by Ann Tatlock
The next morning as we walked into church, Daddy and I once again held hands in mutual support, knowing we would probably hear something in the sermon we didn’t want to hear. I sat between him and Mother, fanning myself with the church bulletin as Reverend Kilkenny ascended to the pulpit. The church was always warm, this being summer, but today it seemed unusually so, in spite of the open windows and the overworked ceiling fans. My cheeks burned and perspiration moistened my skin wherever my body made contact with the wooden pew. I was uncomfortable in body and soul as I awaited the Reverend’s words of condemnation.
Oh, God, I’m a criminal, I thought. A lawbreaker, a liar, every inch as bad as Uncle Cy and Calvin Fludd. How can you love me now, God? How can you love me now?
The Reverend rambled on for a time, undeterred by the waves of fidgeting and fanning going on among the congregation. Daddy’s head began to bob, though he tried valiantly to stay awake. Mother dabbed at her neck with a small white handkerchief. I silently begged Reverend Kilkenny to wrap it up so we could move out of the crowded sanctuary and into the open air. I felt suffocated by the warmth and by my own sense of shame. I longed to go to the island and take a plunge in the river. I imagined myself sitting in the shade of the Island Eatery, drinking a bottomless glass of ice-cold lemonade. Anything to bring relief from the heat. Anything simply to bring relief.
I didn’t realize that my own chin had sunk down low. With some effort, I lifted my head and looked up at Reverend Kilkenny. He had made a fist of one hand and was beating it against his chest. “And the publican,” he was saying, “did not even dare to lift his eyes to heaven but bent low because of his sin and beat his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’”
He paused and looked out over his wilting audience. I, for one, sat up straighter.
“The Pharisee was thanking God for his own righteousness, you see. ‘Thank you, God,’ he said, ‘that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.’” Reverend Kilkenny’s arm went straight out, and his index finger pointed over our heads as though the publican was behind us at the far reaches of the narthex.
He held his pose for a moment, then slowly dropped his arm and smiled down at us. “It’s all about mercy, my friends. We are sinners, all of us, but God is merciful.”
I drew in a breath and as I did, my right hand rose to my heart. I laid my fist there, over the place where I kept the lie. Oh, God, I thought, be merciful to me, a sinner. Oh, God, please be merciful to me, a sinner.
Chapter 26
As I walked through the sitting room and down the hallway to the ballroom, I was keenly aware of the illegal stash beneath my feet. Shivers of terror moved up my spine at the thought of it all. I was more afraid now than I had ever been in St. Paul, knowing evil men were traveling through the tunnel, back and forth between our cellar and the gas station, carrying the goods that put money in the pockets of Uncle Cy, Calvin Fludd, the bootlegger in Cincinnati, and any number of otherwise law-abiding citizens of Mercy who took a bribe to look the other way. I felt all tangled up in the web of crime that Prohibition had created, and I sensed that in the end nothing good could come of it.
I was on my way to find Jones. I hadn’t seen him except in passing since Friday—the day we took the food to the camp—and now it was Monday night. Jones seemed to me a kind of fellow victim of Uncle Cy’s wrongdoing. He too was forced to keep the secret, and by doing so, to break the law.
The door to the apartment was open as it so often was to allow the air to move through. And, as he so often was, Jones sat at the cluttered table surrounded by his radios and his books. So deeply absorbed was he in one of those books that he jumped when I knocked on the doorjamb.
“Sorry, Jones,” I said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He pushed his glasses farther up his nose. “That’s all right. I just didn’t hear you coming.”
“Are you busy?”
“Not really. I’m just reading.”
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
I pulled a chair around from the end of the table so I could sit beside him. “What are you reading?” I asked.
He closed the book to show me the cover. “It’s about the Alaskan Territory.”
“Oh yeah. I noticed that book here before. Why are you reading about Alaska?”
“Because I’m going to go there someday.”
My eyebrows rose sharply. “You are? What on earth for?”
“To live. To make a life for myself.”
“In Alaska? Why do you want to live up there? Why, there’s no one there but the Eskimos!”
His expression told me I’d answered my own question. “That’s right,” he said. “Mostly. There’s not many people and there’s plenty of wide open space up there.”
“But what would you do? How would you make a living?”
“I don’t know yet. I suppose I’d have to live off the fat of the land for a time. You know, hunt, fish, gather berries.” He paused and gave a small laugh. “I’ll figure it all out once I get there.”
“But how will you even get to such a faraway place? You’d need a whole lot of money to travel so far.”
“Maybe. Yeah, I suppose. But I’m going to get there someday, even if my wallet’s as empty as it is now. I’ll work on the way up, if I have to. I’ll travel awhile, stop in some town or another to work, travel a little more.”
I frowned in thought as I pictured him making his way north through the wilds of Canada. How would people treat him when he showed up in a small town looking for work? With fear? With disdain? With violence? I wanted to warn him not to go, to stay here in Ohio or to go back to Chicago, but not to venture such a great distance through territory that might be far from friendly. But it wasn’t my place to say so. Instead, I said simply, “I never knew you wanted to go to Alaska.”
“Does it seem so strange?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Well, yes. It’s just . . . I never imagined you wanting to do something like that.”
“Well . . .” He smiled and lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “We all have dreams, don’t we?”
“Yes, I guess we do.” I gazed at Jones, at his red eyes blinking behind the thick lenses of his glasses. “I suppose you want to get as far away from Uncle Cy as you can.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because of, you know.” I looked down at the floor and up again.
He stared at me for a few uncomfortable moments as he registered my meaning. A small nod told me he understood. “I’m sorry you and your father ever found out about it,” he said.
“I’m sorry Uncle Cy got himself mixed up in something like that. I’m having a hard time believing it of him.”
“Why? Because no one with Marryat blood would ever break the law?”
“I thought my uncle was a good man, not an outlaw.”
“So what’s your definition of good, Eve?”
My back stiffened and my jaw grew tight. I lifted my chin and said defiantly, “Someone who keeps the law and works to help people, not hurt them.”
Jones narrowed his crimson eyes at me. His pale cheeks took on color and his mouth tightened, as if there were words inside he wasn’t sure he wanted to let out. As much as I wanted to be friends with him, we seemed always to end up just inches from an argument. I waited for him to blow, but he must have talked himself out of the fight because when he spoke, his words were quiet.
“Look, Eve,” he said, “I’m keeping my mouth shut for Cy for one reason and one reason only, and that’s my mother. What he’s doing, he’s doing mostly for her sake. There were so many medical bills. You wouldn’t believe how many doctors she’d gone to, trying to find some cure. With all those bills Cy might have lost the lodge, and worse, my mother might have died a long time ago if it weren’t for the extra money. The offer from Cincinnati came at just the right time, and Cy grabbed it. I’d probably have done the same thing, if I was in his position.�
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“So you approve of the bootlegging?”
“I approve of Cy’s efforts to take care of us. I approve of anything that helps my mother.”
I was quiet a moment. “You really love her, don’t you, Jones?”
“Of course I love her. And lucky for us, Cy loves her too. That’s the one thing about him I can appreciate. But just because he’s married to her, it’s not like he and I are father and son or anything even remotely like that. I’m here because I’m part and parcel of what Cy got when he married her. That doesn’t make him and me close. Far from it. He thinks I’m a freak, just like everybody else. I think he’d rather I wasn’t here, wasn’t hanging around to scare the guests when they see the red-eyed devil.”
He turned his face away from me then. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. I thought he might be trying not to cry, but when he turned back to me there was no sign of tears. Only anger. Layers and layers of that.
“I think you’re wrong, Jones,” I said. “Surely Uncle Cy doesn’t think of you as a freak.”
“Why wouldn’t he?” Jones snapped. “It’s what I am. I’ll never be like everyone else. Cy would rather I’d stayed in Chicago with relatives there, but since I’m here he tries to make the best of it. He gives me work to do that’ll mostly keep me back here and away from the stares of the guests.” He pulled the Alaska book closer to him and ran his ghostly hand over the cover. “Soon as Mom’s better and back here with Cy, I’m going to try to take my leave.”
“But . . . your Mom won’t want you to leave, will she?”
“I’m a grown man, Eve. It’s time for me to be out on my own. Somewhere where the sight of me won’t bother too many people.”
I felt my heart constrict. No wonder Jones had given me his St. Rita medal. St. Rita would never do him any good; he would always be alone and lonely, as long as he lived. I wanted to throw my arms around him and take away the sting of his separateness, but I was as helpless as St. Rita to change what was. Lamely, I said, “Your mother will miss you terribly, after you’re gone.”
“She’ll have a good life here. I can go knowing she’s being taken care of. At least Cy has done that much for me.” He cleared his throat and put his glasses back on. “Listen,” he said, “I’m really thirsty. You want some iced tea? I’ve got some in the fridge.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’d like some.”
“I’ll be right back.”
When he left, I idly reached for the book, thinking I’d thumb through it while he was pouring the tea. But I didn’t get any farther than the inside front cover where a name was written in a tight, left-leaning script. I gasped. In the next instance, Jones stepped out of the kitchen with a glass of tea in each hand. When he saw the look on my face, he stopped.
“Your name,” I said, “is Jones O’Brannigan.”
His eyelids fluttered but his gaze held my own. “That’s right.”
I was momentarily speechless. Then, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t need to know.”
“Your father was the flower-shop owner.”
“Yes.”
“And a gangster.”
Jones nodded. “But that wasn’t important. That wasn’t what mattered to me. He was the best father, he was—”
“But that’s all you’ve ever known,” I interrupted. “He was a bootlegger, just like Uncle Cy.”
“My father wasn’t like Cy at all. To him, I wasn’t a freak.” Jones moved to the table then and set one of the glasses in front of me. He sat down. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you wouldn’t understand. You’d see everything bad about him and none of the good, and you’d judge me as his son by your own impossible standards. But I was his son, see, and the only thing that mattered to me was that he loved my mother and me both. He was a good man, Eve. You’ve got to believe me.”
I closed the book and slid it across the table to Jones. He was right. Had he told me before, I wouldn’t have understood. But now . . .
I lifted my eyes from the book and looked at Jones. “Will you excuse me?” I said. “I have some thinking to do.”
He nodded.
I left the tea untouched and left the room without a word.
Chapter 27
Annie stood on tiptoe at the kitchen window, peering out. “Someone here for you, Eve, honey.”
I looked out over her shoulder. “He’s here for something to eat, and you know it, Annie.”
“Uh-huh. That too,” she said. “I’ll fix him up a tray of these leftovers.”
He sat on the grass, watching me nonchalantly as I approached. “Hope you don’t mind warmed-over oatmeal and toast,” I said, handing him the tray. “You’re early today. Lunch isn’t ready.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.” He winked. “Can you sit for a time?”
I looked at the kitchen window where Annie was waving me down to the grass. “I guess I can. For a little while.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes while he ate the oatmeal. I couldn’t help staring at his hands as he lifted the spoon to his mouth. They were fine, strong hands, and they were probably equally at home holding a book, a hammer, even a gun. I remembered how he’d shot the ducks at the carnival while Marcus had missed. He’d gone to college and read who-knew-how-many books about history. Now, he was doing day labor.
Who are you, Link? I wondered. I didn’t even know his name.
“So is there anything new with you and the folks?” he asked, scraping the last of the oatmeal from the bottom of the bowl.
“New?” I echoed.
“Yeah. Haven’t seen you in a few days, so I was just wondering.”
I shook my head, looked away. “No. Nothing’s new.”
“Nothing?”
“No. Why?”
“No reason.” He took a bit of toast, chewing thoughtfully. “I’m just making conversation, Eve.”
I cleared my throat, thought a moment, finally settled on something to say. “My sister’s coming to visit soon.”
“That right?”
“Yeah. Maybe you can meet her.”
“I’d like that.”
“She’s married.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She’s got two kids.”
He nodded, finished off the toast. He set aside the plate and bowl and wiped his hands on the bib of his overalls. “Bet she’s not half as pretty as you are.”
My heart thumped. No one had ever told me I was pretty before, not even Marcus. The words sounded strange in my ears. I lifted my eyes to Link’s and when they met, I had to admit to myself what I’d been trying to suppress ever since Daddy told me we were leaving. Of all the things I didn’t want to leave behind in Mercy, Ohio, the one thing I didn’t want to leave most of all was Link.
“You’re just saying that,” I whispered.
“I never say anything that isn’t true.”
“Cassandra’s beautiful. You just wait and see.”
“I don’t have to wait for anything. I already know.”
I fidgeted on the grass, looked out toward the river. Soon I would tell him we were leaving, though I would never be able to tell him why.
“I heard you and your father brought some food out to the camp last Friday.”
“Yeah, we did.” I nodded.
“That was good of you. The men appreciated it.”
I shrugged. “It was Uncle Cy’s food.”
“But your idea.”
One I wished I’d never had. If only we could have gone on living without knowing. It was the knowing that changed everything and was driving us away.
“I asked Cecil to hold some back for you. Did you get it?”
“I did, thanks.”
I took a deep breath. My heart had settled back into rhythm. “You got work today?” I asked.
He fingered a pebble he’d found in the grass, tossed it across the lawn. “Not today. Prospects aren’t always very good around here.”
“I don’t know why you stay.�
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“It’s where I’m supposed to be.”
He’d told me that before. I didn’t understand it then and I didn’t understand it now. It seemed like someone in his position could travel just about anywhere.
“How long do you think things are going to be the way they are now? I mean, in the way of jobs?” I asked.
“A good long while, I imagine. The future looks pretty bleak.”
I had to agree. The country’s future. His future. Mine.
“Do you think you’ll ever go back to college?”
“God willing and the Little Miami don’t rise.” He laughed lightly at that. Then, more seriously, “I don’t intend to be a bum my whole life, you know.”
The crash had made him a bum, but he was a beautiful bum. I wanted to touch the hand that had held the spoon, but I didn’t dare. I hardly dared look at him, knowing which way my heart was leaning.
“Well, I’d better get back to helping Annie with lunch.”
I rose.
“Eve?”
I waited but didn’t respond.
“You sure you’re all right? You seem . . . I don’t know . . . distracted or something.”
“Sure. I’m all right.”
“Nothing’s wrong then?” He unfolded himself to his full height and cupped my chin in the palm of his hand. He lifted my face so that I had to look him in the eye. “You can tell me,” he said.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I whispered. I wanted to sink my head into his shoulder and take refuge there. I wanted to feel his arms around me and to hear him tell me I didn’t have to be afraid. But instead I withdrew, turning away.
“Eve . . .”
“It’s all right, Link. I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
One day he’d go back to school and make something of himself. One day he’d marry a beautiful woman and have beautiful children, and he’d be happy. I hoped so. For his sake, I hoped so.