Run for Your Life (Michael Bennett 2)

We’d decided that her memorial would be entirely life-affirming, and all that sort of thing. We were even holding it on h

er birthday instead of the anniversary of her death.

So why, then, as the sad sweet chords swelled through me, did every cell in my body want to start sobbing?

I heard someone clear his throat in the vestibule behind me. It was my son, Brian. He was wearing a white robe, holding a brass crucifix. His fellow altar boys, Eddie and Ricky, stood just behind him with glowing white candles.

Father Seamus was approaching, checking his watch. “If you would be so kind,” he said, glaring at me.

“I’ll start when you do,” I said.

“Mike, a moment,” Seamus said in a serious tone as he led me over to the alcove where they did baptisms.

I thought I knew the sermon he was going to deliver. How much of a wretch I’d been in the last year. How I’d been too sarcastic, too spiteful, too pissed off. How I had to try to lose my anger or it would eat me up. He would have been right, too. I needed to stop. Stop being so hateful. Life was too short. If the Teacher taught me anything, it was that.

“Mike, listen,” Seamus whispered as he put a warm arm over my back. “It’s been almost a year now, and I just wanted to say how proud I am of you the way you’ve been holding your family together. Maeve’s proud of you, too. I know she is.”

What? I thought.

“To your seat now, boy. I have a mass to start.”

I hurried past pews packed with friends and family to the front row.

Chrissy smiled, as she did what she called “nuggling” in next to my waist and held my hand. She was fine now. In the first days after the incident, I’d noticed every so often a heart-sickening look of sadness pass across her cherub’s face, especially when the gang came to see me at the hospital. But recently, she’d started doing what kids do—moving on.

Something I could probably take a lesson from.

After the Gospel, Jane stood up and read—a poem by Anne Bradstreet, “In Reference to Her Children,” which she’d found folded in the back of one of Maeve’s cookbooks.

“My mom taught us exactly what Anne Bradstreet wanted to teach her kids,” Jane said, clearing her throat. “What was good, and what was ill, What would save life, and what would kill. Thus gone, amongst you I may live, And dead, yet speak and counsel give. Farewell, my birds, farewell, adieu, I happy am, if well with you.”

That was it. I couldn’t hold it back. I started crying. And believe me, I wasn’t the only one. I hugged Jane tight as she returned to the pew.

After the ceremony, the girls surprised me with a picnic lunch in Riverside Park. I looked out over the Hudson, remembering seeing Maeve as a glowing angel in the water. If that was just a hallucination, so be it. Bring them on.

But a part of me, the best part, didn’t think so.

I would see her again one day. Before, I had only hoped it was true, but now I knew it was.

I watched Eddie and Brian tossing a football. The doctor had told me my ankle wouldn’t be ready to walk on for another couple of weeks, but what did doctors know? I dropped my crutches, hobbled out to join them, and intercepted a pass. Chrissy and Shawna leaped up immediately, and I let them tackle me. That’s when the rest of my crew piled on. Even Seamus, who actually stripped the ball from my hands before merrily landing on my chest.

I closed my eyes as Meyer’s ugly words filled my ears.

Is this all life is worth? This is what gets you out of bed in the morning?

You better believe it, you son of a bitch, I thought. And wherever you are, I hope you’re still burning.

Chapter 98

WHEN WE GOT BACK to our building, there was a commotion at the entrance—protesters of some sort, circling in front of a News 4 camera, and other media people with microphones.

One of the picketers was holding up a sign that said KILLER COP.

What? There couldn’t actually be a group of people who were angry that Meyer was dead!

But wait a second. This was New York City we were talking about. Of course, there could be.

Then, on another of the signs, I saw a picture of a young black man. Beneath it, big bold letters read: KENNETH ROBINSON WAS MURDERED. DOWN WITH THE NYPD!