by Lisa Genova
He passes a FOR SALE sign in front of a freestanding colonial, one of the rare few with a courtyard, and tries to guess the outrageous listing price. Joe’s father bought their house, a triple-decker at the Bottom of the Hill, in 1963 for ten grand. A similar triple-decker two streets over from Joe and Rosie sold last week for a cool million. Every time he thinks about that, it blows his friggin’ mind. Sometimes he and Rosie talk about selling their place, a giddy, fantastical conversation that sounds a lot like imagining what they’d do if they won the lottery.
Joe would get a new car. A black Porsche. Rosie doesn’t drive, but she’d get new clothes and shoes and some real jewelry.
But where would they live? They wouldn’t move to some monstrous house in the suburbs with lots of land. He’d have to get a lawn mower. Rosie’s brothers all live in rural towns at least forty-five minutes outside of Boston and seem to spend every weekend weeding and mulching and doing something labor-intensive to grass. Who wants that? And he’d have to leave the Boston Police Department if they moved to a suburb. That ain’t happening. And realistically, he can’t drive that kind of car around here. Talk about being a target. So he really wouldn’t get the car, and Rosie is fine with her fake diamonds. Who wants to worry about lost or stolen jewelry? So although the conversation starts out heady, it always loops into a big circle that lands them firmly right back where they are. They both love it here, and for all the money in the world wouldn’t live anywhere else. Not even Southie.
They’re lucky to have inherited the triple-decker. When Joe’s father died nine years ago, he left the house to Joe and Joe’s only sibling, his sister, Maggie. It took some serious detective work to track Maggie down. Always Joe’s opposite, she made it her mission to leave Charlestown immediately after high school and never returned. He found her living in Southern California, divorced, no kids, and wanting nothing to do with the house. Joe understands.
He and Rosie live on the first floor, and twenty-three-year-old Patrick still lives with them. Their other son, JJ, and his wife, Colleen, live on the second floor. Katie and Meghan are roommates on the third floor. Everyone but Patrick pays Joe and Rosie rent, but it’s minimal, way below market value, just something to keep them all responsible. And it helps pay off the mortgage. They had to refinance a couple of times to put all four kids through parochial school. That was a huge nut, but there was no way in hell his kids were getting bused to Dorchester or Roxbury.
Joe turns the corner and decides to cut through Doherty Park. Charlestown is quiet at this sleepy hour on a Sunday morning. Clougherty Pool is closed. The basketball courts are empty. The kids are all either in church or still in bed. Other than an occasional passing car, the only sounds are the jingling of Yaz’s tags and the change in Joe’s front pocket playing together like a song.
As expected, he finds eighty-three-year-old Michael Murphy sitting on the far bench in the shade. He’s got his cane and his brown bag of stale bread for the birds. He sits there all day, every day, except for when the weather is particularly lousy, and watches over things. He’s seen it all.
“How are ya today, Mayor?” asks Joe.
Everyone calls Murphy Mayor.
“Better than most women deserve,” says Murphy.
“So true,” chuckles Joe, even though this is Mayor’s verbatim reply to this same question about every third time Joe asks.
“How’s the First Lady?” asks Murphy.
Murphy calls Joe Mr. President. The nickname began ages ago as Mr. Kennedy, a reference to Joe and Rose, and then at some point it morphed, skipping from father to son, defying actual US political history, and Mr. Joseph Kennedy became Mr. President. And that, of course, makes Rosie the First Lady.
“Good. She’s at church praying for me.”
“Gonna be there a long time, then.”
“Yup. Have a good one, Mayor.”
Joe continues along the path, taking in the distant view from this hill of the industrial silos and the Everett shipyard on the other side of the Mystic River. Most people would say the view is nothing special and might even think it’s an eyesore. He’ll probably never find a painter parked on this spot with an easel, but Joe sees a kind of urban beauty here.
He’s descending the steep hill, using the stairs instead of the switchback ramp, when he somehow missteps and his view is suddenly nothing but sky. He skids down three concrete steps on his back before he has the presence of mind to stop himself with his hands. He eases himself up to sitting, and he can already feel a nasty series of bruises blossoming on the knobs of his spine. He twists around to examine the stairs, expecting to blame some kind of obstruction such as a stick or a rock or a busted step. There’s nothing. He looks up to the top of the stairs, to the park around him and the landing below. At least no one saw him.
Yaz pants and wags his tail, eager to move along.
“Just a sec, Yaz.”
Joe lifts each arm up and checks his elbows. Both are scraped and bleeding. He wipes the gravel and blood and eases himself to standing.
How the hell did he trip? Must be his bum knee. He twisted his right knee a couple of years ago chasing a B&E suspect down Warren Street. Brick sidewalks may look pretty, but they’re bumpy and buckled, brutal to run on, especially in the dark. His knee hasn’t been the same since and seems to just quit on him every now and then without warning. He should probably get it checked out, but he doesn’t do doctors.
He’s particularly careful going down the rest of the stairs and continues down to Medford Street. He decides to cut back in and up at the high school. Rosie should be getting out soon, and he’s now feeling a stabbing pinch in his lower back with each step. He wants to get home.
As he’s walking up Polk Street, a car slows down next to him. It’s Donny Kelly, Joe’s best friend from childhood. Donny still lives in Town and works as an EMT, so Joe sees him quite a bit both on and off the job.
“Whaddya drink too much last night?” asks Donny, smiling at him through the open window of his Pontiac.
“Huh?” asks Joe, smiling back.
“You limpin’ or somethin’?”
“Oh yeah, my back is tweaked.”
“Wanna ride up over the hill, old man?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“Come on, get in the car.”
“I need the exercise,” says Joe, patting his gut. “How’s Matty doin’?”
“Good.”
“And Laurie?”
“Good, everyone’s good. Hey, you sure I can’t take you somewhere?”
“No, really, thanks.”
“All right, I gotta go. Good to see you, OB.”
“You, too, Donny.”
Joe makes a point of walking evenly and at a rigorous clip while he can still see Donny’s car, but when Donny reaches the top of the hill and then disappears, Joe stops the charade. He trudges along, each step now twisting some invisible screw deeper into his spine, and he wishes he’d taken the ride.
He replays Donny’s comment about having too much to drink. He knows it was just an innocent joke, but Joe’s always been sensitive about his reputation and drinking. He never has more than two beers. Well, sometimes he’ll finish off his two beers with a shot of whiskey, just to prove he’s a man, but that’s it.
His mother was a drinker. Drank herself into the nuthouse, and everyone knew about it. It’s been a long time, but that shit follows you. People don’t forget anything, and who you’re from is as important as who you are. Everyone half expects you to become a raging alcoholic if your mother drank herself to death.
Ruth O’Brien drank herself to death.
This is what everyone says. It’s his family legend and legacy. Whenever it comes up, a parade of memories marches closely behind. It gets uncomfortable real fast, and he swiftly changes the subject so he doesn’t have to “go there.” How ’bout them Red Sox?
; But today, whether due to a growth in bravery, maturity, or curiosity, he can’t say, he allows this sentence to accompany him up the hill. Ruth O’Brien drank herself to death. It doesn’t really add up. Yes, she drank. In a nutshell, she drank so much that she couldn’t walk or talk a straight line. She’d say and do crazy things. Violent things. She was completely out of control, and when his father couldn’t handle her anymore, he put her in the state hospital. Joe was only twelve when she died.
Ruth O’Brien drank herself to death. For the first time in his life, he consciously realizes that this sentence that he’s held as gospel, a fact as verifiable and real as his own birth date, can’t literally be true. His mother was in that hospital for five years. She had to have been as dry as a bone, on the permanent wagon in a hospital bed, when she died.
Maybe her brain and liver had been soaking in booze for too many years, and it turned them both to mush. So maybe it was too late. The damage was done, and there was no recovering. Her wet brain and soggy liver finally failed her. Cause of death: chronic exposure to alcohol.
He reaches the top of the hill, relieved and ready to move on to an easier street and topic, but his mother’s death is still pestering him. Something about this new theory doesn’t ring true. He’s got that unsettled, hole-in-his-gut feeling that he gets when he arrives at a call and he’s not getting what really happened from anyone. He’s got a good ear for it, the truth, and this ain’t it. So if she didn’t drink herself to death or die from alcohol-related causes, then what?
He searches for a better answer for three more blocks and comes up empty. What does it even matter? She’s dead. She’s been dead a long time. Ruth O’Brien drank herself to death. Leave it alone.
The bells are ringing as he arrives at St. Francis Church. He spots Rosie right away, waiting for him on the top step, and he smiles. He thought she was a knockout when they started dating at sixteen, and he actually thinks she’s getting prettier as she ages. At forty-three, she has peaches-and-cream skin splashed with freckles, auburn hair (even though these days the color comes from a bottle), and green eyes that can still make him weak in the knees. She’s an amazing mother and definitely a saint for putting up with him. He’s a lucky man.
“Did you put in a good word for me?” asks Joe.
“Many times,” she says, flicking holy water at him with her fingers.
“Good. You know I need all the help I can get.”
“Are you bleeding?” she asks, noticing his arm.
“Yeah, I fell on some stairs. I’m okay.”
She takes hold of his other hand, lifts his arm, and finds the bloody abrasion on that elbow.
“You sure?” she asks, concern in her eyes.
“I’m fine,” he says, and squeezes her hand in his. “Come, my bride, let’s go home.”
CHAPTER 3
It’s almost four thirty, and the whole family is sitting around the kitchen table set with empty jelly jar glasses, plates, and silverware on the threadbare green quilted place mats Katie sewed in home ec ages ago, waiting for Patrick. No one has seen him since yesterday afternoon. Patrick bartends nights at Ironsides, so presumably, he was there until closing, but he never came home last night. They have no idea where he is. Meghan keeps texting him, but, no surprise to any of them, he’s not answering his phone.
Joe noticed Patrick’s empty, perfectly made twin bed on the way to the bathroom early this morning. He paused before continuing down the hall, his focus drifting above where Patrick’s head should’ve been to the poster on the wall of Bruins center Patrice Bergeron. Joe shook his head at Bergy and sighed. Part of Joe wanted to go in and mess up the blankets and sheets, make it look as if Patrick had been home and was already up and out, just so Rosie wouldn’t worry. But that’s not a believable ruse anyway. If Patrick had come home, he’d still be in there, passed out until at least noon.
It’s best if Rosie knows the truth and is allowed to express her concerns. Joe can then listen and nod and say nothing, concealing his own darker theories beneath a veiled silence. What Joe is capable of imagining is far worse than anything Rosie might cook up. The lad drinks too much, but he’s twenty-three. He’s young. Joe and Rosie have their eyes on it, but the excessive drinking isn’t where either of their real worries lie.
Rosie’s terrified that he’s going to get some girl pregnant. This highly religious woman actually slips condoms into her son’s wallet. One at a time. Poor Rosie is gravely mortified each time she checks inside and finds only a couple of bucks and no condom, often many times in the same week. But she always resupplies him, sometimes with a little cash, too. She then makes the sign of the cross and says nothing.
Although Joe wishes Patrick had a steady girlfriend, someone with a name and a nice face and a pretty smile who Patrick cared enough about to bring home to Sunday supper, Joe can live with the womanizing. Hell, part of him even admires the boy. Joe also can forgive him for not coming home at night and for the time he “borrowed” Donny’s car and totaled it. Joe’s more worried about the drugs.
He’s never held this kind of suspicion with the other three kids and has no direct evidence that Patrick is using. Yet. He can’t help finishing that thought every time with a “yet,” and so therein lies Joe’s worry. Whenever Joe’s working the midnight shift and gets called to the Montego Bay boat launch or some other secluded parking lot to arrest some punks for drug possession, he finds himself first searching the young faces for Patrick’s. He hopes to God he’s wrong and is being unnecessarily paranoid, but there’s a familiar attitude in these kids that reminds him too much of Patrick, an apathy and recklessness beyond the normal sense of invincibility of young people. It worries Joe more than he’d like to admit.
He’s not a stranger to arresting family, and it’s no fun. He caught his brother-in-law Shawn literally red-handed, stained head to toe in exploded red dye, with a thick, crisp stack of one-dollar bills sandwiched between two fifties shoved inside the pocket of his hoodie—only minutes after a bank was robbed in City Square. Another brother-in-law, Richie, is still doing time for drug trafficking back in the late nineties. Joe remembers eyeing Richie through the rearview, handcuffed and staring out the backseat window of his cruiser, and Joe felt ashamed, as if he’d been the one who committed a crime. Rosie was heartbroken. He never wants to put another relative in the back of his car again, especially not his own son.
“Meghan, text him,” says Rosie, her arms crossed.
“I just did, Ma,” says Meghan.
“Then do it again.”
Rosie’s concern is deteriorating to anger. Sunday supper is nonnegotiable for the kids, especially on a Sunday that Joe is home, and to be this late is approaching unforgivable. Meanwhile, Rosie will keep cooking the food that was already overcooked a half hour ago. The roast beef will be dry, tasteless leather, the mashed potatoes will be a bowl of gray glue, and the canned green beans will have been boiled beyond recognition. As he’s done for twenty-five years, Joe will get through supper with a lot of salt, a couple of beers, and no complaints.
The girls have a harder time with Sunday supper. Katie is vegan. Each week she passionately lectures them about animal cruelty and the outrageously disgusting practices of the meat industry while the rest of them, minus Meghan, all shovel in heavily salted mouthfuls of overcooked blood sausage.
Meghan typically rejects most of the meal because of fat and calorie content. She’s a dancer for the Boston Ballet and, as far as Joe can tell, eats only salads. She usually picks at the obliterated canned vegetable while the rest of them, minus Katie, fill up on meat and potatoes. Meghan’s not too thin, but her eyes always look so hungry, following the movement of their forks like a caged lion stalking a family of baby gazelles. Between the two girls, you need a degree from college to learn and memorize all the rules and restrictions surrounding their diets.
JJ and his wife, Colleen, will politely eat anything Rosi
e puts in front of them. God bless them. That takes some highly skilled manners.
Joe and JJ are a lot alike. They share the same name, the same stocky build, and the same sleepy blue eyes. They both have pasty white skin that blooms an unflattering carnation pink whenever they get excited (the Red Sox win) or angry (the Red Sox choke) and that can sunburn in late-afternoon shade. They both have the same sense of humor that at least half the time Rosie thinks isn’t one bit funny, and they both married women who are far too good for them.
But JJ is a firefighter, and that’s the most striking difference between them. For the most part, Boston firefighters and cops consider themselves brothers and sisters, here to protect and serve this great city and her people, but the firefighters get all the glory, and that bugs the piss out of Joe. Firefighters are always the big heroes. They show up at someone’s house and everyone cheers and thanks them. Some of those guys actually get hugged. The cops show up and everyone hides.
Plus firefighters get paid more and do less. It drives Joe nuts when they respond to fender benders where they’re not needed, messing up traffic, getting in the way of BEMS and the police. Joe thinks they’re bored and trying to look busy. We got it, guys. Go back to the house and take another nap.
To be honest, he’s actually grateful that JJ didn’t become a cop. Joe’s proud to be a patrol officer, but he wouldn’t wish this life on any of his kids. Still, sometimes Joe feels strangely betrayed by JJ’s career choice, the way a Red Sox player would feel if his son grew up and became a New York Yankee. Part of Joe is busting with pride, and the other part wonders where he went wrong.
“What’s goin’ on, Dad?” asks Katie.
“Huh?” asks Joe.
“You’re all quiet today.”