“Kill the man who killed his son. Change reality.”
“Then why hasn’t he done it? Think about it. If he’s been taking these pills like you think he has, why isn’t your life automatically different?”
“Maybe he tried. Maybe it’s not as easy as it seems.”
“Or maybe he tried it once and it sent him into his coma, because those pills are wildly dangerous.”
I had been thinking the same thing. But I wasn’t going to let her have the point that easily.
“Conjecture.”
“Over-frickin’-ruled.”
We stared at the each for a few minutes, letting our imaginations run wild. The whole idea was ludicrous, of course. But take the pills out of the equation. There were too many coincidences piled up. My grandpop had been trying something—revenge or closure.
“The only person who knows is my grandpop. And he can’t talk. Not yet, anyway.”
Meghan looked at me.
“He might not be the only one.”
IX
Asylum Road
Once you walk up Oxford Avenue, away from the El, you enter Northwood, which has always been the nicest part of Frankford. In fact, if you lived in Northwood, you never admitted to living in Frankford.
Northwood had slightly wider streets—some of them brick-paved—with singles and twins and trees and big backyards and everything else everyone in Frankford wanted.
I grew up resenting the whole Frankford/Northwood divide. The dividing line, of course, was the Frankford El. We lived one block south of the El, in a cramped rowhome. Zero trees, a grim factory parking lot across the street.
But go just two blocks north of the El, and it’s a completely different story. Aforementioned trees and backyards. Why couldn’t my mom have moved there after my dad died? Just a few blocks away? Take a walk on the wild side, Anne. Sure, maybe the mortgage would have been a couple extra grand—maybe $11,000 as opposed to the $9,000 you’d pay in Frankford—but surely we could have swung that, right?
Couldn’t we?
Mom had moved there eight years ago, finally leaving Darrah Street. I honestly don’t know why she stayed in that house so long, other than inertia. I used to pretend that it was because she missed my father, that she couldn’t bear the idea of moving away from the house they’d shared. But if that was true, she never let on. She almost never talked about him, and packed up every photo of him and put them in the hutch in the dining room. Maybe it was the lingering memory of my father, but I just think she hated the idea of moving.
So she’d traded a standard issue Frankford rowhome for the slightly more upscale standard Northwood twin. Instead of neighbors jammed up against both sides of her home, now she had a single neighbor jammed up against only one side of her home.
“More wine, Meghan?”
“No thank you, Mrs. Wade.”
“There’s plenty here. And call me Anne, willya?”
“I’m okay. I have to drive later, and I really don’t have much of a tolerance. I’m kind of a cheap date.”
A mild lie from Meghan. She could hold her liquor like a bartop. She just didn’t want to insult my mother’s choice in grape-based libations. Not that she’s a snob. But chances are, the Charles family never served pinot grigio from a cardboard box.
We all stood around the kitchen—me in my arm sling, Meghan, my mother and her boyfriend—making introductions and small talk. Mom was so stunned that I brought somebody, she didn’t even notice the sling. In my twenty plus years of dating life, I’ve never brought anybody home. Ever.
But now I was happy for the witness, because Whiplash Walt was in rare form. Touching my mom’s shoulders, her back, her waist—like he was planning on killing her later and wanted to place as many fingerprints as possible, just so the Philly PD would be extra-clear on who’d done it.
Whiplash Walt was a lawyer, just like Meghan’s father, but they inhabited two totally different planes of existence. Nicholas Charles Esq. regularly lunched with the mayor and the Philadelphia political elite. Whiplash Walt spent his days handing out cards to anybody wearing a puffy neck brace within a five-mile radius. Whiplash, as his name might imply, did personal injury. It was how he’d met my mom, in fact. She tried to sue the hospital where she’d worked as an accountant for a slip-and-fall thing. She’d lost the case, but won Whiplash.
Mom asked me if I wanted another beer, but instead I helped myself to some of Whiplash’s whiskey—Johnnie Walker Black. Probably a gift from a grateful client. God knows the cheap bastard wouldn’t spring for it himself.
Mom excused herself to go to the basement. I knew where she was going.
“It’s okay. It’s your house. You can smoke here.”
“You know I don’t smoke, Mickey.”
“I totally know you do.”
“You’re being silly.”
I turned to Meghan.
“She totally smokes.”
“I do not smoke.”
Mom excused herself anyway to go downstairs to smoke. In a few moments we would hear the wrinkling of the wrapper, then the flick of the lighter. And in a few minutes we would all smell cigarette smoke.
I explained to Meghan, not bothering to lower my voice.
“Both of my mom’s parents died of lung cancer. She wants me to think that she quit smoking in 1990, when her father died. And I really do think she tries to quit. She just never has.”
Whiplash was clearly uncomfortable with this, so he made some small talk with Meghan. Once he found out her father was the Nicholas Charles, the small talk became more pointed, asking what her father was working on now, and hey, does he go to the Capital Grille every so often, and hey, is your dad looking to hire oh I’m just kidding but really I’m not.
My mom returned to the kitchen, absolutely reeking of smoke. It wafted from her clothes and invaded our nostrils. I fought back the urge to sneeze. We all sat down to eat.
Within sixty seconds Whiplash had whipped through his dinner. Then he stood up and wordlessly made his way down to his basement office. But not before giving my mom a none-too-subtle pinch on her ass.
The plates in front of Meghan and me were still full, as we hadn’t had time to pretend to enjoy more than a few bites of our rigatoni and meatballs. My mom leaned in closer to us, all confidential-like.
“He’s working on a case.”
I leaned in, too.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Whiplash spent a lot of time in Northwood, but he’d never move here. Going from suburbia to Northwood would be serious slumming, even for a personal injury lawyer. So he kept his own condo in Ardmore, but spent most of his time at my mom’s house.
“More wine?”
“I’m good, Mrs. Wade.”
“Hey, I told you. It’s Anne. We’re all adults here.”
“Right. Anne.”
Bringing Meghan had been a tactical decision. With a buffer in the room, my mom might not come at me with both barrels blazing. She might even be forced to answer a question or two directly.
“Mom, what do you know about Grandpop and the Adams Institute?”
The fork in my mother’s hand froze for a brief moment, like the fancy slow-mo bullet time of a Wachowski flick. She smiled.
“That’s where I thought I’d end up when you told me you wanted to be a writer.”
And then the fork completed the journey to her mouth, which chewed and grinned at the same time.