He finished his bitten-off question.
“Home?”
“Not bad.”
Clay could feel him looking, then—at the almost-heal of bruising.
He finished his coffee.
Our dad bit his mug, but gently.
When he stopped, he looked at the steps, and nowhere near the boy. “Matthew?”
Clay nodded. “Everything’s good, though.” He thought a moment. “Rory ended up carrying me,” and there was the slightest smile in front of him.
“They were good with you coming back—here, I mean?”
“Of course,” Clay said, “I had to.”
Slowly he got up and there was so much more, so many things to say, so much at the inner edges; there was Henry and Schwartz and Starkey (and let’s not forget Starkey’s girl), and Henry and Peter Pan. There was Claudia Kirkby, and me. There was all of us at the station, still standing as the train was leaving.
And, of course.
Of course, there was Carey.
There was Carey and Royal Hennessey, and weaving through the traffic…and losing to Pump Up the Jam—
But there again, the quietness.
The unsaidness.
To break it, Clay said, “I’m going inside…while I’ve still got some blood left in me—”
* * *
—
But then—what was this?
A surprise.
As halfway in, he came back; he was suddenly, expansively talkative, which for Clay was eight extra words.
Coffee cup in hand, he said, “I like it here, I like being here,” and he wondered why he’d done it. Maybe it was to acknowledge a new existence—of both Archer Street and the river—or even a kind of acceptance:
He belonged as much to each of them.
The distance between us was him.
In the end, it had to end.
The fistfights were coming to a close.
A cigarette had been found and smoked.
Even the piano-mongering was over.
In hindsight, they were worthy distractions, but could never quite turn the tide of her.