Damaged (18 page)

“Nothing.” Patrick shrugged again, still downcast.

“Really?” Mary glanced upstairs, reflexively. “But you weren't home, were you?”

Patrick didn't reply, but he started sucking his lip, and Mary wondered what was making him anxious.

“I called your grandfather but he didn't answer. Is he taking a nap upstairs?” Mary walked to the bottom of the stairwell and put a hand on the banister. She was starting to wonder if something was wrong.

“He's in bed.” Patrick didn't turn around, just stood still, his head down and his arms hanging at his side.

“Okay, you wait here, and I'll be right back down.” Mary went up the stairs, not understanding why Patrick was behaving so oddly. She reached the top of the stairwell, which was too dark to see anything. She felt around for a switchplate and flipped on the light, illuminating the hallway. She knew that to the left was Patrick's bedroom, but to the right must have been Edward's. The hallway ended in a closed door, and she walked in that direction.

There was an open door on her right, a bathroom, and then she passed an open door to her left, which seemed to be a small den. She reached the end of the hall and knocked on the closed door.

“Edward, it's Mary.”

Mary waited outside the door. She was getting a bad feeling, but then again, maybe it was nothing. Patrick was a little boy, and kids acted funny without reason.

“Edward?” Mary said more loudly, then knocked again. She waited, then opened the door. It was dark in the room, which had only one window, with a thick roll-up shade pulled down to the top of the window fan.

“Edward?” Mary's eyes adjusted to the dimness, and she saw Edward in the bed under a white sheet, lying still. Too still. Instinctively, she entered the room, went to his side, and touched his shoulder.

“Edward,” Mary said, hushed.

Edward didn't move.

Mary turned on the lamp on the night table. She gasped in horror. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Edward lay motionless in bed, his eyes closed and his head resting on a thin pillow. His mouth hung open grotesquely, his jaw had gone completely slack. His face was drained of color, and his skin ashen. A white sheet covered his body from the chest down. He had on lightweight blue pajamas.

Mary had to make sure. She touched Edward's shoulder again and felt the chill of his body through the thin cotton. She removed her hand and leaned over him, turning her head so that her ear faced him. She prayed to hear breathing, but there was no sound. She straightened up stiffly, trying to collect her thoughts. She considered trying to feel his neck for a pulse, but she couldn't bear it. She knew what she would find.

An unpleasant smell came from the bed, and she knew without looking that Edward had soiled the sheets. She made a mental note to strip the bed and wash the sheets before Patrick saw anything upsetting.

“Oh, no,” Mary said under her breath. She didn't know when Edward had passed, but she assumed it had been in his sleep last night. She didn't know how much Patrick knew or understood. She realized that he had been here all day, even when she'd come knocking. Evidently Patrick had spent the day shut inside with Edward's body, keeping the world at bay.

Mary swallowed hard, choking her emotions down. She thought it was bizarre of Patrick, but he was just a kid and he must have been terrified. He hadn't known what to do. His grandfather was his world. He didn't want to lose Edward.

Her gaze flitted around the bedroom, and she took in its contents: a night table held his smartphone, a watch, a worn brown wallet, a rosary with opalescent beads, a bottle of Ambien, a silvery CVS glucose meter, a vial of insulin, and a used syringe. Across from the bed was a ladderback chair with a white Oxford shirt hanging from one side, and on the far wall, a simple wood dresser-and-mirror that held several framed photographs.

Mary walked over to the photographs. One was an old black-and-white eight-by-ten of four grinning GIs in sweaty T-shirts and Army-issue pants, their metal dog tags looped around their necks and their strong arms linked around each other. Mary recognized a younger Edward on the end, the only soldier with glasses. She assumed it had to be in Vietnam. She hadn't known that he'd served.

Next to that sat framed photos of a pretty young woman, grinning and holding a baby. It had to be Suzanne and Patrick. A laminated card from the funeral home showed another photo of Suzanne, propped up on a statue of the Virgin Mary, its plastic yellowed with age.

“Mary?” Patrick said quietly, from the door.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Patrick, don't come in,” Mary said gently, heading for the door, but Patrick was already entering the bedroom.

“That's a picture of my Pops in the war.” Patrick walked past the bed without looking over. “He told me all about it. He was in a jungle and he was with his friends. I know all the names.”

“Patrick, let's go.” Mary tried to turn him around, but Patrick reached for the photograph on the dresser, picking it up.

“This guy is Tommy and he was from Maine. That's a state where it snows a lot.” Patrick pointed at the second GI from the left. “And this guy is Shemp. That's not his real name, that's what they called him, and he was from Chicago. My Pops went there after the war was over and he visited Shemp. Shemp has a grandson too. His name is Bobby.”

Mary wasn't completely sure what to do, so she let Patrick talk, resting a hand on his shoulder. She didn't want to alarm him by rushing him out of the room, making something so traumatic even worse.

“And this guy is Jacob and he was my Pops's best friend. My Pops says that Jacob was funny and smart and he was going to be a doctor, that's how smart he was. And he was from Cherry Hill, and my Pops says that it's near us, but it's not a hill and it doesn't have any cherries. It has a mall.”

Mary listened as Patrick moved his finger to Edward.

“This is my Pops, and he was the
captain
, that means he was the
best
one of all of the soldiers. He rode in tanks and
choppers
.” Patrick's tone changed, echoing a note of a child's pride, and the very sound of it seemed to reach deep inside Mary, striking a chord she didn't even know she had. She blinked her eyes clear as Patrick nodded, still looking down at the photograph, his finger on his grandfather's face, back when Edward had been smiling, young, alive, and at war. “My Pops told me about the war, and we watch the History Channel and he tells me about the battles, about Anzio, Normandy, and D-day. He knows where the cities are, it's far away, not here. In Vietnam, where he was a soldier, they have jungles and tigers.”

Mary thought of something Edward had told her, that Patrick drew tigers when he was younger. She wondered how long Edward had been telling Patrick his war stories from Vietnam.

“My Pops said one time they were in the jungle and they were eating their lunch, and a bad guy was hiding in the bushes but they didn't know it, and all of a sudden, the bad guy started to shoot them so they were ambushed. That's when the bad guy shot Jacob and killed him, and then the bad guy was going to shoot Pops, too.”

Mary let Patrick continue, thinking about the bad guys and the good guys that he talked about so much.

“And then what happened was that the bad guy's gun stopped working, like, his gun
jammed
, that means it didn't work, and so then the bad guy got his
bayonet,
that's like a knife, and he came after Pops to kill him with his bayonet.”

“Oh no.” Mary thought of Patrick's artwork, of the good guy killing the bad guy with a knife.

“Pops didn't have his gun because he was eating, so he got his knife, and just when the bad guy was going to kill him with the bayonet, Pops killed the bad guy with his knife and so he was saved and he didn't die and he came home.”

Mary felt a realization come over her, drenching her in a warm wave of sadness. The good guy in Patrick's drawings wasn't Patrick, imagining himself as a superhero. It was
Edward
. Edward was Patrick's ultimate good guy. His own personal captain. His hero. His grandfather.

“The Army gave my Pops a medal because he did that and he was so brave and he did such a good job, but he doesn't have the medal because he gave it to Jacob's mom in Cherry Hill, so I never got to see it. He said he would take me to see the medal but we never went.”

Mary nodded, mute with emotion, and Patrick put the photograph back on the dresser.

“My Pops has a lot of stories, and he knows a lot about war, and every night he prays the rosary for Jacob and for his other friends. He says they didn't come home from the war but that really means that they got killed by the bad guys”—Patrick kept talking as he turned to the other photographs—“he used to kneel by his bed while he prayed, but then he got older and he has to do it in his bed, but he says Jacob and all of his friends are in heaven now and they're happy.”

“I'm sure they are.” Mary was raised in the Catholic Church, but she had fallen away. Still she found herself wishing that Edward had had Last Rites, a wish she couldn't quite explain. “So you never met any of his buddies from the war?”

“No.”

“Does he have any other friends?”

“Dave. He likes Dave. They talk about money and stocks.”

Mary remembered that Edward had mentioned him.

“My Pops said my grandmother was his best friend, but after she died, he didn't get any new best friends.”

Mary felt a pang. “Did he have any uncles or anything like that? Like any family?”

“No.” Patrick shook his head.

“Do you? Do you know any uncles or aunts or cousins?”

“No.”

Mary wondered if he could be right. “What about Thanksgiving? Does anyone ever come over?”

“No.”

“Do you ever go to anyone else's house for the holidays?”

“No. We stay home. We get a special turkey that doesn't have any legs or arms because that's what we like. White meat. We cook it in the oven. I help make the stuffing. Stove Top.” Patrick pointed to a photo of him with his mother. “That's me when I was little. That's my mom. She's in heaven too. Her name was Suzanne.” Patrick looked up at Mary with a slight frown, his brown eyes troubled. “What's your mom's name?”

“Vita,” Mary answered, her throat thick. She felt strange talking to Patrick with Edward lying in bed only a few feet away. She sensed that the boy was in some sort of denial.

“Do you have a daddy?”

“Yes.” Mary realized that Patrick didn't have a daddy, so he didn't naturally assume that everyone had a daddy.

“What's his name?”

“His name is Mariano, but he goes by Matty. People call him Matty.”

“There's a kid in my class named Matt. He talks a lot.” Patrick turned to the bed. “Pops is still asleep. The diabetes makes him tired and shaky. He needs his sleep.”

Mary wasn't sure what to do or say, but she couldn't let this go on. “Patrick, I have some very bad news for you. Your grandfather, he's not asleep.”

“Yes he is.” Patrick nodded, matter-of-factly. “That's how he sleeps. His mouth always looks like that. He sleeps with his mouth open. Sometimes he snores.”

Mary patted Patrick's shoulder. “Maybe that's true, but this time, I don't think he's asleep, I think that—”

“He always says he sleeps like a log. Sometimes he sleeps so long he misses dinner. He doesn't even wake up if I push him. He needs to sleep. That's why I'm not allowed to wake him up.”

Mary wondered if Edward's diabetes had been worse than she thought or if he'd had heart problems. It would explain why he'd been so tired yesterday and why he seemed so much older than his years. She felt awful, wondering if the stress had been too much for him.

“Be right back.” Patrick started walking to the door.

“Wait, what? Patrick?” Mary went after him, confused, but he went down the stairs, trailing his hand on the wall, with her following.

“Patrick?”

“I have to do something.” Patrick took a left through the living room, and Mary followed him to the back of the house, into a small, square kitchen lined with white refaced cabinets and white countertops. In the center of the room was a rectangular wooden table with two chairs, one at the head and one catty-corner. An uneaten bologna sandwich sat on a flowered plate at one seat, which had been set with a folded napkin and a full glass of milk, untouched.

“He likes soup.” Patrick grabbed a chair, dragged it across the floor, pulled it up to the counter, and climbed up on top.

“What are you doing?”

“My Pops likes soup. I know how to make it.” Patrick opened the cabinet, slid out a can of Progresso soup, and showed it to Mary. “He
loves
this soup. This is his favorite. Pea soup. Once I called it peepee soup and he laughed. Now we call it peepee soup.”

“Patrick, why do you want to make him soup?”

“Because he likes it.” Patrick climbed down off the chair, leaving it in place against the counter, as well as the cabinet hanging open, then he started to pull off the tab on top of the can.

“Don't do that, you'll hurt yourself.” Mary came over.

“No I won't. Watch. It's only hard to get it started.” Patrick stuck his index finger in the tab and yanked it. “See? I do it all the time.” He moved the chair one cabinet over, then climbed up on it again, opened the next cabinet, and retrieved an oversized mug. He climbed down again, saying, “I make him soup if he doesn't feel good, and he loves it.”

“I see.” Mary watched him, heartsick, but didn't stop him. She sensed that he knew the truth and she didn't see the harm in letting him make soup.

“He didn't wake up for his bologna sandwich but he doesn't like sandwiches as much as he likes soup. I help him all the time because of the diabetes. He says the soup helps him.” Patrick went back to the can, poured the green glop into the mug, then leaned over the sink, turned on the faucet, and poured some water into the mug. “Pops says to add water because it makes it last longer. They don't tell you to do that because the company wants you to use up all your money and buy more soup.”