Colleen Lynch-Kettridge stepped out of the car in a Hillary Clinton-type pant suit, except Hillary didn’t have Collie’s ass.

“Hey, Collie,” Lynch said.

She stopped, looking at him, taking in the shaved head and the eyepatch. “What happened to you?”

“Occupational hazards. I’m OK. Any trouble getting down?”

“Christ, Johnny,” she said, “I’ve been down before. I know how to get here. Don’t fucking start, OK?”

Lynch put his hands out, palms forward. “Take it easy, will you, Collie? I didn’t mean anything. Just the traffic can be a bitch is all.”

She stepped forward and Lynch hugged her, but it was like squeezing a pile of lumber.

“I’m sorry, Johnny. It’s just I know you think I should get down more, and I think I should get down more. But I just flat can’t, you know? I mean, I just can’t.”

“It’s good to see you, Collie. Really it is.”

“Yeah, OK, Johnny. It’s good to see you, too. Guess we better go in, huh?”

“Yeah.” Lynch turned with her toward the door. She was just a shade shorter than he was. He’d have never figured she’d get so tall, not when she was a kid and he was running her down the alley on his shoulders. He’d been like a god to her then, her tagging along with him everywhere. And he didn’t mind. Liked it. Liked being the big brother, watching out for her, making sure she understood how everything went down. Not much he could tell her anymore.

“Just so you know,” he said as they stepped on the elevator. “It’s not pretty. She’s really gone downhill the last week.” His sister just nodded.

As they cleared the doorway to his mother’s room, Lynch heard that same rasping noise. Shorter strokes now, like a file working against the grain. A real hard pull to get the breath in, then it just kind of leaking out. For a flash, just a flash, Lynch wanted to pull that thing out of the bed, brace it up against the wall, and beat it till it was pulpy and ruined and couldn’t make that noise anymore.

Lynch stood back and let his sister take the lead. She went around to the far side of the bed and squatted down, getting her head level with her mother’s, her right hand coming up and stroking the sunken cheek.

“Ma, it’s Collie.”

No response, maybe a little catch in the breathing.

“We’re here, ma,” she said. “Johnny’s here too. You just rest. We’ll be right here.”

Rasp. Rasp. Rasp.

Collie looked up at him, and he saw the tears running down both sides of her face. It caught him off guard. He hadn’t heard the crying in her voice. It was his kid sister’s face again after all these years. She stood up and came to him, and he held her and heard her talking into his chest.

“God, Johnny, I don’t know if I can do this again. After Daddy.”

“It’s OK, Collie,” he said. “I’m here this time. I’m right here. I’m always going to be right here from now on, OK?”

He felt her nod, felt her shake against him, felt the tears soaking through his shirt. In the background that fucking rasp rasp rasp. Then rasp rasp no rasp. Something that had been beeping stopped and started to whine, and Collie spun away from him. She was at the bed, taking the corpse in her arms, pulling it up against her, saying not yet, not yet, not yet.

Lynch putting his hand on Collie’s shoulder, making some pointless shushing sound, her turning to him looking as hurt as anyone he’d ever seen, saying, “She didn’t even know I was here, Johnny. God, Johnny, what kind of bitch am I?”

Lynch holding her again. “She knew, Collie. It’s OK. She knew.”

Feeling his heart go out of him. Feeling something important slip away that he would never have back again. Feeling his sister against him like an extra lung, like it was the only way he could breathe just then. Like it was the only way either of them could breathe. And his own breath coming then in that same fucking rasp, hard to get it in all of a sudden, through the tears.

Lynch drove his sister to an all-night diner on Huron, down toward the Drive.

“I feel like shit, Johnny, dragging you out to eat, but I haven’t had anything since breakfast.”

“What, you think mom would want you to starve?” Their mother was always shoving food at them whenever they’d visit, always saying they looked too thin.

A little laugh out of Collie. “No, mom wouldn’t want that, now would she?”

She ordered a cobb salad. Lynch ordered a Reuben.

“So,” she said, “you gonna tell me what happened to your head?”

“Got shot a little.”

Collie bolted upright in her seat. “Jesus, Johnny, what do you mean a little?”

“Guy hit a wall near me, I caught a few fragments. Gonna be fine. Itches like hell, though.”

“And you were gonna tell me about this when?”

“Just happened, Collie.”

“I do worry about you, you know. Though I gotta say, the eyepatch kind of works for you.”

The waitress dropped off the food. Most of the salad looked like it had been shipped in from California by slow train.

“Nice place,” Collie said. “You still know how to show a girl a good time.”

“Speaking of showing girls a good time...”

Collie raised her eyebrows. “My god, John Lynch is seeing somebody?”

“Only been a couple of dates, but it feels right.”

“So spill.”

“Name’s Liz Johnson. She’s a reporter with the Tribune.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“She hot?”

“Smokin’ hot.”

“Well, she better treat you right or I’m coming down and kicking some ass.”

“Cool,” Lynch said. “Girl fight.” Collie threw a piece of wilted lettuce at him.

They worked on the food a bit, Lynch actually having to walk to the kitchen to get somebody to bring out more coffee.

“Guess we need to talk about the details,” said Collie.

“Yeah. Figure what, Thursday for the wake – have that at Fitzpatricks – Friday for the funeral?”

“I guess,” she said.

“Talked to a priest down here. He said he could do the service, handle that end of things.”

“I hate leaving it all on you, Johnny.”

“Jesus, Collie, you got a family. I just got me. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“I know, just this last year, I know you had to take up a lot of slack with mom.”

“You did what you could, Collie.”

She looked out the window for a long moment, Lynch knowing she was fighting tears, not wanting to let him see just then. She’d grown up tough.

“We can talk about the house and whatever later,” Lynch said, “but I was thinking I could buy out your end if you want, rent it out. Finished with everything there is to do at my place a few years ago, and God knows mom’s place could stand some updating. Give me something to do.”

Little smile from Collie. “Maybe I could come down some day, help with the tile.”

Lynch smiled back. “That’s the extent of your training, as I recall, wiping up grout. Bring Tommy down with you. I could show him a few things. Really don’t see you guys enough.”

“Yeah. Let’s do that. Let’s make sure.”

“Anything out of the place you really want?”

“Her old sewing table. I’d like to get that.”

“Sure. We’ll go through the place, see what we want.”

They finished their meals, had some bad pie, talking easier than they had in years, Collie not heading home until after two.

Back at his condo, Lynch poured one stiff drink into a highball glass, then screwed the top on the bottle and put it back up in the cabinet over the stove. One stiff one was OK, but he wasn’t going to leave the bottle out and swim in it. Not tonight. There’d been a message from Liz on his machine, and he wanted to call, wanted her to come over, wanted her. But he didn’t feel like he should go from his mom to his sister to her like that, not that quick. Didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t want to think period.

CHAPTER 29 – EFFINGHAM, ILLINOIS

 

Weaver had everybody muster in his room at 9am. He’d run out early, picked up a mess of Kripsy Kremes, little noblese oblige, prove he was one of the guys. Weaver wished there was a Dunkin’ Donuts in town. Krispy Kremes were good warm, but he’d take a Dunkin’ at room temperature any day. What he really wanted was a coffee, but the boys would be shooting today, so coffee was out for them, and he wasn’t going to drink it in front of them.