73. Chapter 73
“Ma? Stop yelling. Ma!”
She was going nuts. Something about the boys down the street, and Digger, Maggie’s punchy brother, and Whitlock, and where the blazes have you been?
“Can’t even come home for few days. The lawn needs mowing—I asked the neighbor boy, conniving little twerp, fifteen years old and wants me to pay him in alcohol. If his old man ever found out, it’d be my ass. You know I can’t push the mower, Jasey—”
“Ma!”
“You’ve never been gone this long. I’ve been worrying myself sick.” She hacked up a lung on command, as if to emphasize her point.
“Ma!” Jason shouted into the pay phone. “I’m coming home soon, I promise.”
“Did you talk to that lawyer?”
“I did.” He adjusted the phone at his ear and asked, “Ma, does the name Stanley Woodridge mean anything to you?”
For the first time since he called, she was quiet.
“Hello? Ma?”
He heard the puff of her cigarette and a long, breathy exhale. “How did you hear about Stanley?” she asked finally.
“The lawyer. Whitlock. He told me about Stanley Woodridge, and his whole family.”
She muttered seldom-used curses away from the receiver.
“Is he”—Jason stared out of the phone booth—“was he my dad?”
Another puff. “What did the lawyer tell you?”
“He said Stanley Woodridge left me some money,” Jason said.
Silence. Not even a puff of smoke this time. “How much.”
“Enough.” He switched the phone to his other ear, the first one already sweaty. “Ma, was he—”
“I knew there was a chance Woody—we called him Woody back then—was your dad, yes,” she said. “I didn’t know for sure.”
“Well, he seemed pretty goddamn sure.”
“You look like him. Like he used to.” Jason took a few breaths, and Eleanor Young took a few puffs, then she asked, “You there, Jasey?”
“I’m here.”
“You doin’ okay?”
“I don’t know, Ma.”
“Come home. I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
“I will. I have to take care of something first.”
“Is it your new job?”
“No, it…didn’t work out.” Jason sighed, imagining Billy waiting on the porch for the bike she’d never see again. How many prospects would crawl away from the dartboard bloody? “Do you have any messages for me?”
“The lawyer called again yesterday.”
“What did he say?”
“Hold on, I wrote it on a piece of junk mail.”
He heard papers shuffling across the states and his mother cursing.
“Here it is. He said he found one and you should call him immediately.” She paused. “Found what? What does he mean? He wouldn’t tell me. Plays by the book, that one.”
“Don’t worry, Ma. I’ve got to go, but I’ll be back soon, and I’ll take care of Digger and the neighbor boy, and whatever else you need.”
Her deep sigh probably scraped old tar off her lungs.
“Okay. Come home, Jasey,” she said. “Just come home.”
“I will. I have to do one thing first.”