Whiskey Island (47 page)

By now he’d met some of their parents, who had stopped by in separate shifts to see what all the fuss was about. He liked the ones he’d met so far, admired their commitment to their kids and their pride in what their offspring had accomplished. Winston and Elisha’s mother was a straight-shooter who questioned him closely before she risked her first smile. By the end of his interview with her, he’d found himself committing to a series of long talks with Winston about the value of staying in school.

He hadn’t met Josh’s father, and he’d heard enough from the other kids to know that he probably never would. From their descriptions and his own observations, Niccolo suspected it was only a matter of time before Josh moved out to escape his father’s abuse. From some private calls he’d made to the county, he knew the situation was already being monitored. Unfortunately, the alternatives for Josh didn’t look good, either.

Tonight Josh was the last kid left after the others had gone. Megan was cleaning up from a painting project in an upstairs bedroom, and Ashley was helping her. Niccolo and Josh were left alone in the front hall.

Niccolo decided to stop beating around the bush about Josh’s home life. He’d left the proverbial door open for Josh a number of times, but Josh had never stepped through it.

“Things are pretty tough at home, aren’t they?” Niccolo said, when it was clear the youth dreaded having to leave.

Josh cleared his throat. “Uh-huh.”

“What are you going to do about it, son?”

Josh shoved his hands in the pockets of jeans too worn even to be fashionable. He shook his head.

“The way I see it, you’ve got a couple of choices. You can tough it out until you graduate from high school and have some decent alternatives. Or you can ask the county to step in and find you another place to live for a few years.” Niccolo decided to be completely honest with the boy. “They’ll try to find you a group home, but they aren’t going to step in unless you ask or things get a whole lot worse. On the other hand, if you wait too long, there won’t be anything they can do for you.”

“You’ve been talking to somebody?”

“I’m worried about you.”

“I can take care of myself. I’m okay.”

“No, I don’t think you are. Are you in danger there, Josh? Do you worry you might not come out of this in one piece?”

The boy’s face said it all, although he was trying to hide his feelings. “My dad’s not so bad, unless he’s been drinking.”

“Which is pretty much all the time, right?”

Josh looked down at his feet. “I just stay out of his way.”

“You have a big house?”

Josh shook his head.

“How can you stay out of his way?”

“I sleep at friends’ houses. Winston’s mom lets me crash on her floor just about anytime I ask. But I don’t ask too often, ‘cause I don’t want her to say no when I really need her. I try to go different places. Only sometimes I forget to bring stuff with me, books and papers I need for school. And I get in trouble.”

Niccolo imagined it was hard to remember things like schoolbooks when you were trying to be invisible so that no one would beat you or report your father to child welfare. He imagined Josh’s father didn’t like getting reported. He imagined Josh’s father took out his feelings on his son—when he could find him.

“How would you like to come and live with me?” The words were out before Niccolo had even considered them. He just knew that this was a good kid with a good heart who deserved a better life. He knew what awaited Josh at either of the alternatives he’d named. An alcoholic father who might step over the line someday and do permanent damage—or worse. An overcrowded group home—if one could even be found.

Niccolo had a house. He had room for Josh in his house. He had room for Josh in his house and his heart.

“We’ll have to talk to your father,” Niccolo said. “We’ll need his consent. If you’re going to stay here, I want the legal right to be sure you’re taken care of properly. I need to be able to authorize medical care for you and deal with your school. Will he be willing to sign something, or will we have to involve the county?”

“He doesn’t want me,” Josh said simply. “Nobody ever really did.”

“I do.”

Josh’s sad expression lightened, but he wasn’t a kid who believed things could get better that quickly. “I won’t get in your way. I could sleep in the attic.”

“You’ll choose whichever of the extra bedrooms you want upstairs, and we’ll get you some furniture. No attic. No pretending you don’t really live here. Deal?”

“When?”

“When does your dad get home from work?”

“Late.”

“He works the late shift?”

“He goes out.”

“We’ll go over to your place in a little while and get your clothes. I’ll go see your father tomorrow morning before he goes to work.”

“I could do stuff. Clean, cook. I could get a job and pay you back.”

“Just be a kid, Josh. That’s all I want. And try to do your best in school.”

“I’m…I’m not too good in school.”

Niccolo wasn’t surprised. “You will be when things settle down. We’ll work on it.”

Josh didn’t look too sure. “I was going to stay with Joachim tonight. I was going over there after dinner.”

After
Joachim’s
dinner. Niccolo suspected Josh would have gone without. “Do you want to call him?”

“He doesn’t have a phone. Maybe I could go tell him right now?”

“Be back in time for dinner. I’ll make spaghetti.”

“You want me to eat here, too?”

“Every single meal, unless you’ve been invited somewhere else.”

This concept seemed foreign to the boy, but he nodded gravely, as if he’d just agreed to an immersion course in Serbo-Croatian. “I don’t eat a lot.”

“You’d better. I’ll think my cooking’s no good.”

Josh gave a tentative smile. “Your cooking’s the best.”

“Not as good as mine,” said a voice from the stairs. Megan and Ashley started down. “A foursome for supper?”

“He’s got an errand to run, then he’s coming back.”

“I’m going to live here,” Josh blurted out.

Megan didn’t stumble, but one foot paused in midair. “Really? Great.”

Josh sailed out the door, closing it softly behind him as if a slam might wake him from a dream.

“Nick, is he kidding?”

He pretended surprise. “Good Lord, Megan. I just told the kid he could live with me. Where were you when I needed you?”

“As if anything I could say would have mattered.”

Niccolo dropped the pose. “He’s an abused kid. I can’t leave him where he is.”

“Another Billy, huh? Another Rooney? Only this time a scruffy kid, not a homeless man.”

He didn’t like the comparison, but since she’d said it with no condemnation in her voice, he couldn’t deny it, either. “Some guys collect World Series balls or antique fishing lures.”

“I pity the woman who marries you. She’ll never know who’s sleeping in the next bedroom.”

“If I was married, I would consult her.”

“And then she’d have to play devil’s advocate to the voice of God, wouldn’t she? Because you believe you’re being led to do this. Don’t you, Nick?”

He’d never thought of it quite that way. It seemed obnoxiously self-important. “I don’t know.”

“You know, most of us just get through life worrying whether we’ll be able to pay the mortgage or find the right shade of toenail polish. Most of us don’t worry about God’s plan for our lives. There’s a whopping big part of you that’s still a priest.”

He thought they might be heading for a fight, and he wasn’t sure why. He smiled warmly, hoping to head one off. “You can take the man out of the liturgical robes…”

“How in the hell will anyone ever be able to measure up to you? You’re scary, you know that? Too darned good to be true.”

“You can’t really believe that. Everybody struggles with doing the right thing. I’ve just told you about my struggles, that’s all. It’s part of being intimate.”

“No, it isn’t. Nobody I’ve ever been intimate with has cared one way or the other what I struggled with, unless I struggled with removing my clothing.”

“That’s not intimacy, Megan. That’s sex. Different.”

“And how would you know? You’re suddenly an expert on this?”

Ashley had wandered into the kitchen at the beginning of their discussion, probably to inspect her shelf paper. Now she wandered back into the hallway.

“There was a man at school today who looked like my daddy.”

Niccolo looked down at the little girl, who had stopped halfway between him and Megan. He wanted to continue their discussion, but he knew better than to do it in front of the little girl. “Was there?”

“He was in a car.”

Megan squatted so that she and Ashley were face-to-face. “Was it your daddy, sweetheart?”

“My daddy lives in Florida.” Her eyes widened, as if she’d said something she shouldn’t have.

“Then it probably wasn’t your daddy,” Megan said. “Florida’s a long way from Ohio.”

“But you wish it were your daddy,” Niccolo said, making a guess.

Ashley shook her head slowly.

“Did the man go away?” Megan asked. “Or did he try to talk to you?”

“Went away.” Ashley brightened. “’Lisha let me cut the paper. Wanna see?”

“Uh-huh. You like Elisha, don’t you?”

“She’s like Becca.”

“And who’s Becca?”

“My baby-sitter. She took care of me when Mommy couldn’t. Becca knows everything.”

Megan smiled and brushed Ashley’s hair off her forehead. “I wish I knew everything.” Her gaze flicked to Niccolo. “Some people have all the luck.”

Or all the conceit. He knew she was gently taunting him. He cut straight to the point. “What would you have done, Megan? Would you have sent Josh home tonight, knowing what’s waiting for him? He was afraid to leave.”

She rose. “I probably wouldn’t have thought about it one way or the other.”

He knew she was lying, but the problem was, he was the only one in the hallway who did. “I’m going to start the spaghetti sauce. Why don’t you turn on television for Ashley while I pour some wine?”

For a moment he thought she might find an excuse to go home, but she nodded after a pause. “Come on, Ashley. If I’m not mistaken, this is
Sesame Street
time.”

“Can I watch the news?”

Megan was still holding out her hand. “News?”

Ashley smiled. “Uh-huh. I might see Mommy.”

30

“I
’m fuming. I’m lousy company. Go away.”

Jon stepped over the threshold of Casey’s apartment and unbuttoned his overcoat. “If I go away, you lose your magic carpet ride out of this place.”

Her face was screwed up in a high-tech scowl. It wasn’t possible to be in a worse mood, and she wanted to share. “Who picks out your clothes? Don’t tell me you do it yourself. I remember how you used to dress. Scraggly was a compliment.”

“
I
pick them out. It doesn’t take a boatload of talent to lift a dark suit off the rack and carry it to the cash register.” He grinned disarmingly. “Maybe it’s the man, not the fashion sense, that changed.”

She wasn’t ready to be cajoled. The Mazda dealer had just called, and the repair bill was going to be double what she’d expected. “Did you check out the carjacker?”

“We sent somebody to chat with him. He was at home all night, and his mother vouches for him.”

“Did it occur to anybody that a carjacker’s mother might not be a candidate for Upstanding Woman of the Year?”

“The cop who investigated was satisfied.”

“Great. He’s satisfied, and I’m out enough money to finance a trip to Hawaii.”

“A short trip? Discount airfare?”

She growled. “I hope my mechanic packs his sunscreen.”

“It’s a lousy break, but your insurance should cover a lot of it.”

“Who the hell knows? We’re dickering.”

“Let me take you away from all this.”

When she’d called to tell him about the car, Jon had mentioned dinner, but in the rush to get the Mazda towed and examined, she’d filed it away in the back of her mind. Now she reluctantly dusted it off again. “Ashley’s with Megan, but they’ll be home later. I really can’t expect Megan to baby-sit all night.”

“No problem. I’ll do it.” Peggy, in a long flannel robe, stepped out of her bedroom. Her hair was wrapped in a towel, and she looked as if she wasn’t planning to go anywhere.

“I’m in for the night. Ashley and I’ll curl up and watch something on television—if there’s anything a little girl can watch. Otherwise we’ll find a game we can play. She goes to bed early, anyway.”

When she had moved home, Casey had not expected her sisters to take so much responsibility for Ashley. In her years away, she had forgotten how family just seeped into daily life, casually removing burdens and just as casually adding them.

“You don’t mind?” she asked, almost hoping Peggy would say yes. Casey was afraid that, in her present mood, an evening with Jon might be her last.

But Peggy wasn’t about to cooperate. “Why should I? There’ll be two of us here instead of three. It’s less crowded without you.”

“Oh, fine. Anything to relieve that rats-in-a-cage feeling.”

“Good grief, go away. Come back feeling better.”

Casey grimaced at Jon. “Let me grab my coat.”

Jon’s car was a nondescript American-made sedan that reminded Casey of an unmarked police car. “In high school you claimed you’d own a Corvette before you were twenty-five.”

“What makes you think I didn’t?”

“The story of your life.”

“Sit back and close your eyes. We’ll be at my house in a few minutes.”

“I thought we were going out to eat?”

“We can, or I can cook steaks in my fireplace, like I planned. Then we can make a roaring fire, and you can tell me everything that’s on your mind.”

“I’m in a terrible mood.”

“You don’t think I noticed?”

“If I tell you everything that’s on my mind, you’ll need a dump truck.”

“I am endlessly patient.”

“When I’m under stress I party, Jon, I don’t converse.”

“Is that why you did so much of it?”

“What makes you think I did?”

“The story of
your
life.”