Living in Albany, capital of New York state, Gallagher had been aware of the intrusion of the state into individuals’ lives, even as a boy. Impossible not to be aware of politics if you live in Albany! Not the politics of idealism but grub-politics, the politics of “deals.” There was no goal higher than “deals” and no motive higher than “self-interest.” Gallagher’s disgust reached its peak in 1948 with the sordid politicking that accompanied the Taft-Hartley law which the Republican-dominated U.S. Congress passed over Truman’s veto. And Dewey’s sneering campaign against Truman, to which Thaddeus contributed a good deal of money, not all of it a matter of public record.

He’d quarreled with Thaddeus, and moved away from Ardmoor Park. He would never be on comfortable terms with the old man again.

That Hazel Jones should consider herself unworthy of the Gallaghers, and of him! Preposterous.

To his shame he heard himself begging.

“Hazel, I could adopt Zack as my son, if we were married. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”

Quickly Hazel kissed Gallagher saying yes, she supposed so.

Someday.

“Someday? Zack is growing up, the time is now. Not when he’s an adolescent who won’t give a damn about any father.”

Wanting to say won’t give a shit about any father. The anger in him was mounting, to desperation.

In the music room at the rear of the house Zack was playing piano. Must have struck a wrong note, the music broke off abruptly and after a brief pause began again.

Seeing that he was upset, Hazel took Gallagher’s hand that was so much larger and heavier than her own, lifted and pressed it against her cheek in one of Hazel Jones’s impulsive gestures that pierced her lover’s heart.

“Someday.”

For the Young Pianists’ Competition in Rochester, in May 1967, the boy was preparing Schubert’s “Impromptu No. 3.” At ten and a half, he would be the youngest performer on the program, which included pianists to the age of eighteen.

The next-youngest was a Chinese-American boy of twelve who was being trained at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and who had recently placed second in an international competition for young pianists in that city.

Day following day and often into the late evening the child practiced. Such precise, cleanly struck notes, such rapidity of execution, you would not have thought the pianist was so young a child and if, like Gallagher, you were drawn to the doorway of the music room, the child’s intense unblinking eyes would remain fixed upon the keyboard (the piano was no longer the Baldwin upright but a Steinway baby grand Gallagher had bought from Zimmerman Brothers) and his small fingers striking the keys as if of their own volition for the piece must be memorized, not a note, not a pause, not a depression of the pedal left to chance.

Gallagher listened, entranced. No doubt about it, the boy played more beautifully than Gallagher had done at his age, and older. Gallagher would boast He’s inherited all I had to give him. Quite a talent, isn’t he!

By degrees Gallagher was becoming the child’s father. Strange that he did not much wonder who the child’s true father was.

In the doorway of the music room Gallagher lingered, uncertain. Waiting for the boy to break off practice at which point Gallagher would clap enthusiastically-“Bravo, Zack! Sounds terrific”-and the boy would blush with pleasure. But the practice continued, and continued, for if Zack made the smallest error he must return to the beginning and start again, until Gallagher at last lost patience and slipped away, unseen.

Didn’t I promise you, Ma? You would be proud.

“Zack” is his name. A name out of the Bible. For he is blessed of God, Ma. None of us would have guessed!

My son. Your grandson. His face will be known to you, when you see him. It’s a face you will recognize, Ma. The father is not in him, much.

His eyes, Ma! His eyes are beautiful, like yours.

Maybe they are Pa’s eyes, too. A little.

At the piano, I hear him and I know where he is. In all the world he is here, Ma. With us.

He is safe in this house.

I should not have left you, Ma. I stayed away so long.

Sometimes I think my soul was lost in those fields. Along the canal. I stayed away from you so long, Ma.

I am paying for that, Ma.

If you hear him, Ma, you will know. Why I had to live. I love you, Ma.

This is for you, Ma.

It is called “Impromptu No. Three” by Schubert.

24

So quickly it happened, he would replay it many times in his memory. Always he was invisible, helpless to intervene. If something had happened to his mother, helpless.

Thinking I didn’t warn her. It was like I wasn’t there, no one saw me.

Out of nowhere the man appeared.

Out of nowhere staring at Hazel Jones as if he knew her.

Though in fact Zack had been seeing the man for perhaps ten, twenty seconds. Zack who never took notice of anyone had been seeing this man watching his mother from a distance of about thirty feet, as Hazel walked on the graveled path through the park, oblivious.

There was a repair truck parked in the roadway nearby. The man must have been a repairman of some sort, in soiled work clothes, work shoes. In cities (they lived always in cities now, and traveled only to cities) you learn not to see such individuals who are not likely to be individuals whom you know, or who know you.

Except this man was watching Hazel Jones, very intently.

This day! “Free time” for Zack. The day following a piano recital. For perhaps seventy-two hours his senses would be alert, aroused. He continued to hear music in his head yet the intensity of the music abated, and the need of his fingers to create it. His eyes felt new to him at such times, raw, exposed to hurt. They filled with moisture easily. His ears craved to hear, with a strange hunger: not music but ordinary sounds. Voices! Noises!

He felt like a creature that has pushed its way out of a smothering cocoon, unaware of the cocoon until now.

The man in work clothes was no age Zack could judge, maybe Gallagher’s age, or younger. He looked like one whom life has chewed up. He was perhaps six feet tall, yet there was a broken, caved-in look to his chest. His lower jaw jutted, his skin was coarse and mottled and flamey as if with burst boils. His head appeared subtly deformed like partly melted wax and strands of colorless hair lay like seaweed across his scalp. A ravaged-angry face like something scraped along pavement yet out of this face eyes shone strangely with yearning, wonderment.

It’s him.

Is it-him?

An afternoon in September 1968. They were spending the weekend in Buffalo, New York. They were guests of the Delaware Conservatory of Music. A party of six or seven persons, all adults with the exception of Zack, were walking in the direction of the Park Lane Hotel where the Joneses and Gallagher were staying. They had had lunch together at the Conservatory where, the previous evening, the young pianist had performed; he would not be twelve until November, but had been accepted as a scholarship student at the prestigious music school, and would play with the Conservatory Chamber Orchestra the following spring.

Hazel and Zack were walking more slowly than the others. By instinct wanting to be alone together. Ahead, Gallagher was talking animatedly with his new acquaintances. He had established himself as Zacharias Jones’s protector, manager. Vaguely it was implied that Gallagher was the boy’s stepfather and when Hazel Jones was called “Mrs. Gallagher” the misassumption was accepted in silence.