by Jan Burke
He watched Jack, still filled with wonder that the man had taken an eight-year-old boy’s ambitions so seriously. Jack had told O’Connor to begin by keeping a diary, to note what he had seen and heard each day, and his thoughts on any matter that struck his fancy. “That will be private,” he said. “So I’m going to trust you to do that on your own. I’ll give you assignments to turn in to me.”
O’Connor had borrowed paper from Maureen that evening and wrote, “Jack Corrigan told me this will help me learn how to be a newspaper reporter. I hope he is right. P.S.: He gave me a boxing lesson, too.” A week later, Maureen presented him with a gift, a small cloth-bound diary with gilt-edged pages and a lock and key. She had earned the money doing mending for the lady their mother worked for, and O’Connor knew it must have taken the whole of her earnings to buy it. When he wanted to pay her back with his lucky silver dollar, she said, “Oh no — never give away your luck. Besides, this is an investment on my part. I want to be able to brag that my brother is the famous newspaper reporter Conn O’Connor, whose name is on the front page of the Express. So you do what Mr. Corrigan tells you and fill up this diary.”
Several months later, another visitor had stopped near his corner.
Mitch Yeager stood eyeing him for long, nerve-wracking moments before he approached O’Connor. O’Connor knew that Yeager had managed to weasel his way out of the jury-tampering charges, a subject Jack had discussed bitterly and at length with his protégé. Yeager had power and powerful friends. He even had influence over Old Mr. Wrigley, according to Jack, because Old Mr. Wrigley — under pressure from advertisers who were Mitch Yeager’s business partners — had forbidden Jack to write any more stories about Yeager. That made O’Connor angry, but it also made him believe that Mitch Yeager was someone to fear.
Not much older than Dermot, O’Connor thought, watching him come closer. But Yeager’s youth didn’t soften anything about the man.
He stood staring at the boy. Conn swallowed hard and said, “Paper, mister?”
He heard laughter behind him and saw Yeager look up with a scowl. He turned to see Jack Corrigan.
“Picking on schoolkids now, Mitch?” Jack said. “You start bullying Wrigley’s paperboys, he might be willing to let the ink flow again.”
“The kid would have been better off going to school instead of hanging out in a courtroom,” Yeager said. He looked back at O’Connor. “A kid can get in trouble playing hooky.”
Jack put a hand on O’Connor’s shoulder. Conn was ashamed to feel himself shaking beneath that hand.
“He’s a smart kid,” Jack said. “Why don’t you be smart, too, Mitch?”
Yeager gave a small nod. “Sure. A smart man can wait for what he wants. Someday you’ll find out just how smart I can be, Jack Corrigan.”
He turned and walked away.
“Who told him?” Conn asked, his mouth dry.
“I don’t know, Conn,” Jack said. “Could have been someone on the paper, or a cop, or someone in the D.A.’s office…” He frowned, then sighed. “No, it’s probably my fault.”
“Your fault? No!” he said fiercely. “You never would have peached on me to the likes of Mitch Yeager!”
Jack smiled ruefully. “Appreciate the faith, kid, but my guess would be that Lillian told Mitch just to spite me. She’s a little irritated at me.”
“What does she care? She’s married now. To that rich Linworth fellow.”
Jack didn’t say anything.
“She wanted to marry you,” O’Connor said, deciding to get something that had been troubling him out in the open, “but she doesn’t like me. I made her mad at you.”
“No, kid. No, that’s not true. As far as Lily was concerned, I was just fun and games. Hobnobbing with the hoi polloi, that’s all. She flirted with men like me and Mitch because it was exciting to her, but she was always going to marry money. When you’re older, you’ll understand.”
“Does it make you sad?”
“Hell, no,” Jack said.
After a moment, O’Connor ventured to say, “I’m glad you didn’t marry her.”
Jack laughed. “So am I. She’s got one hell of temper, and she’s probably mad at both of us. At Mitch, too. Probably told him that a kid caught him at his game — kind of thing she’d do, just to piss him off.”
The memories of those early days with Corrigan were bittersweet to O’Connor. The years had brought many changes in his life, some good, some bad. Jack Corrigan’s friendship had remained a constant.
“Through the best of times, and the worst of times,”he said softly to himself.
Some of the worst came quickly to mind. Jack’s near-fatal car accident, which left him with the limp that kept him out of the service. A dozen other dark days, but without any hesitation he could name the worst of these: April 6,1945.
Maureen and his mother had both found high-paying jobs at one of the war plants — Mercury Aircraft. It had allowed the family to move into a nicer place. Maureen worked days, then took care of their father in the evenings while their mother worked second shift. O’Connor worked part-time, from six to eleven, four evenings a week at the Express — by then he was a copyboy, and had even sold a few stories to the paper. Despite the late nights, he did well in school and was close to graduating.
He remained devoted to his sister, and protective of her. Every evening, when Maureen’s shift ended at five, he was there at the gates of Mercury Aircraft, waiting to walk her home. Often, a neighbor who worked at the plant would join them on this walk, but he liked it best when it was just the two of them, away from their neighbor and away from their parents, able to talk and dream of the future. They did that more often in those early days of April. The war was coming to an end, it seemed — the Allies had crossed the Rhine.
O’Connor knew the end of the war meant that men would be coming home and taking their jobs back, and that Maureen and his mother might lose their jobs, but he couldn’t be sorry about it. Who could think of that after all these years of war? When you saw Gold Stars hanging in windows of those who’d lost loved ones, who didn’t wish for every mother’s son to come back home safely? One of his older sisters was a war widow. O’Connor’s only regret was that it looked as if it would all be over before he was old enough to enlist.
If the war didn’t end soon, though, he feared Maureen would end up an old maid, taking care of their parents until she was past the age of marrying. He was seventeen, and felt sure that Maureen was nearly at a nuptial dead- line — that she only had until she was about twenty-two to find a husband. His mother and older sisters had all been married before the age of nineteen.
It was just the two of them still at home, Conn and Maureen. Dermot had moved out to a place of his own years ago. Most of the care of their father had fallen to Maureen and his mother, although O’Connor shaved him. He also took on many of the household tasks that might have otherwise been his father’s.
O’Connor had been glad when Maureen took the job in the factory, thinking she’d meet more fellows. She had a job in purchasing, so she got to wear a dress to work — his mother had a higher-paying job, on the line, and wore slacks, which had nearly thrown Da into a fit until he saw the check she brought home.
Dresses or no, he lost hope for Maureen — he soon realized that with the war on, it was nothing but women and old men there at the aircraft plant, anyway. She hadn’t a chance of meeting a man who was near her age, unless he had some problem that made him 4-F. She told him that he was judging them too harshly, and that if he didn’t stop standing by the gates of Mercury Aircraft, scowling at every man who talked to her after work, she’d never meet anyone.
Once, when he complained that one of her dates was 4-F, she reminded him that Jack was 4-F because of his ankle — but the moment she said it, she apologized. They both knew how hard it was for Jack not to be able to enlist. After that, O’Connor never used a man’s handicap to as a reason for Maureen not to date him. Since he was good at finding information on
people, it wasn’t too difficult for him to find other reasons to criticize a would-be suitor.
He began to suspect that she had stopped telling him about the men she was interested in. Lately, he noticed she wore a heart-shaped locket, hidden beneath her blouse, but he saw it fall free of its hiding place when she bent to pick up a paper she had dropped. He questioned her about it, and she told him she had purchased it herself to keep men from annoying her — told them she had a steady beau. “Who’s annoying you?” he wanted to know, firing up.
“You are!” she told him.
That Friday night in April, he didn’t meet her after work. He had a night off from his job at the Express, and he had a date. For months now, he had been one of the many young men who sought the attention of another high school senior, Ethel Gibbs, and she had finally agreed to go out with O’Connor, surely the shyest member of her court. Maureen had been more excited about the prospect of her brother going on a date than perhaps he had been himself. A vicarious bit of pleasure for her, he thought, since she seldom dated.
Looking back on it now, he could not remember where he had planned to take Ethel. He hardly remembered why he had wanted to date her, what it was that had seemed so attractive about her. He could only vaguely recall her face.
He could, however, recall perfectly that moment when her mother opened the front door and looked in a puzzled way at the young man who stood before her, wearing his best clothes, smelling of his father’s cologne. He remembered Mrs. Gibbs’s blushes as she stammered confused apologies on her daughter’s behalf. Ethel had left an hour ago, she said in dismay, with — but she halted mid-sentence, not naming O’Connor’s rival. O’Connor had felt his own face redden and only managed to murmur, “My mistake, I’m sure.”
He had delayed going back home, had wandered around the streets of downtown Las Piernas for a couple of hours before deciding that he might as well swallow his shame and let Maureen know that Ethel had stood him up. Going up the steps of the porch, he wondered how she would take it. Probably be more disappointed than he was, really.
As he opened the front door, he saw that although there was no blackout ordered that night, the house was nearly in total darkness. He heard his father shout frantically, “Maureen! Maureen! Is that you?”
“No, Da, it’s me, Conn,” he called back, turning on the lights as he went toward the back room that had been adapted for his father’s use.
A small lamp near the bedside cast the only light in the room. His father had moved himself to a sitting position — an act that he could barely manage on his own, and only by enduring tremendous pain. Kieran O’Connor’s hair was silver, but that night, looking at his father in the light of that single lamp, was the first time that O’Connor found himself thinking, He’s become an old man.
“Conn!” his father said sharply. “Conn, listen to me — your sister — she’s not come home.”
“Not come home?” O’Connor repeated blankly. “Maureen, not come home?”
His father’s face twisted in agony.
“Da, lie back down now. I’ll get you something to eat.”
“To hell with that!” his father roared. “It’s your sister I’m worried about, not my damned belly!” And to O’Connor’s shock, the older man burst into tears.
“Da,” he said, coming to his side, easing him back on the bed. “Da, don’t now. Don’t. It might not be anything — maybe she had to work overtime. I’ll call the factory…”
“I’ve already called,” his father said, quickly wiping a hand across his face. “There’s been no overtime since February.”
O’Connor felt a coldness in the pit of his stomach. Maureen was dedicated to taking care of their father. She would never leave him, not even for a few moments, without arranging for someone to care for him.
“Conn,” his father said, “never mind me, now. You’ve got to go look for her. You know she always comes straight home to me. Something’s wrong. What if she’s — if she’s been in an accident?”
“I’ll find her. I promise.”
He began by calling the neighbor who often walked with them. She was surprised at his questions — Maureen had walked as far as the corner of their street with her, before turning to walk toward home. Maureen had mentioned no other plans. The neighbor hadn’t noticed anyone else nearby.
O’Connor left the house carrying a flashlight, feeling more worried now. He retraced the path between the corner and the house, looking at first for Maureen herself, and then on the ground for some sign of her having passed this way, a lost earring, a footprint, anything. He knocked on every door of every house that had any view of the corner, or of the street, but no one had seen her or noticed anything out of the ordinary.
It was growing late now. He went back to the house and told his father that he’d had no luck. He called the police. He also called his mother, who got permission to leave work.
A patrolman came to the house. O’Connor guessed him to be about fifty. He took a report, acting no more excited than if O’Connor had told him a car had been stolen. Less so. He said, “I’ll file this with Missing Persons.”
“What do you mean, file it?” O’Connor asked, struggling to keep his temper.
“Most adult disappearances are voluntary, sir.”
“No — this isn’t voluntary. Someone has taken her. She takes care of my father. She’d never leave him. This is a crime… for God’s sake, she’s in danger!”
The officer shrugged. “People get tired of responsibilities. But we’ll keep an eye out for her.”
O’Connor said, “I work for the Express.” He didn’t tell him that he was only a copyboy.
The patrolman paused, then said, “Look, it’s not up to me. You call Detective Riley first thing tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow! By then she could be God knows where! He could have…” But the thought of what could be happening to her so distressed him, he couldn’t say it aloud.
The officer patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, son. I’ll be on the radio, asking all our patrol cars to keep an eye out for her. You just wait — I’ll bet she’ll come back a little later this evening. Ninety-nine percent of the time, if an adult disappears, it’s because they forgot to tell someone their plans or they don’t want to be found.”
“She’s in that one percent then,” O’Connor said angrily.
“If so, we’ll be a little more sure of it tomorrow.”
“That one percent,” O’Connor said. “They aren’t numbers, you know. Those are human beings. A young woman, in this case. Someone who is loved and who has a job and a home and who has never said a cross word to anyone in her life… a good girl.”
“Call Riley in the morning,” he said, and left.
Instead, O’Connor called Jack Corrigan. Corrigan listened to O’Connor’s anxious recital in silence, until O’Connor described what the patrolman had said and done. Jack interrupted him.
“Never mind Riley,” he said grimly. “Unfortunately, Missing Persons is the retiring cop’s pasture in most police departments around here. Riley — that asshole wasn’t any good when he was really on the job, and now he’s just sitting around waiting for them to engrave his gold watch. Speaking of which… hang on.” There was a brief pause. “It’s late, and Wrigley might not go for it, but let’s give it a try. Listen, Conn, grab the clearest, most recent black-and-white photo of her you can find and meet me down at the Express. Bring two or three of them if you can.”
O’Connor waited only until his mother arrived to care for his father, a few minutes after he had found three photos of Maureen that he thought the engravers might be able to work with.
Old Man Wrigley had been reached at home. By the time O’Connor got to the paper, Jack was already sitting at a typewriter, writing the lead. Wrigley’s son, who was news editor, picked out a photo and told O’Connor to sit next to Jack and answer his questions.
O’Connor listened as Jack called the chief of police and asked if he’d care to comme
nt.
There was a pause, then Jack repeated the story of Maureen’s disappearance, and the patrolman’s lack of concern. There was another pause, then Jack said, “Yes, sir, the sister of one of our own staff. I know the family personally… Exactly, sir… No, she wouldn’t have abandoned her father.” O’Connor saw a kind of triumphant light come into Jack’s eyes. “That’s what I thought, sir.”He began writing notes.
When he hung up, he said, “Chief claims it was all a misunderstanding. You go on home, I’ll file this and come by for some follow-up.”
Detectives came to the house. Jack came to the house — often over the next few days — and then other reporters, for other reasons. Friends and family, neighbors and curiosity seekers. None of them were of any use.
O’Connor hardly mourned Roosevelt’s death the next week, and later had no heart for the victory celebrations at the end of the war. Maureen was missing. God knew what was happening to her. And it was his fault.
Neither of his parents ever said that to him — in fact, once hearing him say it, they protested adamantly that it wasn’t so. But he believed that they must, in their heart of hearts, feel it to be true — that perhaps they even said it to each other, and only guilt had made them protest. It hardly mattered — he said it often enough to himself.
For five years, O’Connor and his parents went through the motions of being a family, but Maureen’s absence grew nearly to be a stronger force than her presence. His father’s interest in life beyond his room, always something Maureen had cajoled from him, began to fail, and what remained of his health failed with it.
O’Connor’s eldest sister, Alma, had lost her husband in the war, and now she came to live with them to help his mother. His mother, who, like his father, seemed suddenly to age after that one April evening, was grateful for Alma’s help.
Alma was not Maureen, though. O’Connor found himself ill-at-ease with this prim woman, who was seventeen years his senior and all but a stranger to him. In truth, he decided later, the thing that bothered him most was that she was staying in Maureen’s room. His mother had packed up Maureen’s belongings and placed them in the attic, and she allowed Alma to place her own things on the walls and shelves of Maureen’s room. To O’Connor’s way of thinking, his mother was giving up on Maureen. Alma was seen by her youngest brother as encroaching and little more than a squatter. Beneath all his resentment of her, he carried the fear that some spiritual connection to Maureen had been broken by these changes in the household, that by moving Maureen’s possessions, they had taken away a place for her to come back to, somehow made it impossible for her to return home.