The Way Home

PART FOUR
THE WAY HOME
THIRTY

On a Sunday late in April, the family attended early mass. They then visited Ben’s grave at the cemetery and went to breakfast at the Open City Diner in Woodley Park. Afterward, Thomas and Amanda returned to their house on Livingston, changed their clothes, and put Django in the back of the SUV. They met Chris and Katherine on Albemarle Street in Forest Hills, where they all walked onto the entrance of the Soapstone Valley Trail in a tributary of Rock Creek Park.

They went along a flat stretch, followed the yellow trail markers painted on the trees, and navigated a steep slope into the valley. They stopped to look at a tall oak. On its trunk had been carved a heart enveloping Thomas’s and Amanda’s names, and the year 1980. A smaller heart was below it, bearing the name of Darby, Chris’s childhood dog. A third heart contained the name of Chris and 1982, the year of his birth. Using her cell phone, Amanda took a photo of the tree. Chris and Flynn exchanged a look and they walked on.

Seeing no other hikers or pets, Flynn let Django off his leash. The Lab mix immediately galloped off trail and crashed into the woods in search of the creek, where he could splash in the water. They followed him there, Katherine and Amanda walking ahead of Chris and Flynn. Chris noticed the gray in his mother’s hair as the sun, streaming down through the trees, highlighted it and brightened the water where Django played. There was a lightness in Amanda’s step.

Flynn tripped on an exposed root, and Chris grabbed his arm before he fell. Steadying him, Chris smelled alcohol on his father and wondered when he had found the time to steal a drink. Chris made no mention of it. He felt that he was perhaps responsible for his father’s deteriorated condition. Or maybe his father would have gotten to that place on his own, without the troubles they’d had. In any case, Chris wouldn’t lecture him or question him in any way. For a long time it had seemed unlikely that they would all be back here, together and settled, as they were now.

“Thanks,” said Flynn.

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“To prop up your old man.”

“You’re not so old.”

“Feels like I am. I’ll never lay carpet again, that’s for sure. I can’t get up off my knees.”

“You’ve got Isaac and his guys for that.”

“And you,” said Flynn. “And your boy, what’s his name…”

“Marquis.”

“Yeah, him. How’s he doing?”

Marquis was a work in progress. Chris said, “He’ll be fine.”

With some convincing from Chris and Ali, Flynn had put Marquis Gilman on. It was one of Ali’s last acts as an assistant at Men Movin on Up. His boss, Coleman Wallace, had accepted a job in the D.C. government, and Ali had taken over the top spot. Ali was frequently on TV now as a spokesperson and advocate for at-risk boys, and sometimes as a voice of community conscience when boys got murdered. Chris smiled when he’d catch him on television, at press conferences and such. It was funny, realizing that all those cameras and eyes were upon him, knowing where Ali had come from. It was true that Chris was a little envious, seeing that Ali had done something meaningful with his life. But he was also very proud.

Flynn and Chris found a seat on some boulders in a patch of sunlight out on the creek. Amanda and Katherine were playing with Django on the bank, throwing a stick into the water, the dog’s tail spinning like a prop as he watched the prize float on the current.

“You did good,” said Flynn. “She’s a solid woman.”

“She is,” said Chris. “You finally got your Kate.”

“It’s Katherine,” said Flynn.

The stick went down the creek and neared a bend. Django waited until the last moment and jumped in to retrieve it.

“How’s school?” said Flynn.

“It’s all right. It’s just one class. Most of the stuff, I’m familiar with. I mean, I already read all those history books you turned me on to.”

“Stay with it.”

“I’ll see where it goes.”

“And stay with our company. Isaac wants to expand, and we’re gonna need your help. It’s going to get better for you. Less grunt work and more management.”

“There’s money for all of us,” said Chris, and Flynn blushed a little and smiled.

“Seriously,” said Flynn, nodding his chin in the direction of Katherine, her strawberry blonde hair lifted by the breeze. “You’re gonna be working for three soon. You’ll need that paycheck.”

“I know it,” said Chris. “I’m gonna keep the day job. But I’ve also got my eye on something else.”

“If you want to be a teacher, pursue it. I’ll be there for you if you get jammed up. Me and your mom.”

They sat there for a while, enjoying each other’s company, saying little but not uncomfortable in the silence. Then Chris got up and joined his mother and Katherine, talking about the wedding and the baby that was on the way. Chris dutifully listened and acted as if he cared about caterers and floral arrangements, but they knew he did not and told him that it was okay to leave them to their conversation and fun. Chris smiled at his mother, kissed Katherine, and turned back to the rocks. Thomas Flynn was gone.

Chris walked through the woods. He got back on the trail and followed its markers south. A cloud passed overhead and the landscape darkened. And Chris thought, Isn’t it so.

He was not unaware of his good fortune. He had been born in a well-to-do neighborhood, raised in a loving home. When he’d gotten out of Pine Ridge, his father had put him to work and his mother had continued to feed him and buy him clothes even as he passed from boy to adult. At twenty-six he’d come close to killing two men but was stopped by someone who sacrificed himself instead. Chris hadn’t been charged or implicated in any way. His call to the police had helped, along with Bob Moskowitz, who was tight with the prosecutors downtown.

Chris knew that for everyone like him, who had good fortune, there was a Lawrence Newhouse, who had none. But it wasn’t as if Chris would go untouched. His life would not always be a spring afternoon, sunlight streaming on his mom, a breeze caressing the hair of his beautiful lover, a strong dog joyfully playing in a creek. If he could have looked into his future, he’d have seen much happiness in the family he would raise, and fulfillment in his career, as well as wrenching disappointment, regret, and old age. He’d have seen his mother, alone and suddenly aged, praying the rosary in her room. He’d have seen his father lying on a morgue slab at the age of fifty-five, his face deeply cut from windshield glass, his blood alcohol level impossibly high.

If the storytellers told it true, all stories would end in death. But that will come in time, thought Chris. Not today.

The clouds broke as he went down a long slope and found his father, standing before the thick oak rooted in the valley floor. Flynn had his open buck knife in hand. He was carving Katherine’s name beside Chris’s, inside the heart on the family’s tree.

“Dad,” said Chris.

Thomas Flynn turned and stepped toward his son.