Forty-Four
before
His dad died of a heart attack when Cary was eight. That was Rod, his mom’s second husband.
Cary’s oldest sister—Mickey—was from his mom’s first husband, who was also named Mickey.
His mom was married to Rod the longest, for twenty-three years. Rod was older than her. He retired from the railroad. He took
Cary fishing and to the barber and to have breakfast at Harold’s Cafe with the other old men.
Cary’s sisters Jenny and Jackie were Rod’s girls.
After Rod died, Cary’s mom started dating their neighbor, a guy called Simple. That didn’t last.
She was in her forties then. She went out on weekends to the bar down the street, the Walking Stick, and left Cary with a
neighbor—a different neighbor—or with one of his aunts.
Men would come over. Men in the living room. On the porch. Eating fried chicken on the couch. Walking out of his mother’s
room in the morning.
His first stepdad was named Andy, and he was a drunk. His teenage son moved in with them. Cary was eleven. His sister Jackie
had moved back home with her kids. Cary moved down to the basement.
Andy had other women. He eventually ran off with one.
Cary’s mom went back to the Walking Stick, even though she’d never been much of a drinker. She didn’t like to be alone. (She
was never actually alone. You couldn’t be alone in that house. The coming and going and crashing. Kids. Grandkids. Cousins. Dogs. Neighbors.)
Lyle was the worst of them all. He beat the shit out of everything he could reach.
Cary was in high school. He was a bag boy at Hinky Dinky. He put a padlock on his bedroom door, and Lyle broke it off with
a baseball bat.
His mom married him.
After Lyle—he died in a car accident, he took the other driver with him—Cary’s mom started to have more serious health problems.
Cary was in the Navy then.
He didn’t know what company she was keeping.