Pete stood up again. He was unsteady and feeling sick to his stomach. He said: I don’t understand at all why you … why you’d come back here. Why you’d do that to us.
— To us, said Lee. Is that right? You’re the man of the family now? You’re the big man?
— I’ve got to go.
— Well, one more thing, big man. I’m sorry you had to find out from me, like this. I’m sorry your mother won’t say nothing, specially when I think of all the time I sat in jail. I’m sorry for all that wasted time. I’m sorry for what’s gone down since I got out, like Bud, for example. I’m sorry that Simon Grady is a halfwit because I didn’t have the sense to make sure I finished it. But I’m not sorry for what I did. I never will be. I can see that. Clear as anything.
— What gave you the idea you could decide that?
— What gave you the idea I couldn’t?
He drove the streets. He hadn’t eaten all day. He clenched the wheel until his hands hurt. The flame in his gut had turned into a fire, and it was spreading through every part of him. Every thought in his head was a wordless, desperate scream. In the late evening he pulled up a few doors down from Nancy’s house. He could see the cars in the driveway, the station wagon among them, and all the lights in the windows, and people moving about on the porch. He got out of his car and crossed the yard.
Pete went into Nancy’s living room. There had to be fifty people there and it was hot and cloudy with smoke. Nancy must have seen him as soon as he came in, because she appeared almost immediately.
— What are you doing here?
— I’m looking for somebody.
— Emily’s not here.
— I’m not looking for her. I won’t be long.
— Hey, said Nancy. Look …
He brushed past her. She grasped his arm and he pulled away. He walked through the kitchen and the dining room. Nancy fell into step behind him.
He found Roger in the den at the back, the same place he’d been when they first exchanged words. He was with a few of his friends and some girls. They were playing quarters on the coffee table.
Roger’s head turned. He looked drunk.
Pete kicked the chair out from under him. Roger went down and Pete jumped on top of him. He pinned him down with his knees. Roger had his arms raised to fend the blows as they came. Around them, voices cried out. Pete felt a hand grasp a mittful of his collar and he half turned and punched somebody in the testicles. He was punched hard in the side of the forehead. The world spun. He was hauled backwards. He could see Roger crawling away on his elbows, crablike. Roger’s nose was bleeding onto his shirt.
Pete was on his knees and he was up and down and up again. He held his own. In the end, he was dragged out of the house. He staggered off through the front yard and paused under a street light. Roger came out and stood on the porch, crying out that he would kill Pete. There were neighbours peering out their windows and doors. Pete didn’t say anything. He walked back to his car and got in and turned the key in the ignition.
Streets rolled out in front of him. He drove along the lakeshore. He drove up the hill, drove past Galilee Tabernacle, drove out to the CIL factory, to the shopping mall, drove back down the hill, sped along River Street. He saw the place where Emily had told him he’d better kiss her. He kept going, but there was only so far you could drive before you were covering the same streets again. He was shaking coldly, seeing the red and green lights around windows, the store signboards saying MERRY CHRISTMAS, the wooden creches out front of the churches. Everything seemed cheap and cruel. He hadn’t balanced any account, and he couldn’t possibly go home.
Once more, Lee went to look at the boarding house. When he got there, he stood with his fists pocketed. Then he went up the driveway and around to the back of the house, watching the windows all the while. The back porch was still there but it had been bolstered with pressure-treated lumber and repainted. He went around the porch and followed the steps down to the basement door. The steps and the door were exactly as he remembered them.
He was reaching for the knob when he heard the porch door open and close above. He looked up, blinking against the sky, and could see the side of somebody’s head, could see gloved fingers moving along the deck rail. There were two of them. One asked the other where they should go for lunch and the other said downtown.
Lee didn’t move. He was in plain sight if the men above looked down. But a moment later they were gone in a car. Lee waited a little longer. Water dripped from an icicle overhead. He tried the basement door and found it locked. He tried it again. He pushed the door with his shoulder. It did not budge. That was that.
He went back up the steps and around the side of the house and back to the street.
In those days long past, if he had happened to glimpse the crippled caretaker outside in the yard, he was not afraid of the man at all. He wondered what had become of him.
You know, I’ve seen the old boarding house a few times. You ever go back there?
— Not so’s I remember.
— You remember that day when Dad died?
— Would you change the channel?
Lee went to the television. He changed one soap opera for another until Irene nodded and said: I like this program.
— Down the basement of that house they had a big coal furnace. I saw it the day Dad died.
— Mrs. Pound didn’t want any kids down there.
— I remember. I went down there anyways. I never liked anybody telling me what I couldn’t do.
She lifted a finger from the bedrail and poked the side of his hand with it. Her skin was tight across her skull. She breathed. Her eyes flashed in their dark hollows. Her voice rasped at him: That was a long time ago, Leland.
— Yes.
Lee looked into the other half of the room. No one had come yet to occupy the other bed. His mother had gotten her own room after all.
— Barry thinks you’ve been drinking.
— He said that?
— He worries about you.
— He doesn’t need to worry so much.
— He worries about Donna. He worries about the little boys. Peter.
An unpleasant feeling went through Lee at the mention of Pete’s name. He’d been drunk when he told Pete the truth. He didn’t know if he would have told him otherwise, although it bothered him to think how the great shame remained a secret even now. It more than bothered him-it made him angry. He flexed his fist and pulled his eyes away from his mother’s and looked at the TV for a little while. He didn’t know if word had gotten out to the rest of the family yet that he’d told Pete the truth, and he didn’t know what it would be like for him to see Pete again. Maybe it would be easier not to see the kid at all any more.
And besides, nobody had said anything to him yet, about coming over on Christmas Day.
He leaned over and adjusted the blankets on Irene’s bed. He said: Well, Barry doesn’t need to worry about me.
She groped for his hand. She smiled: I know. I told him. He doesn’t need to worry about me neither. I’m close. Called up to Jesus. He doesn’t need to worry about me at all.
The Owl Cafe was turning a brisk trade. There was a hiss of frying in the kitchen. The cook sweated in his whites and turned plateloads of food onto the wicket. The radio played an endless list of Christmas songs. Voices were layered in conversation and there were boxes and bags full of gifts piled into booths. The waitresses moved about quickly. Nobody paid attention to the bell-chime as the front door opened.
Helen served a bowl of soup to an old deaf man at the counter. When she turned she saw that Lee was down at his usual place, sitting with his hands folded on the countertop. He was alone, as always.