Mystic River

"Nineteen, Sergeant."

"Nineteen," Whitey said to Sean. "And you know the father? Fuck, man, he's in for a world of hurt, poor bastard probably has no idea."

Sean turned his head, watched as the lone rattling bird headed back for the channel, screeching, and a hard shaft of sun cut through the clouds. Sean felt the screech drive through his ear canal and into his brain, and he was pierced for a moment by the memory of that wild aloneness he'd seen in eleven-year-old Jimmy Marcus's face when they'd almost stolen that car. Sean could feel it now, standing by the weeds leading up to Penitentiary Park, as if the twenty-five years in between had passed as fast as a TV commercial, feel that beaten, pissed-off, begging aloneness that had lain in Jimmy Marcus like pulp hollowed from the core of a dying tree. To shake it, he thought of Lauren, the Lauren with long, sandy hair who'd marinated his dream this morning and smelled of the sea. He thought of that Lauren and wished he could just climb back into the tunnel of that dream and pull it over his head, disappear.

7

IN THE BLOOD

NADINE MARCUS, Jimmy and Annabeth's younger daughter, received the Blessed Sacrament of Holy Communion for the first time on Sunday morning at Saint Cecilia's in the East Bucky Flats. Her hands pressed together from the base of her palms to the tips of her fingers, white veil and white dress making her look like a baby bride or snow angel, she walked up the aisle in procession with forty other children, gliding, where the other kids stutter-stepped.

Or at least that's how it seemed to Jimmy, and while he might have been the first to admit that, yeah, he was biased in favor of his kids, he was also pretty sure he was right. Other kids these days spoke or yelled whenever they felt like it, cussed in front of their parents, demanded this and demanded that, showed absolutely no respect for adults, and had the slightly dazed, slightly feverish eyes of addicts who spent too much time in front of a TV, a computer screen, or both. They reminded Jimmy of silver pinballs? sluggish one moment, banging off everything in sight the next, clanging bells and careening from side to side. They asked for something, they usually got it. If they didn't, they asked louder. If the answer was still a tentative no, they screamed. And their parents? pussies one and all, as far as Jimmy was concerned? usually caved.

Jimmy and Annabeth doted on their girls. They worked hard to keep them happy and entertained and aware that they were loved. But there was a fine line between that and taking shit from them, and Jimmy made sure the girls all knew exactly where the line was.

Like these two little pricks now, coming up beside Jimmy's pew in the processional? two boys, shoving each other, laughing out loud, ignoring the shushes of the nuns, starting to play to the crowd, and some of the adults actually smiling back. Jesus. Back in Jimmy's time, the parents would have stepped out of the crowd, yanked the two off the ground by their hair, swatted their asses, and whispered promises for more into their ears before dropping them back down.

Jimmy, who'd hated his old man, knew the old ways sucked, too, no question, but, damn, there had to be an in-between solution somewhere that the majority of people seemed to be overlooking. A middle ground where a kid knew the parents loved him but were still the boss, rules existed for a reason, no really meant no, and just because you were cute didn't mean you were cool.

Of course, you could pass all that on, raise a good kid, and they still put you through misery. Like Katie today. Not only had she never showed up for work, but now it looked like she was blowing off her younger half sister's First Communion. What the hell was going through her mind? Nothing, probably, which was the issue.

Turning back to watch Nadine advance up the aisle, Jimmy was so proud he felt his anger (and, yeah, some worry, a minor but persistent niggle of it) at Katie subside a bit, though he knew it would come back. First Communion was an event in a Catholic child's life? a day to dress up and be adored and fawned over and taken to Chuck E. Cheese's afterward? and Jimmy believed in marking events in his children's lives, making them bright and memorable. Which was why Katie not showing up pissed him off so much. She was nineteen, okay, so the world of her younger half sisters probably couldn't compare to guys and clothes and sneaking into bars that had a lax ID policy. Jimmy understood this, so he usually gave Katie a wide berth, but skipping an event, particularly after all Jimmy had done when Katie was younger to mark the events in her life, was fucking lame.

He felt the anger rising again, knew as soon as he saw her, they'd have another of their "debates," as Annabeth called them, a frequent occurrence the last couple of years.

Whatever. Fuck it.

Because here came Nadine now, almost abreast with Jimmy's pew. Annabeth had made Nadine promise she wouldn't look at her father as she passed him and spoil the seriousness of the sacrament with something girlish and giddy, but Nadine stole a glance anyway? a small one, just enough to let Jimmy know she was risking the wrath of her mother to show love to her father. She didn't preen for her grandfather, Theo, and six uncles who filled the pew behind Jimmy, and Jimmy respected that: she was edging near the line, not over it. Her left eye snuck toward its corner, Jimmy tracking it through the veil, and he gave her a small three-finger wave from belt-buckle level and mouthed a huge, silent "Hi!"

Nadine's smile burst whiter than anything her veil or dress or shoes could match, and Jimmy felt it blow through his heart and his eyes and his knees. The women in his life? Annabeth, Katie, Nadine, and her sister Sara? could do that to him at the drop of a hat, buckle his knees with a smile or a glance, leave him weak.

Nadine dropped her eyes and clenched her small face to cover the smile, but Annabeth had caught it anyway. She dug an elbow into the space between Jimmy's ribs and his left hip. He turned to her, feeling his face going red, and said, "What?"

Annabeth tossed him a look that said his ass was slung when they got back home. Then she looked straight ahead, her lips tight, but jerking a bit at the corners. Jimmy knew all he'd have to say was "Problem?" in that innocent-boy voice of his and Annabeth would start cracking up in spite of herself, because something about a church just gave you a need to giggle, and that had always been one of Jimmy's big gifts: he could make the ladies laugh, no matter what.

He didn't look at Annabeth for a while after that, though, just followed the mass and then the sacramental rites as each child in turn took that wafer in cupped hands for the first time. He'd rolled up the program booklet, and it turned damp with heat in his palm as he drummed it against his thigh and watched Nadine lift the wafer from her palm and place it to her tongue, then bless herself, head down, and Annabeth leaned into him and whispered in his ear: "Our baby. My God, Jimmy, our baby."