“Yes, your highness. Whatever you say, your highness.”
“Lila, I don’t like your sarcasm.”
“And I don’t like your telling me what to do all the time.”
“Only because this TLC crap has more to do with you than him.”
“Pardon me?”
“You heard what I said. Letting him sleep with you is unhealthy. It could warp him.”
“Warp him? What, a little tender loving care? Maybe you should try it sometime. Life would be a lot better around here if you did.”
“Here we go again. Let me put it to you straight. He sleeps in his own bed. Period.”
He could tell that she was too wounded to respond.
“He’s also my kid.”
“Yeah, on paper,” she snapped.
“Go to hell, Lila.”
“No, you go to hell. You’re never around, and when you are, you’re too tired or too damn busy to spend any time with him.”
“Because my schedule is beyond my control.”
“You have weekends. You have days off, and I don’t see you going out and doing things with him, acting like a normal father.”
“Who do you think gave him those model airplanes and games, huh?”
“You do that to keep him out of your hair so you can go golfing or fishing with your flyboy buddies.”
“That’s a fucking lie.”
“It’s not a lie, and keep your filthy words to yourself. He’s right in the other room.”
There was more muffled exchange, then he heard Lila say, “Your son doesn’t even know you. You’re like a stranger to him. I’m the one bringing him up. Me.”
“More bullshit. I do things with him all the time.”
“Is that right? Then when was the last time you played catch with him, huh? Or read him a story? Or took him to a movie? Or to the beach? Or drove him to camp?”
“And who’s the one who puts the beans on the table?”
“I’m trying to land something, and you know it.”
“If you want to land something you might consider a real job.”
“Acting is a real job.”
“Only if you have talent.”
“I have talent.”
“Yeah, for taking your clothes off. Just ask your daddy.”
Lila made a sharp cry of outrage. “You bastard. My daddy was a pig of a man.”
She made another muffled outburst, then he heard Kirk leave, the door slamming behind him.
From the large armchair in the family room he had heard the whole exchange. He turned off the television and went into the kitchen. Lila was folded into a chair, crying. He grabbed a handful of napkins and went to her. When she gained control she put her arms around his waist. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
“That’s okay.” He pulled her head to his chest the way she did when he got his headaches. But he didn’t have soft pillowy breasts she could bury her face in.
“You came to comfort me.”
He didn’t know how to respond so he nodded.
“You’re so considerate.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him on the mouth. “Did he scare you?”
He nodded. He had heard them fight before, but it was through the walls of his room—muted exchanges. He had not witnessed Lila in tears nor had he heard her swear before. She was very religious and had taught him that swearing was a sin.
“I’m sorry. Your daddy can be so mean at times. But you’re a sweetie.”
“When’s he coming back?”
“This afternoon.”
“I don’t want him to come back.”
She nodded. “Me neither.” He put his arms around her neck. “Do you have a headache?”
“No.”
“Good. Do you still want to go to Donna Corso’s party?” The girl up the street was having a tenth birthday party that day.
“No. I want to stay with you.”
She smiled. “Me, too. Give me a big squeeze. Sometimes Mom needs some TLC, too.”
He did, then showed her the pad. “This is for you.”
Lila’s mouth dropped open. “That’s me.”
“Uh-huh.” He had drawn her picture from a photograph.
“That’s wonderful. Maybe you’ll be an artist when you grow up.”
The other pages had cartoon characters he had done from television. After a few moments he asked, “Does it mean that I can’t sleep in your bed anymore?”
“Maybe it’s best you slept in your own bed for now, okay? We don’t want to make him mad again.”
“Okay.”
“But maybe you can come in on special occasions.”
“Okay.”
At the time he did not exactly know what “special occasions” were. But he didn’t bother to ask, and just watched the flicker of promise dance in her eyes. But there would come a time when she would show him. And it had nothing to do with headaches.
19
Steve arrived home at ten that night with his head throbbing, his eyes burning, and a low-grade sense of unease, as it part of him were out of sync.
His apartment was on the fourth floor of a tenement on St. Botolph Street a few blocks from Copley Square. The place had two bedrooms and a recently renovated kitchen. But it looked monastic because he had moved in very little furniture—a chest of drawers, a hideaway sofa bed, two chairs, and a table. He kept it sparse so it would feel temporary.
After leaving the Mermaid Lounge, he and Neil had headed back to headquarters, where Steve wrote up his report. Because he was the lead on the case, he was conduit for all the data that came from the other officers on the case, pulling it together, organizing it, looking for threads.
(He uttered another prayer of thanks that nothing on file connected him to Terry Farina on the night of her death.)
Every interview had to be written up to ensure continuity and to determine leads and directions to pursue. They had a list of witnesses to interview but so far nothing hard. Nobody had seen anyone enter or leave the victim’s apartment. No useful latent prints. No physical evidence of an intruder. It was as if Terry Farina had been murdered by a ghost.
Or someone who knew what he was doing.
Except for the lights.
And the champagne.
Major screwup.
“It was an emotionally charged moment…. He’s scrambling to get away and also forgets stuff.”
“You can walk, you can talk, but you can’t think.”
He took a long shower to flush the rabble from his head. And the nightmare images of Terry Farina. They haunted him all day long, lurking in the shadows, popping up at the slightest reminder as if trip-wired. He could barely attain an objective distance on the case without feeling that he was pursuing himself. It was like being stuck in a tale by Edgar Allan Poe.
He put on a T-shirt and shorts and went into the living room.
A cold silence filled the space. He thought about making a fire except that fires were for wine and intimacy. He opened a bottle of Sam Adams and sat in the armchair and stared at the dead hearth, listing to the numbing silence. One of their hundred rituals was sitting by the fireplace with a bottle of wine to recap the day. On the mantel sat a photo of Dana and him at a pool bar in Jamaica from their honeymoon. For a long moment he stared at their beaming faces, thinking how the pain of her absence was what amputation must be like—phantom sensations where parts had been lopped off.
He closed his eyes. Maybe it was the beer or the stress or toxic blood sloshing through his brain, but he felt as if he were in the center of a bottomless vortex sucking him down. All he could think was how he just wanted to let go—an urge that made sense given his family heritage of contention, betrayal, divorce, and defeat. He could still hear the screaming matches, his father’s fireball accusations, his mother’s denial and spells of withering self-pity. He could still feel the tearing in his soul as he tried to defend his mother—a woman of Celtic beauty but an unstable constitution—against his father’s attacks. And while he tried to blot those years from his memory, he knew deep down that he had been imprinted with his temper and her urge to withdraw. No wonder he couldn’t commit to having kids. No wonder the booze and dumb dick-first impulse to violate everything that was important to him. And now Dana was making makeover plans that didn’t include him. Abandoned him as his parents had done. Left him flat when he needed her the most.