Long Bright River: A Novel (13 page)

For a while, I wander through Ashley’s house, trying to look casual. I see why they moved to Olney: the houses up here are older and bigger, about twice as wide as the rowhome I grew up in. It’s nothing fancy, and the street it’s on isn’t pretty, but I can see why a family of six would want a house like this. The furniture is run-down, and the walls are mainly bare, except, surprisingly, for crucifixes above the thresholds of each room, in the manner of a Catholic grade school. It seems like Ashley’s found religion in recent years.

I nod at some people and say hello to others. Awkwardly, I return hugs when they’re offered. I don’t particularly enjoy being hugged. When we were children, it was Kacey who kept me sane at these events. I would stick by her side as she skillfully navigated any party, fending off teasing and insults or returning them smoothly, but always with a laugh. As young teenagers, we typically found a corner and sat in it together, eating our food, making eye contact with one another whenever any one of our family members said or did something absurd, and then exploding into secret laughter. We saved up stories to trade with one another for days afterward, categorized our relatives with the cruelty and creativity unique to teenage girls.

I cannot shake a particular image as I round each corner: it’s of what my sister would be like, today, if her life had gone differently. I imagine her as she has been on the rare occasions in her adult life that she has been well: drinking a soda, holding somebody’s baby, crouching on the floor beside some little cousin. Petting a dog. Playing with a child.

I walk through a back door onto a chilly lawn, bordered by a wooden fence that separates it from adjacent lots.

And there he is: my cousin Bobby, smoking a cigarette, standing between his brother and another one of our cousins.

When he sees me, he blinks.

—Hey, there she is, says Bobby as I approach.

He’s gotten heavier since the last time I saw him. He was about six-three to begin with. He’s four years older than I am, and has always intimidated me. When we were small, he used to chase Kacey and me around the basements of O’Brien households with various weapon-like objects, to Kacey’s delight and my terror.

Today he has a beard and wears a Phillies cap, cocked up to one side. His brother John, to his right, and our cousin Louie, to his left, regard me without much emotion. I wonder, in fact, if they even recognize me.

This morning, I carefully considered what to wear, wondering whether it would behoove me to dress up a little in order to show my respect for the occasion, or whether this would further convince the O’Briens that I’m in some way snobbish or strange. In the end, I decided on my standard off-duty uniform: gray pants that are fitted but not tight, and a white button-down shirt, and flat shoes that are good for walking. I brushed my hair into a ponytail and put on small silver earrings in the shape of crescent moons. They were a gift from Simon on the occasion of my twenty-first birthday, and for this reason I have been tempted to throw them away on a number of occasions, but they are so pretty that I never have. I don’t have much jewelry. It would be a shame, I think, to throw out something I find beautiful, simply out of spite.

—How you doing, sweetie, says Bobby, when I’ve crossed the small lawn. His voice is sugary.

—Not bad, I say. How are you?

—Doing really good, says Bobby, and the other two murmur something similar.

Everyone drags on cigarettes.

—Can you spare one? I say. I haven’t smoked a cigarette in years—not since I was with Simon, who smoked socially. Occasionally, I would join him.

Bobby fumbles with his pack, jerkily. I watch all of his movements. Is he breathing more quickly than he should be? Maybe it’s just the cold. I don’t know what Bobby’s reasons are for avoiding my texts about Kacey, but there is something in his demeanor today that strikes me as nervous.

I consider asking him if I can talk to him in private briefly, but I fear that might put him on guard. Instead, as lightly as I can, I say, You know, I’ve been texting you.

—I know, says Bobby. He holds out the pack, one cigarette loose. I take it.

—I know, he says again. I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you. I’ve been asking around.

He holds out a lighter and I stand in front of it, breathing until it catches.

—Thanks, I say. Have you heard anything about her?

Bobby shakes his head. I haven’t, he says. John and Louie look at him.

—Sister’s missing, he says, tilting his head in my direction. Kacey.

—Shit, says John. He’s older than Bobby, smaller. I’ve never known him well. He seemed like a grown-up when we were kids. I’ve heard around the neighborhood that John’s part of the same bad scene that Bobby is.

—Man, I’m sorry to hear that, John says. I study him.

—Thanks, I say again. When’s the last time you talked to her? I say to Bobby.

Bobby looks skyward, miming thought. Probably . . . he says. Jeez, Mickey, I don’t know. I probably seen her around the neighborhood here and there, maybe even last month. But the last time I actually talked to her has to be more than a year ago.

—Okay, I say.

We all take drags. It’s cold out. Everyone’s nose is red.

Historically, at O’Brien family functions, the subject of addiction is not mentioned. Many people in our family use. Kacey is an extreme
example, but other members of the family partake to varying degrees. Though it’s talked around—
I heard Jackie’s doing better; Yeah, she is—
it is considered impolite to use specific language, reference specific problems or episodes. Today, I ignore these rules.

—Who’s been dealing to her lately? I ask Bobby.

He frowns. He looks, for a moment, genuinely wounded.

—Aw, come on, Mick, he says.

—What? I say.

—You know I’m not into that stuff anymore.

—I do? I say.

John and Louie shift.

—How can I be sure? I say.

—Just have to trust me, he says.

I drag on my cigarette. I could, I say. Or I could trust your arrest record, which I can bring up on my phone right now, if you’d like.

I’m surprised at myself. I’m crossing lines left and right, now. Being reckless. A cloud passes over Bobby’s face. I don’t actually have access to his arrest record on my phone. He doesn’t know that.

—Look, he says, but before he can continue, we hear a voice I recognize immediately. Gee used to say it sounded like a foghorn.

—Is that Mickey? asks my aunt Lynn. Ashley’s mother. Is that you, Mickey?

And for a moment the conversation is derailed. I turn toward Lynn and pretend to listen while she demands to know where I’ve been all these years, and talks about how the world is crazy, and tells me she hopes I’m being safe at work.

—How’s your grandmom? says Lynn.

Before I can respond, she continues: I saw her a couple weeks ago. She came to the birthday party Ashley threw for me. It was nice. I’m fifty-five, can you believe that?

I nod along as Lynn talks about Ashley, about how Ashley made a carrot cake that day, about how she doesn’t like cream cheese frosting so Ashley put vanilla on it. But all of my senses are directed to my left, where my three cousins are still standing, shifting in place slightly,
exchanging glances that I can’t interpret. Louie whispers something I can’t hear, and Bobby nods his head ever so slightly.

Simon used to laugh at me: he always knew when I wasn’t fully listening to what he was saying, distracted by someone else’s conversation going on nearby. You’re so nosy, he’d say, and I never disagreed. My strong peripheral vision and my ability to eavesdrop are both skills that have served me well on the street.

Someone goes by carrying a serving platter, and Lynn departs, as abruptly as she arrived, without saying goodbye.

—Let me take that for you, she calls, in her brassy voice, and then she’s gone.

Slowly, I turn back to my cousins, who have moved on to a new topic of conversation, everyone’s favorite in Philadelphia: it’s the Eagles’ unexpected winning streak, and their odds of a shot at the Super Bowl. When I look at them, they go quiet again.

—One more question, I say. Before she disappeared, she was seeing a man named Connor. I don’t know his last name. But I think his nickname is Dock.

It isn’t subtle, the way everyone’s expressions change.

—No fuckin’ way, says Louie, under his breath.

—Are you familiar with him? I say, but the question has become rhetorical, because it’s endlessly clear that they are.

Bobby is looking at me very seriously now.

—When did they get together, he says. How long were they together?

—I’m not sure, I say. I don’t know how serious they were. I know they were together as of August.

Bobby is shaking his head.

—That guy is no fuckin’ good, he says. He’s trouble.

A little murmur of agreement from my other cousins. I pause.

—In what way, I say.

Bobby shrugs. What do you think, he says.

Then he says, Listen. I’m gonna try to find out more for you, okay? You know I’m not into that stuff anymore, he says, but I still have my people.

I nod. I see in his expression that he will take his mission seriously. That Kacey, in his mind, is family, and protecting her is his new purpose.

—Thank you, I say.

—No problem, says Bobby.

He holds my gaze meaningfully. Then turns away.

Inside again, I search for Thomas for a long time—so long, in fact, that I begin to worry. Ashley walks by and I touch her shoulder, making her whirl so abruptly that she spills her wine.

—I’m so sorry, I say, but I can’t find Thomas. Have you seen him?

—Upstairs, says Ashley.

I walk up the staircase, covered in thin flat carpet, and stand in the hallway for a moment. One by one, I open all the doors: a bathroom, a closet, a room with two single beds that must be shared by Ashley’s two younger boys. Another, decorated in shades of purple, with an italic
C
on the wall, is for Chelsea, Ashley’s only daughter. A third seems to be Ashley’s oldest son’s.

Ashley and Ron’s room is the one I walk into last. A radiator clanks in the corner, giving off the not-unpleasant smell of warm dust. In the center of the room is a canopy bed, and on the wall next to it is a picture. In it, Jesus holds the hands of two young children. All three figures stand on a road that leads to a shimmering body of water.

Walk with me,
it says, beneath Jesus’s feet.

I am still contemplating this picture when I hear the faintest rustle emanating from the closet to my right.

I walk toward it and open the door. There is my son, hiding with two other boys, playing Sardines, apparently.

—
Shhhhhhh,
they say, in unison.

Okay,
I mouth, closing the door, retreating quietly from the room.

Downstairs again, I make a heaping plate of food from the buffet table. Then I stand alone in the living room, eating it ungracefully, guiltily, glancing up from time to time at a TV that’s on in the corner, displaying the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Around me is a din of voices I haven’t heard since childhood, all of them rising and falling together. We are related, loosely, connected by limbs of a family tree that in recent years has atrophied, decayed. Near me, an older cousin, Shane, is telling a story about how much he won at SugarHouse last night. He coughs outrageously. He reaches over his own shoulder to scratch his back.

Ashley comes into the living room then with Ron. Her four children shuffle in behind her, clearly following orders.

She says, Hey, everyone? Hey!

No one shuts up, so Ron puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles.

I’m in the middle of lifting my fork to my mouth. Self-consciously, I lower it.

—Aw, here we go, says Shane. Time for church.

Ashley shoots him a glance. Now, look, she says. We won’t keep you long. But we just wanted to say we love you guys. And we also wanted to give thanks for all of us being able to be together today.

Ron takes her hand and his children, behind him, join hands too.

—If you don’t mind, says Ron, we’re just going to say grace.

I glance around. Everyone looks skeptical. The O’Briens are Catholic, if we’re anything. We’re varying degrees of religious: Some of my older aunts go to mass multiple times a week. Many of my younger cousins don’t go at all. I usually take Thomas at Easter, at Christmas, and whenever I’m feeling low. And at no childhood Thanksgiving, in my recollection, did the O’Briens ever say grace.

Ron is praying now, bald head bowed, and the room is silent. The substantial muscles in his arms are tense with feeling. He gives thanks for the food we are about to consume and for the family who’s with us
here today and the family members who have already passed. He gives thanks for their house and their jobs and for their children. He gives thanks for the leaders of the country and prays that they may continue to do their job to the best of their ability. I don’t know Ron well—I’ve probably met him four times in the years he and Ashley have been married, including once at their wedding—but he strikes me as a firm person, hardworking, no-nonsense, someone with very definite opinions about everything that he’ll share with you if you give him an opening. He’s from Delco, which—though it’s just over the border from Southwest Philadelphia—makes him an outsider, and lends him an exotic quality that causes the O’Briens to afford him a certain amount of respect but also, I imagine, to mistrust him slightly.

Ron concludes, finally, and there is a round of muttered
Amen
s and one wiseacre cousin who says, Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat.

Gee’s brother Rich is next to me, suddenly, holding a beer. I don’t know where he came from.

—Wasn’t expecting to see you here, he says. He’s wearing jeans and an Eagles jersey. He looks like Gee, but bigger. Like many of my older male relatives, he’s a talker, a kidder, someone who elbows you to get you to laugh at his jokes.

I nod. Here I am, I say.

—Looks like you’re hungry, says Rich, looking at my plate. Me, I’m watching my waistline, he says, and winks.

I laugh weakly.

—How’s your new place? says Rich. Your grandmom told me you moved. Up in Bensalem now, huh?

I nod.

—With some mystery man, I bet, says Rich. Right? I bet you’ve got a boyfriend up there. You can’t get anything past family.

He is teasing me, gently. I know this. I say nothing.

—Bring him around sometime, says Rich.

—I’m not seeing anybody, I say.

—I’m just messing with you, says Rich. Hey. You’ll find someone.

—I don’t want to find anyone, I say.

I return to my food. Carefully, I select a small piece of everything, so that I have one perfect bite on my fork. This endeavor takes me quite a while, because I find, suddenly, that it’s difficult to focus on my plate.

For once in my uncle Rich’s life, he says no more.