“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.”