“Two days in a row,” Mom said. “This has to be a world and Olympic record.”
“Stop it,” Tessie scolded. “It’s nice she’s here.”
Mom waved a hand of dismissal. Tessie rose and gave Kat a kiss on the cheek. “I have to run. Brian’s visiting and I always make him my famous tuna fish sandwich.”
Kat kissed her back. She remembered tuna fish at Aunt Tessie’s. Tessie’s secret: potato chips. She sprinkled them on top of the tuna. They added crunch and flavor if not nutritional value.
When they were alone, Mom asked, “You want some coffee?”
She pointed to her old coffee percolator. A tin of Folgers sat next to it. Kat had bought her a stainless steel Cuisinart coffee pod machine last Christmas, but Mom said it didn’t “taste right,” meaning, in her case, that it tasted good. Mom was like that. Anything more expensive wouldn’t work for her. If you bought a twenty-dollar bottle of wine, she preferred the one that cost only six. If you got her a brand-name perfume, she preferred the knockoff she’d get at the drugstore. She bought all her clothes at Marshalls or T.J. Maxx and only off the sale rack. Part of this was because she was frugal. Part of it was something much more telling.
“I’m fine,” Kat said.
“You want me to fix you a sandwich? I know nothing I’d make could ever be as good as Aunt Tessie’s tuna, which is really just Bumble Bee, but I have some nice sliced turkey from Mel’s.”
“That would be great.”
“You still like it with white bread and mayonnaise?”
Kat didn’t, but it wasn’t as if her mom had a seven-grain option on hand. “Sure, whatever.”
Mom lifted herself slowly, making a production of it, using the back of the chair and the table to assist her. She wanted Kat to comment. Kat didn’t bother. Mom opened the refrigerator—an old Kenmore model Uncle Tommy got them at cost—and pulled out the turkey and mayo.
Kat debated how to play this. There was too much history between them for games or subtlety. She decided to dive right in.
“Where did Dad go when he used to disappear?”
Mom had her back to her when Kat asked. She’d been reaching into the bread drawer. Kat looked to see her reaction. There was the briefest pause—nothing more.
“I’m going to toast the bread,” Mom said. “It tastes better that way.”
Kat waited.
“And what are you talking about, disappear? Your father never disappeared.”
“Yeah, he did.”
“You’re probably thinking of his trips with the boys. They’d go hunting up in the Catskills. You remember Jack Kiley? Sweet man. He had a cabin or a lodge or something like that. Your father loved to go up there.”
“I remember him going up there once. He used to vanish all the time.”
“Aren’t we dramatic?” Mom said, arching an eyebrow. “Disappear, vanish. You make it sound like your father was a magician.”
“Where did he go?”
“I just told you. Don’t you listen?”
“To Jack Kiley’s cabin?”
“Sometimes, sure.” Kat could hear the growing agitation in her mother’s voice “There was also a fishing trip with Uncle Tommy. I don’t remember where. Somewhere on the North Fork. And I remember he went on a golf trip with some of the guys at work. That’s where he was. He went on trips with his friends.”
“I don’t remember him ever taking you on trips.”
“Oh, sure he did.”
“Where?”
“What difference does it make now? Your father liked blowing off steam with the guys. Golfing trips, fishing trips, hunting trips. Men do that.”
Mom was spreading the mayo hard enough to scrape paint.
“Where did he go, Mom?”
“I just told you!” she shouted, dropping the knife. “Damn, look what you made me do.”
Kat started to get up to retrieve the knife.
“You just stay in your seat, little missy. I got it.” Mom picked up the knife, tossed it in the sink, grabbed another. Five vintage McDonald’s glasses from 1977—Grimace, Ronald McDonald, Mayor McCheese, Big Mac, and Captain Crook—sat on the windowsill. The complete set had six. Farrell had broken the Hamburglar when he threw a Frisbee indoors when he was seven years old. Years later, he bought Mom a replacement vintage Hamburglar on eBay, but she refused to put it up with the others.
“Mom?”
“What?” She started on the sandwich again. “Why on earth would you be asking me all this now anyway? Your father, God rest his soul, has been dead for nearly twenty years. Who cares where he went?”
“I need to know the truth.”
“Why? Why would you bring this up, especially now that the monster who murdered him is finally dead? Put it to bed. It’s over.”
“Did Dad work for Cozone?”
“What?”
“Was Dad on the take?”
For a woman who needed help getting up, Mom moved now with dizzying speed. “How dare you!” She twirled and, without any hesitation, slapped Kat across the left cheek. The sickening sound of flesh on flesh was loud, almost deafening in the stillness of the kitchen. Kat felt tears come to her eyes, but she didn’t turn away or even reach up to touch the red.
Mom’s face crumbled. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”
“Did he work for Cozone?”
“Please stop.”
“Is that how he paid for the apartment in New York City?”
“What? No, no. He got a good deal, remember? He saved that man’s life.”
“What man?”
“What do you mean, what man?”
“What man? What was his name?”
“How am I supposed to remember?”
“Because I know Dad did a lot of good work as a cop, but I don’t remember him saving any real estate magnate’s life, do you? Why did we just accept that story? Why didn’t we ask him?”
“Ask him,” Mom repeated. She retied her apron string, pulling the ends a little too hard. “You mean, like you are now? Like an interrogation? Like your father was some kind of liar? You’d do that to that man—to your father? You’d ask him questions and call him a liar in his own home?”
“That’s not what I mean,” Kat said, but her voice was weak.
“Well, what do you mean? Everyone exaggerates, Kat. You know that. Especially men. So maybe your father didn’t save the man’s life. Maybe he only, I don’t know, caught a burglar who robbed him or helped him with a parking ticket. I don’t know. Your father said he saved his life. I didn’t question his word. Tessie’s husband, Ed? He used to limp, remember? He told everyone it was from shrapnel in the war. But he was clerical because of his eyesight. He hurt his leg falling down subway stairs when he was sixteen. You think Tessie went around calling him a liar every time he told that story?”
Mom brought the sandwich to the table. She started to cut it diagonally—her brother had preferred it that way—but Kat, ever the contrarian, had insisted sandwiches be cut to make two rectangles. Mom, again out of habit, remembered, angled the knife, cut it in two perfect halves.
“You’ve never been married,” Mom said softly. “You don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“We all have our demons. But men? They have them much worse. The world tells them that they are the leaders and great and macho and have to be big and brave and make a lot of money and lead these glamorous lives. But they don’t, do they? Look at the men in this neighborhood. They all worked too many hours. They came home to noisy, demanding homes. Something was always broken they needed to fix. They were always behind on the house payments. Women, we get it. Life is about a certain kind of drudgery. We are taught not to hope or want too much. Men? They never get that.”
“Where did he go, Mom?”
She closed her eyes. “Eat your sandwich.”
“Was he doing jobs for Cozone?”
“Maybe.” Then: “I don’t think so.”
Kat pulled the chair out for her mother to sit. Mom sat as though someone had cut her knees out from beneath her.
“What was he doing?” Kat asked.
“You remember Gary?”
“Flo’s husband.”
“Right. He used to go to the track, remember? He kept losing everything they had. Flo would cry for hours. Your uncle Tommy, he drank too much. He was home every night, but rarely before eleven o’clock. He’d stop at the pub for a quick one and then it would be hours later. The men. They all needed something like that. Some drank. Some gambled. Some whored. Some, the lucky ones, found the church, though they could kill you with their sanctimonious baloney. But the point is, with men, real life was never enough. You know what my dad, your grandfather, used to say?”