drowned out as the pain seizes him. The pain is like being robed in fire and ice, like being drowned in lava and frozen in a glacier. It feels as though his skin is being stripped away. As though hot iron rods are thrust up into the marrow of his bones. It hurts in his teeth. His balls. His soul.
It hurts eternally.
For he is immortal. And now, so is his pain.
Jess lives in a small house on Staten Island. It was their house once. But Mookie took his name off it a long time ago. Same as he took himself out of their lives. A fact he regrets now. He’s old and has nothing. Almost nothing. He can see Nora. He’ll see her every day if she’ll let him. It’s better than nothing, yeah. But it’s so much less than what he could have had.
He needs to tell her what happened. He can’t tell Jess the truth. How could he? He doesn’t want to poison her with that nonsense. Mookie never let her see any of that before and doesn’t want to start now.
So he can’t say, “Our daughter is alive but down in the dark.”
Or could he? Could he tell her everything? Could he show her?
He’s not sure. He holds the idea. Lets it swish around his head.
First, the hard part: knocking on the door.
Things have changed around here. Not a surprise. A new look out back: white picket, a classic fence, instead of the chain-link he put up. He hears a dog barking out back, too. A little yap. Like a terrier or something. So she has a dog. Potted plants line the steps. Mums. She wasn’t much of a green thumb, always killed plants, but as far as he knows, mums are pretty hardy flowers.
He stands on the stoop. One arm in a sling.
He’s faced gobbos and inhuman crime lords and ancient worm-gods and yet here he’s more scared than he’s been in a long time. Mookie wants to run. Like a gun-shy puppy.
But then he’s doing it even before he realizes it.
Knock knock knock.
Footsteps. Fast approaching.
The door opens and a young girl, maybe twelve years old, stares out. Red hair in pigtails. She squints. “Who are you?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m…” She catches herself. “Not telling you that. Mom!”
She runs back inside the house, slamming the door.
A minute later, a woman comes to the door. A short, squat woman. Hand inside a dishtowel, which is itself inside a glass as she cleans it. “Help you?” she asks.
“You’re not Jess.”
“No. I’m Marie.”
“I want Jess.”
“Jess Stevens?”
“No. Who the hell is Jess Stevens?”
“Lives down the block.”
It strikes him like a fist to the gut. She got remarried.
“Mid-forties?” he asks. “Hair the color of a penny?”
“No. Early thirties. Blonde. Bartender at Coyle’s.” The woman suddenly narrows her eyes. “Wait, are you talking about the woman who used to live here?”
“Yeah. Jess Pearl.”
“Who are you?”
“Her husband.” He sighs. “Ex. Ex-husband.”
The woman’s face falls.
“I’m sorry, but….” She looks suddenly uncomfortable. “She’s… she’s dead.”
“What?” He almost laughs. “She’s not dead.”
“She died… not quite two years ago. Bad hit-and-run accident. Some drunk plowed into her. Accident, I guess. We bought the house out of auction from her – your, ah, her? – daughter. She’d just turned eighteen or something and we put in a bid…” She stops talking. “I’m so sorry.”
Impossible. His thoughts spin around inside his head like a tornado. One second he wants to cry out, push past this woman, find out where they’re hiding Jess. The next second he wants to punch her in the mouth, knock her head clean off her shoulders for lying to him like that. Then he wants to collapse here on the stoop, curl up in a big broken ball of grief and gristle, and weep till the sun goes down and the moon pops up.
All he does is mutter, “Thank you” in a voice he’s not sure is his own. Then he shuffles away from the front door and takes ten steps.
He stands there. This was their house. That was his wife.
Hit-and-run accident.
She died.
She’s dead.
We bought the house out of auction from your daughter.
That wouldn’t have been long before Nora came to him the last time. When she lied to him. And got him to wipe out that nest of gobbos. And shot Werth. Jesus. He always wondered where she got the capital to set up shop so early. From this. From the house sale. And from insurance and whatever money Mookie’d been sending to Jess.