, a Sara Lee pound cake. While he put everything away Mrs. Monteleone got up and took some money out of a flour tin in the cabinet and held it out to him.

“Get outta here with that,” he said.

“Take the money,” she said. “How much was it?”

“Free,” Bruno said. “Special sale.” She tried to stuff it in his shirt pocket. He took it out of her hand and put it back in the flour tin in the cabinet.

She sat down at that, and sighed.

“How’d you know what she needed?” Nina asked.

“I was over here before,” he said. “She said she needed to go out for a few things, I told her I’d do it.” He crumpled up the grocery bag with a big noise.

Mr. Monteleone appeared in the hallway. He was wearing an old blue robe and his eyes were impossibly red.

“Hi, Tommy,” Nina finally said. “You want some coffee?”

He was wearing black socks and no slippers. He looked over at Todd and then at the sink. He cinched his terrycloth belt and left.

Bruno uncrumpled the bag like he’d done something wrong. Todd and his mother looked at each other.

“He want some coffee?” Nina asked Mrs. Monteleone.

Mrs. Monteleone shook her head.

Bruno went into the dining room and brought a chair back into the kitchen. He poured himself a cup of coffee and then pulled the chair up to the table.

“Where’s the other car?” Nina asked. “If Tommy’s here?”

“It’s in the shop,” Mrs. Monteleone said.

The doorbell rang.

“Now who the hell is this?” Bruno said.

“I didn’t even hear a car,” Nina said. She got up and went to the door. Todd kept his eyes on Mrs. Monteleone, who sat there as if all this was going on in another place.

Nina came back into the hall. “It’s the florist,” she said. “They won’t let me sign for it.”

Mrs. Monteleone got up and followed her to the front door.

Bruno spooned two sugars into his cup and stirred it by twirling the cup in his hand.

He was quiet. Todd had never seen him this way.

“What’re you doing here?” Joanie said in a low voice.

“What’m I doing here? What’re you doing here?” Bruno said. “I didn’t know you knew Tommy.”

Joanie shrugged.

“What’d you, just come over with your mother?” he asked.

She nodded. He seemed satisfied with that. He looked at Todd, and Todd thought for a second he was going to ask, You have anything to do with killing him?

He went back to his coffee. “So how’d you know him?” Joanie asked.

Bruno shrugged. “We were friends. We did some business.”

“Business? What kind of business?”

“What’re you, a cop?” Bruno said. “Business.”

Nina came back into the kitchen with Mrs. Monteleone.

“What’d they send?” Bruno asked. “Flowers?”

Nina looked at him. “It’s a florist,” she said. “Flowers.”

They sat back down. Nina got up to warm up her coffee. It looked like Mrs. Monteleone was going to cry again.

“Ma,” Todd said, “can I go outside?”

Bruno slurped his coffee and looked at him over the edge of the cup.

“Yeah, you go out,” Joanie said. “We’re only gonna stay a little longer. Mrs. Monteleone’s got things to do.”

He stood up. He didn’t know whether to say good-bye or not. Mrs. Monteleone smiled at him.

He went out the way he came in, the front door. He didn’t want to have to look at the Virgin Mary, so he walked down the driveway to the backyard. He’d never seen it before.

It was small and fenced in. The next-door neighbor had a yappy little dog that barked at him nonstop as soon as he came around the corner. It clawed at the fence to get at him.

There was one maple tree in the middle of the yard. He sat underneath it. Its roots went so far under the ground they were lifting the blacktop on the driveway ten feet from the trunk.

There was nothing to do. The grass was worn away to dirt at the places where the roots went in. The dog was still barking and scratching at the fence. He put three fingers down to the dirt and brought them up to his mouth.

The back door opened and Bruno and Joanie came out. They walked over to where Todd was sitting. They both had their hands in their pockets and Bruno was jingling change.

The dog was still barking. It was throwing itself against the fence, making the whole thing shake.

“Nice animal,” Bruno said, squinting over at it. “They bring a lot to a family, don’t they?”

He picked up a stick and threw it over the fence. The dog was quiet, probably checking it out.

“Don’t forget, the old man’s retired now,” he said. “They got nothing. Big Tommy, his idea of savings was whatever was left in the wallet.”

Joanie looked back at the house. “Maybe we could help out,” she said. “You know, lend them a little bit.”

“You?” Bruno said. “Since when do you have a pot to piss in?”

Joanie looked down at the grass and then over at Todd. “What happened to you?” she asked. “What’ve you got on your mouth?”

Todd rubbed it with the back of his hand. “It’s dirt,” he said.

The dog started up again. They listened to it bark.

“So what do you think?” Joanie said.

“What do I think?” Bruno said. He was looking off toward the house. “I think I wanna know what happened.”

Todd looked at his mother. She had her eyes on Bruno. She shrugged like someone was holding her shoulders. “Maybe the police …” she said.

“The police,” Bruno said. “Please.”

“Well,” she said. “Wasn’t he just—?”

“Whaddaya telling me?” Bruno said. “He’s hit by a car wandering around in the dark on Route One-ten?” He exaggerated the pronunciation of the number. He was mad enough that Todd and his mother had to look away.

“This is Tommy Monteleone, now,” he said. “This is not a guy who goes on nature hikes. He lives in a rented room on Nichols Avenue. Nature’s when a bug gets in the screen.”

Todd’s mother put her eyes somewhere else. Todd pulled at the tongue of his Nike. The dog was still barking.

“Shut up,” Bruno shouted. Joanie and Todd jumped.

The dog was quiet.

“Todd, get up,” his mother said. “We gotta go.” He could see how shook up she was.

The dog started barking again, hysterically.

“That son of a bitch,” Bruno said, looking over at the fence.

“Todd, come on,” his mother said. He was up but he was standing around, and she grabbed his shirt sleeve, pinching a bicep. He yanked it free.

“Fine,” she said. “You stay here. I’ll drive the car up onto the grass to pick you up.” She went back into the house, probably to say good-bye and get Nina. He was left standing there with the barking dog and Bruno.

He could feel himself close to crying and fought it. “Bruno,” he said.

Bruno looked at him. “What’re you, gonna whine about this?” he said. “What was she, mean to you? Don’t whine to me. Those people in the house: they got problems.”

Bruno walked off. Todd stood there alone, with the barking dog.

What he remembered all through the ride home was the pitiful way he sounded when he said “Bruno.” He understood he wasn’t thinking about Mrs. Monteleone, or her husband with his blue bathrobe, or the picture of Tommy. He was thinking about the pitiful way he sounded, and the way Bruno looked at him after he said it.

Back in his room, he bridged individual playing cards around the sleeping Audrey. Audrey was on her back with her legs folded in the air. Her head was stretched straight out upside down, and her cheeks hung down from gravity, exposing her incisors. She looked like a sleeping mad dog.

He was using only face cards, leaning them on her side by side, one by one, trying to surround her before she woke up or moved. He had his Ad Altare Dei booklet out and was deciding whether or not he would remind his mother. The meeting Wednesday night was at seven.

The booklet was opened to the first page. He’d filled it out when he’d gotten it.

Ad Altare Dei

Record book of

Todd Muhlberg

221 Indian Hill Road

Milford, CT 06498

Our Lady of Grace Church

$1.75

He still owed the parish the $1.75.

His mother was in the spare room, next to his, talking to herself.

“What was he doing out there?” she said. “What was he doing out there without a car that time of night?”

He’d never told Brendan whether he’d give him a ride or not. He could call from up here if his mother ever went downstairs. They’d gotten him a phone for his eleventh birthday. His father had been against it.

Going for the Ad Altare Dei had been his idea. His mother and grandmother had gone along. Could he drop out of something like that? Could he just not show up?

His mother whacked something wooden in the next room. He heard her get up and go downstairs.

He listened to her bang cabinets in the kitchen. Audrey stirred, and some of the cards collapsed. He kept flipping through the booklet.

Reference Material

Listed below are a few books which will help you prepare for this program:

1. Old Testament and New Testament—Confraternity edition.

2. Second Vatican Council:

Decree on the Church

Decree on Liturgy

Decree on the Church in the Modern World

3. Rite for Holy Anointing—Liturgical Press.

(One dollar.)

4. Come to Me—Book Two (the Sacraments and the Mass) Rev. Benedict Ehman and Rev. Albert Shamon

(Five dollars.)

He stopped reading.

He lay back on the floor, looking up at the ceiling. Sandro had finished it with an overlapping swirl pattern, like a series of waves.

He had to call. He had to call the rectory if he was not going to show up. He couldn’t just stay away.

Tears came into his eyes at how complicated everything was. You just feel sorry for yourself, he thought. That’s all you do.

He sat up again. He had to let them know if he wasn’t going. He stood up and padded downstairs in his bare feet. He crossed to the kitchen and opened the cabinet nearest the phone and pulled out the Milford directory.

His mother was sitting at the kitchen table with her back to him. She didn’t turn around.

It didn’t look like she was making dinner. A colander and a pot were out on the counter, but that was it.

He climbed back up the stairs. His legs were tired. When he came back into the room, Audrey rolled onto her side and looked up, collapsing all the cards. She laid her head down again and closed her eyes.

He listened for noise downstairs and then dialed the number in the book for the rectory. Maybe he’d get Henry, Father’s assistant, instead of Father Cleary.

He got Father Cleary.

“What’s up?” Father Cleary wanted to know. “You ready for the big night Wednesday?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Todd said. “I don’t think I can go.” His forehead and underarms cooled.

“Why not?” Father Cleary asked. “What’re you, sick?”

“No,” Todd said. He grimaced at having blown that excuse.

“So what is it?” Father asked after Todd didn’t say anything else.

“I don’t know,” Todd said.

“You don’t know,” Father said.

Todd didn’t answer. Father didn’t say anything. He could hear a little buzzing on the line.

“I don’t know if it’s right for me. I don’t know if I should be doing this,” Todd said.

“Oh, come on,” Father said, surprising him. “You had months to think about this. Now you don’t know if it’s right for you?”

“I guess I shoulda called earlier,” Todd said. He was so dying to get off the phone he did knee bends where he stood, swinging his free hand around.

“Just give it a shot,” Father said. He sounded irritated.

Todd tried to figure out what to say next.

“You don’t know if you’re gonna like it till you give it a try,” Father said.

Todd did a knee bend all the way to the floor. He put his free hand on top of his head.

“You do one or two, you decide you don’t like it, you can quit with my blessing,” Father said. “All right?”

“All right,” Todd said. He closed his eyes. It was just like the sacrilege about Communion. “All right.”

“Wednesday night. Seven o’clock,” Father said. “See you then.” He hung up.

Todd turned the receiver around in his hands and put the earpiece against his forehead. He hung up. He could have said it was a mortal sin on his soul he was worried about, and that he’d confess it later, and then later he could have made up something.

He wandered into the upstairs bathroom and sat on the toilet in despair. The phone rang. On the second ring, his mother got it downstairs.

Back in his bedroom, he stood next to his extension, waiting, afraid to pick it up. The click would give him away. But he had to know if it was Father Cleary. He eased up the receiver.

It was Bruno. He didn’t notice the click.

Bruno said, “I’m not gonna give it up. I am not gonna give it up. I told her, ‘If there’s anything to find out, I’m gonna find it out.’ I am on the case.”

“Todd, get off the phone,” his mother said sharply. He hung up immediately.

Outside, somebody emptied what sounded like a load of rocks into a garbage can. Todd sat on his bed and folded his hands and looked at the phone, his legs, and Audrey, curled again onto her back, snoring, her incisors still showing.