The Garden of Betrayal

31

We buried Kyle on Monday morning, at a cemetery half an hour north of the city. The grave we’d picked out sat on a flat shelf at the top of a long rise, with views of the Long Island Sound over the bare branches of a grove of maples below. A local minister conducted an open-air service beneath a cloudless sky, an ocean breeze carrying the smell of salt. It seemed like a good place to lay our child to rest.

Afterward, everyone wanted to shake our hands and express their condolences. I was surprised by how many people came. The Times had run a small story on Sunday that included the details, and we’d invited some family and friends, but I hadn’t expected much of a crowd. In the end, though, more than a hundred people turned out-neighbors, colleagues, even one of the Columbia kids who’d helped me post flyers all those years ago. And there was at least a dozen wreaths. I was relieved to see that one was from Mariano Gallegos. Given everything that had happened, I’d been worried about him.

“Who’s that?” Kate whispered, when there were only a handful of people left.

Claire and I both glanced in the direction she was looking. A broad-shouldered guy with a pot belly was hovering about ten yards away, a kid a few years older than Kate shuffling his feet next to him.

“Kyle’s old baseball coach,” I said, placing the man’s face. “Jon something. He owned a shoe store on Broadway.” I made eye contact and waved him over. “The younger guy must be his son.”

Father and son came to an awkward halt at the edge of conversational range.

“Jon Rosenthal,” the older man stammered. “This is my boy, Steve. You might not remember us. Steve and Kyle played ball together.”

“In the West Side League,” Claire responded gently. “You coached. Of course we remember.”

“I wasn’t sure it was right for us to come. It’s been a long time.”

“We’re grateful,” Claire assured him. “It means a lot to us.”

“I just wanted to let you know how terrible I felt for you all these years. It was something I could never stop thinking about. I’m so unbelievably sorry about what happened, but I’m glad you finally found him. Kyle was a really good kid. Everybody on the team always really liked him…”

He broke down mid-sentence and began sobbing. His son threw an arm around him and hugged him fiercely. It was an experience I’d had before, bumping into Kyle’s old friends and their parents in our neighborhood. The encounters had all been charged with bitterness for me. No matter how sincere the grief expressed, I knew the innermost emotion of any parent in my presence had to be joy that their own child was well and with them. Today was different somehow. I looked at Steve. He’d grown tall, with his father’s shoulders and an athletic build.

“You still play ball?” I asked quietly.

“At Maryland,” he mumbled, his gaze fixed on the ground between us.

“That’s Division One, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

I took a step toward him and reached out to touch his arm.

“Thanks for being here today. And good luck to you-to both of you. You take care of your father now, okay?”

He looked up and nodded. I watched as they walked away together, glad they’d come. They disappeared behind a stand of pines shielding the parking area, and my eyes drifted south, toward the sound. A flock of wild turkeys was grazing along the tree line below, and the sun was glinting off the distant water. There was only one thing left that I had to do for my son-one thing that Claire and Kate and I were determined to do together.

“You ready?” I asked.

They both nodded. We turned as one and headed toward the parking lot.