We Are the Brennans

by Tracey Lange

  Not only had his arrest and conviction cost him the best job he ever had, it had also been a major setback for his painting. At the time he’d been taking classes, spending hours at galleries, even selling small pieces at local craft fairs. Mostly touristy stuff—a tranquil Hudson River, peaceful Catskill Mountains. But he’d been making progress with the work he was more passionate about. Scenes or portraits that were more complex, challenged a little bit, and evoked emotion.

  Then one night he’d accepted a last-minute invite for an evening out with a few loose acquaintances, amped-up-bro types that called him “Jackie Boy.” Guys he’d always been able to get along with but normally avoided. They’d ended up at some nameless person’s raging house party. Jackie had stayed sober that night because he was the designated driver, which was by design. He didn’t want to get stuck somewhere, waiting around for people.

  He had dropped them all off a little after 1 A.M. and was less than five minutes from his apartment when he pulled up to a Memorial Day weekend sobriety checkpoint after getting off the Taconic. He wasn’t surprised when the officer asked him to submit to a field sobriety test. His pickup smelled offensively of beer because someone had spilled half a can in the back seat on the way home. He also granted approval for a vehicle check with a “Be my guest.” He passed the sobriety test, but the cops found a large Ziploc crammed full of marijuana under one of the seats. One of those dickheads had left his stash in the truck and, since it was Jackie’s vehicle, he’d literally been left holding a bag that weighed enough to bump the possession charge up to a felony. Not long after that, Jackie was out of a job and moving back home so he could start helping with his lawyer bills as much as possible.

  He had just brought the two baseball fans another round when his father walked through the door and headed for the bar.

  “Hiya, Mick,” called one of the guys with a wave.

  “Boys.” His dad chatted with them for a couple minutes. They all probably knew each other from construction days.

  As long as Jackie could remember, his dad had been well known in town. Whenever the family went anywhere—church, a restaurant, July 4th parade—there was a lot of “Hey, Boss” and “How’s it going, Mickey,” men stopping them on the street to shake his father’s big calloused hand. He’d been a project manager with a contracting company that started riding the construction boom in 1990s New York and kept growing. He’d loved his job and his crew, usually spending more time at work than home.

  His dad had always been a hard worker. Before leaving Ireland, he’d helped support his family of twelve by working the farm and driving trucks. During visits with Irish relatives over the years, when lips were loosened by whiskey, Jackie had caught references to his father “being a friend” to the IRA and having to make a hasty departure from home. It was hard to know what to believe. The Irish had a flair for the dramatic, but at the same time they lived by a rigid don’t-ask-don’t-tell code.

  Though Jackie was pretty sure there were a few buried secrets. When he was a kid, during a game of hide-and-seek, he had found a stellar hiding spot in his parents’ closet. The downside had been how long he sat there, waiting for someone to find him. Out of boredom he discovered the loose carpet in the back corner, and then a small compartment under a floorboard, the size of a shoebox. He was briefly celebrated by his older siblings for finding it. There were some official papers to do with the house, and his dad’s green card. But what had always stayed with Jackie were the photos. A few worn black-and-whites of menacing-looking men and women, including his father, dressed in ’70s garb and posed against what looked like one of the walls in Belfast that separated Catholic neighborhoods from Protestant ones. They stood shoulder to shoulder, arms crossed, grim expressions on their faces. Each of them had a gun slung over an arm.

  None of them had ever asked their dad about those pictures, and, as far as Jackie knew, none of them had ever invaded his hiding place again.

  Dad finished up his conversation with the men, clapped them on the back, and headed down to a stool at the other end of the bar.

  “I didn’t know you were coming in today,” Jackie said, pouring him a Harp.

  “I had to get out of that house for a while.”

  “Something going on?”

  “Why don’t you tell me? Unless you’re as in the dark as I am.”

  Jackie brought him his beer. “What do you mean?”

  “Thanks.” He took a sip. “Your brother’s in rare form, and he’s after having a lawyer at the house this afternoon. Theresa’s been gone over a month. Your sister’s like the walking dead lately—Shane asked me if she’s going to leave again. And Kale’s fallen off the face of the earth.”

  For a man with a slippery memory, he’d summed it up nicely.

  “What the hell’s going on, Jackie?” The piercing eyes and furrowed brow demanded answers.

  Jackie wondered when they had all relegated him to the feeble old guy who read newspapers all day and didn’t know what was happening in his own house.

  “Tell me, son. I’d like to help.”

  Jackie’s chest constricted at the commanding yet pleading tone. His dad wanted to be of use, but there was nothing he could do here. “I think everybody’s just stressed about the new place, Dad. There was that leak and the opening was pushed back. It all got expensive…”

  His dad slapped the bar. “I knew it had to do with money. That damn pipe.” He pointed at Jackie. “Mark my words, someone caused that damage. I don’t care what those inspectors say.”

  His dad had made this declaration before, but Jackie had always dismissed it because who the hell would want to hurt Denny or their family that way. But right then, for the first time, he could think of someone.

  “Listen,” his dad said, “I could take out a small loan on the house. Sure there’s loads of equity in it and I could give the cash to Denny and Kale until they get past the worst of it.” His expression was so hopeful Jackie had to look away. “What do you think? It would take the pressure off.”

  This was the first time his father had consulted him about a significant family matter. He just wished he didn’t have to lie to him. “I think they have it under control, Dad.”

  “Even if they do, a little money could offer a lot of breathing room.”

  Jackie had to kill this idea before his dad decided to act on it. He didn’t know if his father would be more furious or humiliated to find out Denny had already obtained that home equity loan behind his back. “Let me talk to them, feel it out. They’ll be honest with me. If it sounds like a good idea, I’ll let you know.”

  His dad narrowed his eyes. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed, you around the house more, helping out here. It’s been good to see.” He raised his glass with a wink.

  Jackie settled into a time-out from his worries while they shot the shit for the next fifteen minutes, touching on the new restaurant, politics, Gaelic football. But in the back of his mind he was making a decision. He had to help Sunday confront this whole situation, and he had to do it that night.

  His family was being crushed under the weight of secrets and, one way or another, all of it had to finally come out.

  * * *

  “Hey, can I show you something?” Jackie asked. He and Sunday were finishing up the dinner dishes.

  “What is it?”

  “Something in my studio.” He air-quoted that last word. His studio was his bedroom.

  He led her upstairs to his room at the end of the hall. Giving up his apartment two years ago had been a blow, but he’d always loved his room in the house. It was tucked under a long eave, with sloped ceilings and a large skylight. He watched Sunday’s eyes breeze past his bed and dresser along the one wall to the studio portion of the room. Canvases of all sizes were piled on his desk or leaned against walls or sat up on a couple of easels. A drop cloth occupied the floor in that part of the room. A stack of palettes sat on a shelf, splattered in rainbows of mixed paints, and several jars crammed with brush
es were scattered about. She smiled as she soaked up the colorful chaos, like a proud parent; she was the one who had championed his painting from the beginning. The rest of the family had humored it when he was a kid, but later treated it as the self-indulgent hobby they thought it should be.

  He waved her over to his desk. “Remember ‘The Little Fireman’? The story you used to tell Shane all the time and I would pretend I wasn’t listening?” He opened a large folder and spread out several small sketches.

  “Oh my God. When did you do these?”

  “I’ve been working on them for a few weeks.” He’d started as soon as he heard she was coming home.

  She leaned close to study his vision of the little fireman and his world. “They’re perfect.”

  “I had Shane help. He remembered some details that were really distinctive.” No wonder. Shane had demanded that story every night for years when he was little, and even beyond, because he tired of bedtime stories far later than most kids. And Sunday never refused. “I thought maybe we could collaborate on a children’s book,” he said. “It’s your story. You could write it and I could do the illustrations. We could get Shane’s name on it as a coauthor or something. What do you think?”

  “I would love that,” she said, her eyes lighting up from within.

  “Okay. I mean, I know children’s books aren’t your thing. Apparently short stories are.” He gave her a pointed look.

  Her shoulders slumped. “Sorry I didn’t tell you. It was such a small thing, just two stories. And I didn’t want to get into all of it…”

  “It’s okay. As long as I can read them.”

  “Sure. As long as I can take a look.” She nodded toward the canvases resting against the walls behind him.

  Stepping back from his desk, he opened up her view to the rest of the room and gestured toward the rectangular area where he kept his work, in all its varying degrees of completion. Some of it in a very early, experimental stage, many abandoned partway through. A few closer to finished. Although he rarely felt like one of his paintings was finished.

  She moved to the largest one first. “You’re still working on this one?” He’d sent her pictures of it before. It was a painting of the exterior of the house that he’d been “finishing” for years, long enough that he’d had to change Molly and Luke from babies to little kids. They played on the tire swing while Mickey looked on from the front porch rocker.

  “Yeah, I don’t know. I just keep finding things wrong.”

  She rolled her eyes and moved on to the next one. “Wow, Jackie.” It was a portrait of Shane from the chest up, caught mid-laugh, shoulders pulled up and head bowed. “You totally captured him, his spirit.”

  “I’m not happy with his chin and mouth. Something’s not right. Do you see it?”

  She studied it. “Maybe just a little too angular?”

  “Yep.” He sat in his desk chair, steepled his hands, and waited.

  She moved down one side of the room and up the other, making observations, showering praise. “I’m glad you’re getting more into people.”

  “They’re a lot harder than landscapes. Less room for interpretation.”

  She stepped up to a twenty-by-twenty-four-inch canvas vertically oriented on a tall easel, hidden under a light sheet. “Oooo. Can I?”

  He swiveled his chair toward her. “Sure.”

  With a theatrical flair she whipped the sheet off with her good hand. He heard no sounds in the house other than the slip of fabric and his own heartbeat. The sheet swooshed to the ground and she took a step back, staring at the painting while her face morphed from open curiosity to stunned realization.

  He stood and moved near her, his whole body tense, not knowing what to expect. Her eyes were riveted and he was pretty sure she was holding her breath. It was hard to just let it hit her, to not say something to soften the blow, but this was the only way.

  “When did you do this?” she asked. It was almost a whisper.

  “I started it like six months after you left. There were nights I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t shake certain images. I thought it would help.”

  Without taking her eyes off the painting, she asked, “Did it?” There was a note of longing, like she had failed to find her own remedy for the same problem.

  “Yeah. Did you ever try writing about it?”

  She pulled her eyes to his. “No.”

  “I worked on it for a while, till things got better. I just pulled it out again a few weeks ago.”

  “Since I came home?”

  He stalled because he didn’t want her to feel guilty—she had enough of that going on to sink a ship—but this was all about ripping off the Band-Aids. “Yeah.”

  She backed up and dropped onto his bed. “I’m so sorry, Jackie. For making my secret yours all these years.” He saw deep regret in her watery eyes when she turned her face up to him. “That wasn’t right.”

  “Don’t do that. We both did the best we could.”

  She looked up at the painting and quiet tears started to roll. He’d gotten through the fog of fear and denial she’d wrapped around herself since Denny told them about Billy Walsh.

  “Sunday, we need to tell them. I can do it, or I can do it with you. But they have to know who they’re dealing with.”

  She wiped heavy drops from her chin and nodded. “I’ll tell them tonight.”

  Jackie sat back down in his chair. Fingers crossed, this would be the first step in healing a secret wound that had been festering for the last five years.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sunday

  “I’ll tell them tonight.”

  As soon as she said it panic blossomed in her chest until it threatened to choke her.

  But down below that, in the bottom of her stomach, there was something resembling relief. She’d known for at least the last two days, since hearing Billy Walsh’s name, that she had no choice but to tell them the truth. And there was a slight lifting of pressure, mentally and physically, in accepting it. Now the thing just had to be done.

  When she turned to Jackie again, his hair tucked behind his ears, eyes full of compassion, a tidal wave of shame slammed into her. By making him the guardian of her secret, he was one of the people she’d hurt the most in all this. And she’d hurt a lot of people. She lifted the sheet off the floor and took time positioning it just right over the painting, straight and centered. Never again would she look at that image of herself, so scared and ruined.

  But more than that, she refused to be that version of herself ever again.

  Jackie stood and slid his hands in his pockets, watching and waiting, likely wondering if she would zombie-out again or change her mind.

  “I’ll head to the pub now,” she said. “They’ll be closing up. It should be empty.”

  “It’s going to be okay, Sun.”

  If she looked at him she would lose it, so she walked toward the door. In the hall she stopped but didn’t turn around. “Thank you, Jackie.” She left before he could say anything else.

  * * *

  The walk to Brennan’s was quiet and chilly. She’d headed down the stairs and directly out the front door, not even stopping for a jacket. Like she was trying to outrun the part of herself that wanted to find a reason to put this off. She crossed her arms against the cold and focused on breathing the night air in and out. As she walked past houses lit up by cozy lamps or shifting screen lights, a few scenarios dashed across her mind. Maybe Denny and Kale closed up early and left. She could get a taxi to the airport and disappear. Perhaps an act of God would intervene. But they were fleeting. She was resolved.

  She gripped the cold bronze door handle for a moment before going in, letting it ground her. One more deep breath and she swung it open.

  They were both behind the bar, Kale washing and stacking glasses, Denny doing math at the register. Their backs were to each other and she had the distinct impression the silence had gone uninterrupted for a while. Kale would get over Denny’s deceit in time, but it ha
d taken a toll. Off to the right corner the kitchen lights were off. No one else was here.

  Denny turned, cash and receipts in his hands. “Hey.”

  Kale nodded from the sink.

  She stayed by the door.

  “What’s up?” Denny went back to counting.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  He looked up at the tone of her voice.

  Kale turned off the faucet. “That’s fine. I can finish this tomorrow.”

  “You too, Kale.”

  Denny’s arms fell by his sides. “Listen, Sun, if this is about the books, we’re not up for it tonight.”

  “It’s not about the books.”

  “Okay. What is it?”

  She watched them both for a moment, Kale drying his hands on a towel, Denny clutching money and paper, and wondered how this was going to change everything. This was the before. She had no idea what the after would look like.

  Denny’s eyebrows went up. “Sunday?”

  She didn’t answer, just walked across the room, behind the bar, feeling their curious eyes on her. After reaching for the Jameson bottle with one hand and two glasses with the other, she came back around and sat at a small table in the middle of the restaurant. Then she unscrewed the top, poured a finger of whiskey in each glass, sat back, and waited for them.

  They exchanged a puzzled look, came around opposite sides of the bar, and joined her.

  “Are we really going to need that?” Denny asked, nodding toward the whiskey.

  “I would advise it.”

  “Wait. Are you leaving again?”

  Kale’s attention snapped from Denny to her.

  “No,” she said.

  Denny relaxed a bit, picked up his glass, and held it toward Kale. “Cheers.”

  They clinked and drank. Denny crossed his arms and settled back in his seat. Kale waited, hands resting on his thighs.

  She stared at her lap for one more moment, stunned this was about to happen. After everything she’d done to keep this secret. Leaving the people she loved, living a shell of a life in LA. The whole of the last five years had been about avoiding this moment.