The Shortest Way Home

by Juliette Fay

  There was a young woman with thin brown hair and glasses who appeared to be giving instructions of some kind. A student teacher, maybe? But shouldn’t old Mrs. Lindquist be the one to give that tiresome end-of-the-year speech that no child on the face of the earth had ever listened to? Sean shifted his position so that he could scan the entire classroom, but there didn’t appear to be any other adults in the room.

  A bell rang, and like a flock of birds changing direction in unison, all the parents in the hallway seemed to bring out their cameras and video recorders at once. It hadn’t crossed Sean’s mind to bring a camera because he didn’t own one. He didn’t even have a cell phone. But he felt a sudden twinge of regret that he hadn’t thought to ask Deirdre if she had a camera he could use. He looked around. The parents whose faces weren’t covered by electronics all carried various expressions of intense anticipation. A few were teary. This was clearly a very big deal.

  Sean wondered if his own parents had felt the same way—he remembered them both being there, his mother holding baby Deirdre, his father’s hand tight around Hugh’s, who was practically born ready to take off the second he saw an opening. Or maybe by then his mother’s mind had already started to wander, so that she really wasn’t taking in the weight of the occasion; possibly his father was too distracted by his wife’s waning lucidity to care very much that his oldest would momentarily be marking a milestone.

  The principal’s voice came on over the PA system, straining to enunciate over the rising din in the hallway. He said what a ­wonderful year of learning it had been for their school community, requested that all parents check the lost and found, and said a few other things to which no one really listened. And then three of the classroom doors opened and a stream of children began to march down the hall. Sean was taller than most of the other adults, but he found himself straining to make sure that Kevin saw him. Suddenly that seemed important.

  The line of children spilling from the classroom laughing and high-fiving people as they marched along came to an end, and Kevin still hadn’t come out. Sean peered into the doorway and saw Kevin handing the young woman with the glasses a folded-up piece of paper. His face was so red Sean thought he might burst into flames. She smiled at him with great affection, said a few words, took a deep breath and said a few more. Her eyes welled, and she suddenly clutched him to her, pressing her cheek to the top of his head. Then she let him go. She laughed, said one or two more words. Kevin nodded sheepishly and turned toward the door. Sean popped back out of sight before Kevin could catch him.

  When Kevin came out, Sean called his name and he looked up, startled, it seemed, to see his uncle there at school. Sean made a show of silent claps, then mimed galloping. Kevin rolled his eyes, embarrassed but laughing all the same. Sean felt an odd surge of happiness. “I’ll meet you outside!” he called, as Kevin went to follow his classmates.

  When Kevin was no longer visible beyond the sea of parents, Sean turned and found the young teacher looking at him.

  “Are you . . . a relative?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I’m his uncle.”

  She thought about this for a moment, pressing her glasses up a little farther on the bridge of her nose. “The one who lives in Africa?”

  Sean nodded. “He told you about that?”

  “He tells me a lot of things.” Her smile had a strangely sad tinge to it. “Boy, I’m going to miss him.” She looked down the hallway. “I better get out there. Nice to actually meet you.” And she strode away.

  Sean followed the crowd to the front of the school. When he spotted Kevin, he was listening patiently to a man with a brightly colored tie. The man patted Kevin’s shoulder. From the look on Kevin’s face, he wasn’t nearly as happy to be talking to this guy as to his teacher.

  “There you are,” said Sean. “Ready to hit the high road?”

  “Yeah!” Kevin’s relief was palpable. The man seemed about to introduce himself, but Kevin grabbed Sean by the elbow and steered him toward the street. As soon as they’d put a safe distance between themselves and the school, Kevin’s hand dropped back to his side.

  “Who was that?” Sean asked.

  “Guidance counselor.” Kevin continued up the sidewalk and Sean went with him.

  “He seemed to like you.”

  “That’s his job.”

  Sean nodded. The kid had a point. “And who was that lady in your classroom?”

  “My teacher.” Said like it was ridiculously obvious.

  “Deirdre said you had old Mrs. Lindquist.”

  “She retired a couple of years ago. That’s her daughter.”

  “I guess Deirdre didn’t realize a secret switch had been made,” Sean joked.

  “She doesn’t pay that much attention.”

  True, thought Sean. “So what do you want to do now? Should we go get an ice cream or something to celebrate the end of your elementary career? We could go home and get Auntie Vivvy’s car and hit Dairy Queen.”

  “Um . . .” Kevin squinted in indecision.

  “ ‘Um’ to ice cream? What kind of kid are you?” Sean teased.

  “No, it’s just . . . There’ll be a lot of people there.”

  “The line’ll be long,” Sean conceded. “But we’re not in a hurry, are we?”

  “No . . . but it’ll be really . . . crowded.” He said it as if the word tasted bad.

  Sean didn’t know how to respond. How crowded could it be, and what did it matter anyway? “I see,” he said, though he didn’t. “Well, um. I’m open for suggestions.”

  “I was just gonna go home and have a Popsicle.”

  They walked in silence for another few moments. “Popsicles it is, then,” said Sean.

  As they made their way home, Sean was glad that he’d thought to go to the Clap Out. Even an uncle you hardly knew was better than no one showing up at all. Especially since Kevin didn’t seem to have a friend whose parents had taken him under their wing, like Cormac’s parents had done for Sean all those years ago. The McGraths had always included Sean, and had hooted and clapped the loudest for him at his high school graduation. Still, he remembered looking into the audience, hoping stupidly that his father might be there, though he hadn’t laid eyes on the man for a good two years. He’d heard so many of his classmates complain about their parents’ interference and had told himself that at least he could do as he liked. Aunt Vivvy had made sure he was properly clothed and adequately fed, but she didn’t stick her nose into his business.

  But graduation had obliterated the little fantasy he’d clung to that his father, a merchant mariner, was just on a long trip. He’d felt the truth of his father’s abandonment like a gut punch as he took his diploma, shook the principal’s hand, and gazed out into the sea of parenthood that didn’t include his own. At least his mother had had a good excuse.

  It had been hard enough for Sean at eighteen. How terribly lonely must Deirdre have felt at eleven when no one showed up to her Clap Out, not to mention every other parent-invited event? And how must it have sharpened those steely edges she seemed to have now?

  “Hey,” he said to Kevin as they rounded the corner toward the house. “You spend much time with Auntie Deirdre?”

  “Sometimes,” he said. “When she doesn’t have a show.”

  “What kinds of things do you do?”

  Kevin shrugged. “I don’t know. Stuff.”

  “Like?”

  “Well, sometimes she reads to me. She read me the whole Harry Potter series, and she did all the voices and everything.”

  Sean was happy to hear that Deirdre had shown some degree of normal involvement with the boy. “I’ll bet she’s good at that.”

  “Yeah, really good. When she did Voldemort it was so freaky I felt kinda sick.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Deirdre was working double shifts at Carey’
s Diner quite a bit lately, after which she hurried off to play practice. Sean occasionally saw her late at night, physically limp with exhaustion, but her mind still buzzing from the intensity of rehearsal.

  “How’d it go?” he asked her one night when they crossed paths in the kitchen.

  “Super.” She drew a kitchen chair over so she could reach deep into the top shelf of one of the cabinets. “The hack who landed Mrs. Potiphar? She sucks.” Her arm came out holding a bottle of Smirnoff Twist Green Apple Vodka. She hopped down off the chair, got herself a glass and filled it with ice. “And I’m watching the director? And he can totally see it. He’s trying to hide the fact that he now ­realizes he made a mistake, but it’s all over his face. It’s awesome.” She poured the vodka, took a sip. “Oh,” she said focusing on him briefly. “Want some?”

  “No thanks.” He got a beer from the fridge and joined her at the table. With Deirdre gone so much and Aunt Vivvy rarely leaving the house, he’d taken to doing the grocery shopping as well, and had picked up a six-pack of Sam Adams.

  There was a strange clicking noise coming quickly down the stairs. It approached the kitchen door and then stopped. Sean looked at Deirdre, and she rolled her eyes. “Damn dog thinks she’s the man of the house.” There was a low growling noise, and Deirdre said, “It’s just us, for chrissake! We live here.” The growling stopped. The clicking of the dog’s toenails receded slowly back up the stairs.

  They sipped their drinks, the quiet disturbed only by the sound of night insects and the occasional rustle of dead leaves out in the woods. A light breeze puffed at the ruffled curtains.

  “I went to that Clap Out the other day for Kevin,” Sean ­mentioned.

  “Yeah?” Deirdre said. “Wish he’d go to camp—he just wanders around in the woods.”

  “By the way, old Mrs. Lindquist retired. Kevin’s teacher was her daughter.”

  Deirdre put her sock-clad feet up on the table and let her head rest on the back of the chair. “No wonder he never complained.”

  “He seemed to really like her.”

  “She left messages a couple of times. I think maybe Viv talked to her.”

  “What were the messages?”

  “I don’t know.” She sipped her drink.

  Sean put his beer down. “Did Viv say what she wanted?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you know for a fact that she returned the call?”

  Deirdre gave him an irritated look. “What’s your point?”

  “My point is, the kid’s teacher called several times, Dee. Did anyone bother to call back?”

  “Well, that’s Viv’s job, isn’t it? She’s his legal guardian.”

  “And Viv’s pushing eighty and won’t leave the house. You’re the one who said she’s losing it. You couldn’t have checked to see if she closed the loop?”

  Deirdre took her feet off the table and leaned toward him. “You know what, Sean? You’re right. I should have checked. I should have done that instead of all the time I spent with the kid because he has no friends. In fact, I should’ve quit my job and my acting career and every other fucking thing I care about and become this family’s goddamned handmaid. But I didn’t. And neither, by the way, did you. In fact, you’ve been all about you. You haven’t given a shit about anyone else your whole life, Sean. So don’t come after me for a few phone calls Viv may or may not have answered.” She stood, put her glass on the counter, and left.

  Sean sat there at the kitchen table, stunned. How could anyone think he’d been all about himself, least of all his sister? He’d spent his entire adult life tending to other people’s gaping, gangrenous wounds. He’d had dysentery more times than he could remember and had never owned anything he couldn’t carry in a backpack. People commented on his selflessness so often it had almost gotten boring.

  He rose slowly, rattled by her attack. He dumped the rest of his beer in the sink and loaded her glass into the dishwasher. Then he went upstairs and got into bed. He tried to pray for her, which was what he always did—after praying for the attacked, he’d send up a prayer for their attackers to turn their hearts. But it didn’t work. He couldn’t quiet his indignation enough to open the window of prayer in his mind, couldn’t make the connection, couldn’t feel the sense of peace and oneness. All he could feel was the buzz of resentment in his head and the throbbing angry pain in his back.

  * * *

  A few days later, Cormac called to say Barb had a class on Tuesday nights—did Sean want to go to The Palace for dinner? Cormac already knew the answer. It was what they always did when Sean was in town—hit The Pal, ate greasy bar food, had a beer or two beyond their usual limit, laughed their heads off, got philosophical, laughed some more, then walked home.

  The Palace had been built as a fishing lodge on the shore of Lake Pequot, slowly morphing into a bar sometime during Prohibition (because what better time to start serving alcohol?). Rustic and perennially damp, it still felt a little like a fishing hut to which beer taps and bar stools had been added on a whim. The kitchen came later and was of unknown vintage, but certainly not recent.

  “What are you doing for money these days?” asked Cormac as he studied the stained and very brief menu.

  “I still have that trust account Aunt Viv set up when my mom got sick. I just pull the interest off that. Don’t worry, you don’t have to foot the bill.”

  “Hey, I’m honored to buy brews for a guy who’s done so much good in the world.” And Cormac meant it, Sean knew. But Deirdre’s accusation still rattled in the back of his mind, and the comment made him squirm.

  “So, how’s business?” he asked.

  “Pretty damn good, actually,” Cormac admitted. “You’d think strong coffee and fresh muffins were the only known antidote to some disease everybody has.” He put the menu down. “Hey, um. If you ever wanted to pick up some extra cash while you’re home, I could use the help. I mean, I don’t know how long you’re staying . . .”

  “Yeah, I’m not really clear on that, either. I was hoping a little time off would clear up this back thing.”

  “Which you won’t get looked at.”

  Sean shrugged.

  “Okay, well, just to warn you? Barb got a massage yesterday, and she knows you haven’t made an appointment. She’ll definitely bug you about it the next time you come over.” He said this unapologetically, as if his wife’s pestering were something Sean would have to endure without Cormac’s intercession or sympathy. It was a change for which Sean wasn’t prepared: Cormac, a forty-something bachelor, suddenly committing himself so entirely to another person that he wouldn’t intervene or even commiserate about her unwanted assistance. “Just go once,” he said. “And if it doesn’t work, you can tell her you tried.”

  They ordered a plate of nachos and some beers and chatted amiably about one thing and another. Cormac’s cousin Janie was in minor freak-out mode because she was worried the guy she was with was about to propose.

  “This is a problem?” Sean remembered Janie well. Her freak-outs were not pretty.

  “Nah, the guy’s perfect for her. But you know, she really loved her husband who died, and to her it feels like saying, ‘I’m so over you, I’m marrying someone else.’ That’s what she says. But I also think it’s a housing issue. She grew up in the house she and her kids live in, and Tug—that’s the guy she’s going to marry, or so help me I’ll kill her—he’s a contractor and she met him when he came to build a porch her husband commissioned before he died. So she’s attached to it. And Tug lives in the house his grandfather built with his own hands right across the lake over there.” Cormac flicked his thumb toward the window. “So he’s attached to that.”

  Sean laughed. “See, I’m telling you—life is so much easier when you’re attached to nothing!”

  Cormac smiled and nodded absently. “I don’t know . . .” H
e took a sip of his beer. “I have to admit, I’m getting pretty attached to being attached.”

  Sean’s smile faded a little. But he clinked Cormac’s beer bottle with his own and said, “Herman, you big sap.”

  Several beers later, the subject of Dougie Shaw came up.

  “There is nothing you can say that’ll make me believe Dougie Shaw should be allowed to carry a concealed weapon,” said Sean, licking Buffalo-wing sauce off his fingers. “We’re talking about a guy who loved whipping balloons full of ketchup at passing cars.”

  “He only did that twice, and nobody got hurt.”

  “You’re defending him? The guy was insane. How about when he went to the homecoming game in his mother’s wedding gown and asked Ricky Cavicchio to marry him at halftime?”

  Cormac burst out laughing. “Jesus! Remember that? He looked pretty good in that dress, too—fit him perfectly!”

  “Mrs. Shaw was no ballerina, if I recall. And Cavicchio went so mental it took the whole offensive line to keep him from beating the crap out of Dougie right there on the field. What was the point of that, anyway?”

  “Come on, you remember,” said Cormac. “Cavicchio had been calling him a faggot and slamming him into lockers since junior high. It was the perfect revenge—the guy was so rattled afterward he threw a bunch of interceptions and lost the game.”

  Sean laughed. “Okay, so Dougie deserves a medal—not a police cruiser.”

  The subject of unusual childhood behavior eventually turned to Kevin. “I’m a little worried about him,” said Sean. “He doesn’t seem to have any friends. And he’s so quiet. You can barely get the kid to talk under klieg lights.”

  “He used to come into the Confectionary every once in a while with your aunt,” Cormac said, dipping the last celery stick in blue cheese sauce. “But I haven’t seen either of them in a while. Bring him around sometime. Get him a piece of pie.”

  “Pie,” Sean smirked. “That’s your solution to everything.”