Blindside (Michael Bennett 12)

Alice looked up at Janos and winked. They were a good team. They had made their point.

They might even have some time to sightsee.

CHAPTER 11

I FACED A brief wave of condemnation from the older kids when I banned TV for the night. Like a mutiny on a really lazy pirate ship. It’s a fact that people occasionally try to murder police officers, a fact that’s often forgotten when people talk about police shootings. It was something I didn’t necessarily want my kids to see tonight.

It was bad enough that I was dreading going to bed. I knew what thoughts would be racing through my head as I lay in the dark and stared at the ceiling. I’d showered for twenty minutes and still felt like I could smell gunpowder. I didn’t need to hear people comment on an incident they knew nothing about.

After the shower, I lay down on my bed in shorts and a T-shirt just to get a few minutes of quiet time. It was less than a few minutes. My youngest, Chrissy, crawled up on my left side, and Juliana, my oldest, flopped onto the bed on my right side. They both had books. Chrissy’s was about kids looking for a treasure. Juliana’s was a chemistry textbook.

Neither of them needed me to read. But they did realize I liked having my kids around. They didn’t have to talk. They didn’t have to work to make me feel better. They just had to be there.

When Maeve and I started adopting children at an alarming rate, I’m not sure I realized they were saving me and not the other way around. I admit, ten adopted kids seems a little over-the-top. But once I lost Brian to the state prison system, I realized ten was just the right number. He was still a hole in my life. One day that would be remedied.

Lying in bed with my two beautiful daughters reinforced my belief about what’s important in life. I was never one of those guys who chased money or promotions at work. I didn’t think it was important that the Giants won every football game. (Although it wouldn’t hurt to win a few more.)

I knew how precious my family was, from the ever-forgiving and patient Mary Catherine to my surly yet supportive grandfather.

I felt myself start to relax with the girls next to me and lost track of time. It seemed like only a few minutes had passed when Mary Catherine walked in and clapped her hands. She said, “Enough of milking your bedtimes. You’ve got school tomorrow. Chop, chop, let’s go.”

Juliana didn’t even make her usual argument, that she was a senior in high school and didn’t really have a bedtime. They both gave me a good-night kiss on the cheek and scurried out of the room.

A few minutes later, Mary Catherine slipped into bed and shut off the light. Frankly, it was the moment I’d been dreading all day. Awake and quiet in the dark.

Mary Catherine put that fear to rest when she rolled over and snuggled in next to me. All she said was “You doing all right?”

Without conscious thought, I blurted, “You know, we still need to set a date for our wedding. It’s tough explaining to my grandfather how a good Catholic girl is living with me without the benefits of marriage.”

“What brought that on?”

“I have no idea.” Then, after a short silence, I said, “That’s not true. I said it because I love you. I just don’t know why I said it at this moment. Probably has something to do with the events of the day.”

“Seamus and I think it was just God deciding it wasn’t your time.” Now she was the quiet one for almost a full minute. “Are you going to be in any trouble over this?”

“A cop who pulls the trigger is always in trouble of some kind. But if there were ever enough circumstances to justify a shooting, I think this one had them.”

She gave me a squeeze and lifted her head to kiss me on the cheek. Then her lips moved to my mouth. Then I felt her tongue. She whispered something in my ear, but by then I was too far gone.

It turned out my fears were baseless. Mary Catherine made sure she kept my mind on other things.

CHAPTER 12

ALICE GROFF HAD her arm locked with Janos’s arm as they gazed into the different shops of Penn Station. They’d looked at a perfume store and sniffed bouquets of flowers. She also made Janos stop near an all-too-American donut shop. She leaned her head on Janos’s broad shoulder, to give the impression that they were a couple.

The reason they were shopping was that young Tommy Payne was sitting on a bench not far away, waiting for a train. Janos had been able to figure out that the young man had bought a ticket to some place called Hempstead. Alice wasn’t sure where it was, but she knew it wasn’t on the way to the airport to catch a flight. Like what she thought Tommy had agreed to. Disappointing.

She broke away from Janos, and he followed her. They casually walked past Tommy, then split up and sat on either side of him. He’d been in a daze, just staring at the floor, until he felt two bodies so close.

The young man was surprised at first, then hung his head when he realized there was no way out of this. He looked like a lost child who had given up.

Alice draped an arm across his shoulders and said, “We gave you a choice. I even gave you some incentive. What are you doing here?”

Tommy seemed to have gained some confidence since their earlier encounter. Maybe it was because they were in public.

He dropped his face into his hands and said, “Look, can’t you just say you didn’t find me?”

“We don’t understand. Why don’t you want a good-paying job?”