Chapter Twelve
In the middle of January, the snow started falling one night and then didn’t stop. The entire world seemed to glitter and shine and even their beat-up old house looked prettier in a blanket of white. Bobby had put some Christmas lights on the windows more than a month ago, but Tommy had left them. Who cared that it was already the New Year and the holidays were over? Those stupid little twinkling lights made him smile, so he figured they could stay until they gave up and went out on their own.
The only thing Tommy hated about the snow was walking in it. By the time he got home from work most nights, he was chilled deep inside. He worried he might lose a toe in his boots, but it only made him walk faster.
One dark and frozen afternoon, Carrie wandered into the kitchen looking worried.
“What’s up, Carrie?” Mike asked. He was at the stove boiling water for hot chocolate.
Tommy glanced at her and waited for her answer.
“We haven’t seen Judy in three days,” she said as she slumped into a chair.
“I’m sure Bobby would’ve mentioned if there was anything wrong.” Tommy really was sure of that. Though it did seem odd to him that she would spend months elbowing in and then drop out of sight without a word. “She’s probably just busy.”
When the kitchen cleared out, Tommy picked up the phone and called Bobby. He was on patrol, but Tommy knew from experience he’d answer if he wasn’t actually arresting someone. And sometimes, even if he was.
“How’s your doughnut, copper?” Tommy asked when Bobby told him they had stopped for coffee.
Bobby laughed, but then said flatly, “You’re so funny, Tom. I’ve never heard that one.”
Tommy smiled into the phone. It had been a week since they had any kind of time alone together, and he missed being able to kiss and touch Bobby. That wasn’t why he’d called, though. “Listen, don’t read anything into this or anything, but what’s up with your mom?”
“What do you mean? What’d she do?”
“Nothing, but for her that’s kind of weird in itself. No one over here has heard from her in a couple days and she’s not answering the phone.”
After a long pause Tommy could hear Bobby sigh on the other end of the line.
“It’s just this time of year. She gets a little depressed.”
“Post-Christmas blues?” Tommy didn’t understand.
Bobby let out another soft breath that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t sounded so sad. “No, just…. My dad died a couple years ago and we’re coming up on the anniversary. Last year she sat around the house in her bathrobe and cried for about a week.” He paused again and then said, “It’s still hard on her, but she’ll pull herself out of it after she’s looked through all the old photos and gone through her wedding album a few hundred times. Then she’ll visit his grave and put flowers down for him, and she’ll be okay.”
“Jesus,” Tommy muttered, feeling the weight of someone else’s pain and not liking the sensation. “That sucks.”
“Yeah, it does.” Bobby didn’t add to that, but what else could he say? “Listen, I gotta go. We just got a call.”
Tommy’s stomach tightened at those words. He hated them. “All right. You be careful.”
“Always. Love you.”
“Love you too. Keep all your parts attached so I can show ya how much later.” Tommy tried not to sound worried.
“I’ll do my best.” Bobby ended the call.
Tommy looked around the kitchen for a long moment. One of Judy’s cake covers was sitting empty and washed on the counter along with a few other dishes from her. Davey’s history report he’d gotten an A on, with Judy’s help, was hanging on the refrigerator. Zoe walked in with the soft little doll Judy had given her for Christmas. He ran his hand over his face and let out a frustrated breath. “Goddamn it,” he muttered.
Zoe looked up at him like he’d been talking to her, and Tommy laughed as he picked her up. “You wanna go bye-bye?” he asked her. When she nodded, her curly hair bounced into her face.
It took them less than an hour to throw a pan of brownies together, send Davey down to the store to pick up (and pay for) a small bouquet of flowers, get the kids cleaned up and dressed, and get everyone piled into the car. The flowers were an extravagance they could barely afford, and there weren’t enough seats for all eight of them in the station wagon. Tommy knew it was wrong, but he let Collin sit on the floor in the back. He drove slow and steady over to Judy’s house.
He rang the doorbell four times and was ready to start knocking when Judy answered the door. She was wearing her robe, tied tightly over a pair of pajamas. Her eyes and nose were puffy and red. If Tommy hadn’t already gotten the details from Bobby, everyone might have thought she had a cold. She tried to smile at the kids, but she turned to Tommy and said, “This really isn’t—”
“Not a good time?” he asked as he cut her off. “Is it a little annoying to have people on your doorstep unannounced?”
Judy put her hands on her hips like she did when she was going to give him the “don’t argue with me” speech, but he didn’t let her get that far. He stepped back so Max could slice his way through the crowd. Max held the flowers up to her and said her name. Judy’s expression changed and her smile seemed easier, but it was still pained and Tommy understood. She picked up Max and kissed his cheek before stepping aside to let the kids in.
“We brought brownies,” Carrie told her as she went past.
They’d been to Judy’s house a few times over the last couple of months and they were familiar with the layout.
Judy put Max down and asked Colleen to help him put the flowers in some water. When she and Tommy were alone, she closed the door behind him. “That was a low blow.”
He looked at her for a long moment and thought about making a joke, but in the end he said seriously, “We take care of our own. And no one should be alone on days like this.”
Judy threw her arms around him in a fierce hug and whispered, “You’re a good boy.”
He could hear her sniffling against his shoulder. “I wouldn’t go that far, but I know when it’s time to drop by without calling first.”
Judy let out a wet laugh and then pulled back, wiping her eyes.
Pictures were spread over the coffee table next to a scrapbook lying open in the middle. The kids were in the backyard making snowmen while Tommy sat with Judy on the couch. She showed him pictures of Bobby when he was a baby and a few snapshots of other children who had come and gone when Judy was still taking in foster kids. He’d looked at her wedding pictures and was surprised by how much Bobby looked like his father. He had his mother’s mannerisms, but Bobby’s blond hair and blue eyes came from his dad.
“You know,” Judy said, still flipping pages in the album, “the funny thing is, Warren would’ve hated this.” She closed the book and leaned back against the cushion. “Whenever I do this I know he’s somewhere watching. I can hear his voice in my head telling me to knock it off.” Her laugh was sad and full of memories, but she didn’t cry, so Tommy figured they were making progress.
Tommy thought the dead didn’t have a right to make demands from the grave, but he didn’t say so. “You maybe want us to come with you when you go visit the cemetery?” he asked hesitantly.
Judy’s eyes filled with tears again, and Tommy kicked himself for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. She took his hand and rested her head on his shoulder.
“I think I’d like that very much.”
They stayed on the couch for a long time. They watched the kids build a whole snow family in the backyard until it was time to come in and warm up by the fireplace.
At some point in the evening, Judy had changed clothes and was wearing a pink velvet jogging suit. Her outfit was soft and looked comfortable, but Tommy figured it was a step up from flannel pajamas and a chenille robe.
Bobby came in while the kids were helping her cook dinner. “What’s all this?” he asked Tommy as he pulled him aside.
Tommy wrapped his arms around Bobby’s waist and kissed him before he answered. “Your mother needed an intervention.”
Judy laughed from the kitchen and one of the kids called out for paper towels.
“Sounds like it worked,” Bobby said happily, kissing Tommy again. He put his face against Tommy’s neck, and Tommy realized he was hiding, ashamed, when he whispered, “Thank you.”
Tommy could feel Bobby’s breath against his skin, and he tightened his arms around Bobby.
“I don’t know what to do for her when she’s like that. I just try to give her space and let her ride it out.”
“She’s got plenty of space. I think she needed a distraction from her grief. The kids are great at distracting people.”
“Yeah, they are,” Bobby agreed, pulling back to catch Tommy’s eye. “They’ve saved me from choking you a few times.”
“That’s why I keep ’em around,” Tommy teased, pulling Bobby farther away from the kitchen.
Bobby grinned. “Where exactly are you taking me?”
“Linen closet? Bathroom? I wanna test their skills at keeping your mother’s attention.”
Two days after the visit with Judy, Cheryl showed up on their doorstep. The weather was still miserably cold, and lethal-looking icicles hung from the gutters. Tommy was careful about shoveling the steps and keeping the front walkway salted, but no one in the neighborhood bothered with the sidewalks. When he found Cheryl with a bruise on her forehead, sprawled out on the wet welcome mat, he assumed she’d taken a tumble or two on her way there.
He had the twins with him. They were wearing hand-me-downs from all the other kids and a few from the neighbors. They looked like walking patchwork quilts, but they were warm. Tommy had a bag of groceries in one arm and his other hand held tightly to the leash strapped to the twins. Screw anyone who thought those things were inhuman. Letting one of them get hit by a car because they got away from him on the street would be a lot worse.
“Hey, Tommy,” Cheryl said, not in greeting so much as in complaint. “Did you change the locks or something?”
Tommy suppressed a groan as he helped Max and Zoe up the steps. Cheryl didn’t comment about how big her two kids were getting or how fast they were growing, but it didn’t surprise him. She was around so rarely they didn’t even go to her or call her “mama.” “I had to change ’em the last time you lost your keys,” he told her as he dug in his pocket for his set so he could unlock the door.
Cheryl blinked at the key in her hand and said, “Oh. Guess I found the old one.”
Tommy glanced down. “That’s a car key, Cher. Wouldn’t have worked anyway.”
“Huh. Where the hell did I get that?”
She asked the question as if she really thought he could answer it for her. Tommy assumed it belonged to some poor slob who got himself a blowjob and a bonus mugging at a rest stop outside of town somewhere, but he didn’t say it out loud. He figured the twins knew enough about their mother, they didn’t need any more information about her character.
Tommy got the door open and blocked Cheryl while Zoe and Max toddled inside. He didn’t help Cheryl up off the floor, but he did ask, “Where’s Pop?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know?”
Several answers ran through Tommy’s head at once. You’re married to the bum… and Shit tends to attract flies… were among them, but he didn’t say anything.
“Lemme in,” she demanded. “It’s colder than a witch’s tit out here.”
Tommy moved inside, and Cheryl crawled in after him. Not even two years old and her babies were steadier on their feet than her.
“Thought Cal might be here.”
“Haven’t seen him since you two flew the coop at Christmas.”
What a fucked-up two weeks that had been. Life with their father and Cheryl was always messy and loud, but it seemed even worse when everyone was happy and doing well and getting on with things until they showed up. Tommy had nearly come to blows with his father two nights before Christmas when he came home from work and found them stuffing the presents from under the tree into a big garbage bag. He knew they were both useless on many—maybe all—levels, but stealing from their own kids at Christmas seemed even lower than usual.
The next day Cal and Cheryl were gone. The presents were still there, and Tommy found something on the kitchen counter that rocked him to his core. A twenty-dollar bill sat beside a note addressed to Tommy written in his father’s shaky scrawl.
It said: It’s not much, but maybe it’ll help. Tell the kids I love them and Merry Christmas.
That had been so out of character for their old man, it had sent a chill through Tommy. It was something he might have done a decade or two earlier, back when he was still in the ballpark of shitty father and not on the outskirts of total degenerate.
Cheryl was staggering into the kitchen, and Tommy followed her. “When’s the last time you seen him?” he asked. He had an uneasy feeling now.
She dug around in the cupboards and pulled out a pack of ramen noodles. “I’m not sure.” She looked like she couldn’t remember what the next step was in preparing the food, so Tommy figured it was remarkable she’d even noticed Cal hadn’t been around. “Few days, maybe?” She started to open the plastic pouch and Tommy wondered if she was going to eat them dry right out of the package. Then she asked, “You got any candy or anything?”
By February, snow had started falling again. This time, it covered a thick sheet of ice over the roads and sidewalks. Traffic was a mess and business at the pub was slow. As usual, Gene still let Tommy work, but after a few nights in a row with very little to do, it was starting to feel like charity. He decided to take off early and head for home. Cheryl had been around more often than not, and they still hadn’t heard from their father. Tommy figured the more time he spent at home keeping an eye on things, the better.
The phone on the wall was ringing off the hook while Tommy bundled up with the scarf and gloves Judy had knitted him for Christmas. Gene was less than a foot away, pointedly ignoring it. “You want me to get that?” Tommy asked after the fifth ring. Gene rolled his eyes and looked irritated. “It’s probably just Danny. He’s called six times tonight lookin’ for his wife.”
That was a fairly usual routine and it never ended well. The last time Danny called that night, Gene had nearly ripped the phone off the wall. Having someone else blame him for a loved one’s alcohol problem probably got old quick.
Tommy felt bad for him, but he laughed when Gene walked over to the phone and lifted it from the hook before slamming it down again, hanging up on whoever had been calling.
After he’d walked a few blocks down the road, Tommy pulled out his phone. Bobby had a shift that night, and he wanted to check in. The damn thing was out of minutes, and he had no idea how long it had been like that. Tommy considered stopping at the gas station to get a phone card, but he was cold and tired. The card could wait.
Less than a mile from home, Tommy could smell smoke in the air, and he thought about how nice it would be to sit down in front of a warm hearth and thaw out. He decided he’d sneak into the kitchen and turn the oven on as soon as he got through the door.
Sirens in the distance were the first thing to catch his attention. That wasn’t smoke from a chimney. It was getting thicker with every step. As he rounded the corner at the end of their street, Tommy could see the fire engines, EMT units, and cop cars. The dark night was flashing with color as the emergency vehicles’ lights danced against the orange glow of a large fire.
Tommy broke into a run then, slowing just long enough to duck under the yellow tape sectioning off the block. His chest was tight as he dug his feet in with every slippery step. It couldn’t be their house. It was a neighbor. It was a bad dream. It was anything else.
Tommy had learned at a painfully young age to expect a few things out of life. He expected to be used and treated badly. He expected that his family would always teeter on the razor’s edge between survival and oblivion. He expected that things would never go his way for long. And he’d learned only three things mattered: keep the kids safe, keep them fed, and keep a roof over their heads.
His legs gave out from under him when he got to their house. Flames were lashing out of every window on the top floor, crawling up the walls and over the gutters, eating the shingles. Billows of thick black smoke were swirling and pushing out of every crack. It looked to Tommy like the devil himself had finally claimed them. Hell had risen up out of the ground and taken back what belonged to it.
As he watched a stretcher covered in a white sheet being wheeled in front of him, Tommy felt like he’d suddenly lost his mind. He knew he was screaming. He could feel tears running down in hot tracks against his skin, now warm from the heat radiating off their home. He could hear glass breaking, but he wasn’t sure if it was the windows falling from their charred frames or if it was the sound of his own life exploding in an inferno of heat and terror in the dead of winter.
He hadn’t realized he was moving again until he felt two firemen pulling him back. He was trying to get inside, trying to find someone—anyone—who was still alive in there. If they weren’t, he wanted to be left alone. He wanted to disappear into a pile of hot ash and scorched rubble with them.
“Tom!”
He recognized the voice, but in the chaos of his mind, Tommy didn’t even look. His eyes were still set on the house as it started to fall in on itself. The fire hoses were on, spraying down the flames as one of the firefighters walked out. He was shaking his head as he pulled off his helmet and respirator. Tommy felt the sharp sting of a slap on his face, and his name was shouted again. It was Bobby.
Tommy felt numb, used up, and broken. “Who is that, Bobby?” he asked, pointing at the body under the sheet.
“It’s Cheryl, Tom. It’s Cheryl.” Bobby’s voice seemed softer now and his arm was around Tommy’s shoulder. “The kids are okay, Tom. I tried to get ahold of you when I got here.”
It took a long moment for Bobby’s words to sink in. The kids are okay. The kids are okay. They ran on a loop in Tommy’s ear, and he wasn’t sure if Bobby was saying them over and over or if he was trying to tell himself.
He was so dizzy with relief he had to close his eyes and focus hard to speak. “Where are they?”
Tommy didn’t like how long it took Bobby to answer. He opened his eyes and asked again, “Where are the kids, Bobby?”
“We got a van down here about ten minutes ago.”
Tommy waited. He knew there had to be more to it when Bobby didn’t meet his eyes.
“They’re waiting down at the station for an emergency placement.”
Tommy was wrong. Thinking the kids might have all gone out in a blaze of hellfire wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to him. That would have been simple. He would’ve died too. Problem solved; game over. But no. He should’ve known nothing in his life would ever be that easy. Instead of the darkly comforting thought of ending himself right there on the spot, Tommy had another pile of shit to deal with. His kids were in the wind. They had no home. Their father was MIA and their stepmother was dead.
Tommy didn’t like to tempt fate, but he was pretty sure he’d finally hit rock bottom.
Bobby was still talking, but Tommy couldn’t hear a word he said. He wanted to hit something, make it bleed and ache like he was. He pushed Bobby back from him with a quick shove and Bobby yelled, “Goddamn it, Tom, will you listen to me?”
Tommy was stepping back farther and shaking his head. “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t right now, Bobby. I just can’t.”
When Bobby looked like he might follow, Tommy put his hand up in warning. “You gotta stay away from me right now.”
Tommy wandered the streets in devastated silence. He didn’t know where to go since most places were closed for the night. He considered going down to the police station to see if he could get any info, make sure the kids knew he was working on it and he’d figure something out. But he knew that would be a lie. They’d been in some tight spots in their lives, but this one was the mother lode of insurmountable odds, and Tommy didn’t know where to begin.
After an hour of drifting, he found himself down at the station anyway. He tried to pull himself together as he walked up the front steps. The lights inside felt jarring and too bright as people in cuffs were guided past him down different hallways. Cops were everywhere, and Tommy felt that ingrained instinct to run and get as far as he could from them. He forced himself to step up to the front desk.
An older man with a soft round belly stressing the buttons of his uniform sat in front of Tommy. The look on his face told Tommy he’d probably loved his job once and now he hated everything about it.
“Can I help you?” he asked without looking up from his computer screen.
Tommy wondered absently if desk cops got away with Internet porn at work.
“Yeah, uh, Thomas O’Shea. Some kids were brought in an hour or so ago needing emergency placement. I was wondering if you could give me any information about them.”
The officer glanced at him then and went back to his computer. He tapped a few buttons and clicked his mouse a few times and asked, “Are you family?”
Tommy was learning to hate that question. No one asked that when there was good news. “Yeah, I’m their brother.”
Tommy took his ID out of his wallet and slid it on the counter in front of the officer.
“Same last name?”
“Yes, sir. There’s seven of them. Oldest one is Colleen O’Shea.”
The cop hit a few more keys and said, “They were placed tonight for emergency housing. It can take up to seventy-two hours for them to get into a permanent placement.” He paused and wrote a few things down on a piece of paper and then went on. “This is their case number. Monday morning you can go down to the Department of Family and Children Services and try to get more information.”
Tommy wanted to scream at him. They weren’t a case number, they were his kids. He balled up the piece of paper and shoved it in his pocket.
“Thanks for all your help.” Tommy didn’t try to hide the sarcasm in his voice.
The sky was pearly gray by the time Tommy made it farther into downtown. He didn’t know how long he’d been walking, but he could barely feel his feet anymore. At some point in the night, he’d ducked into a convenience store to warm up and bought himself a pack of cigarettes. They were already half gone. It was the first time in his life he’d spent money on them, and he felt like an idiot for it.
Even though he didn’t have any conscious plan in his head, didn’t have anywhere in particular to go, he found himself following his father’s usual track. He knew most of the alleys and flophouses his old man hid out in, or, more accurately, passed out in. By the time the sun was coming up, Tommy was standing under an overpass, warming his hands by the fire in a metal barrel and asking for his father by name.
When they all said they hadn’t seen Cal in weeks, Tommy stayed there anyway. He’d reached the end of the line. There was nowhere else to look, nowhere else he could go. He stared into the sparks and dying embers in the can and saw his house there in the glowing pile of paper and wood.
He knew he could go to Bobby. He could curl up in Bobby’s bed and let Bobby try to comfort him. Let Bobby try to help him. He figured, before this was all over, it could come down to relying on Bobby in a way he’d never let himself before. Though, even with Bobby’s help and Judy backing them up, he wasn’t sure what kind of hoops they’d have to jump through to even get a visit with the kids, let alone get custody. Tommy figured he owed Bobby some serious apologies for the way he’d left, too, but at the moment, he couldn’t face any of it.
He left the warmth of the makeshift camp at the underpass and let his feet carry him back toward town. His strides ate up the few miles between there and the pub, and Tommy landed on Smarty’s doorstep right as they were opening up for the morning.