Let The Great World Spin: A Novel - By Colum McCann Page 0,74

in spangled makeup.

—Every day he had a new thing to say about that castle. That was their own little game, and Jazzlyn loved playing it, word.

She grabbed hold of Ciaran’s arm.

—That’s all, she said. That’s all I have to say. That’s it. That’s fucking it, ’scuse me for saying it.

A chorus of amens went around the gathered crowd and then she turned to some of the other women and made a comment of some sorts, something strange and clipped about going to the bathroom in the castle. A ripple of laughter went around a portion of the crowd and an odd thing occurred—she began quoting some poet whose name I didn’t catch, a line about open doors and a single beam of sunlight that struck right to the center of the floor. Her Bronx accent threw the poem around until it seemed to fall at her feet. She looked down sadly at it, its failure, but then she said that Corrigan was full of open doors, and he and Jazzlyn would have a heck of a time of it wherever they happened to be; every single door would be open, especially the one to that castle.

She leaned then against Ciaran’s shoulder and started to weep: I’ve been a bad mother, she said, I’ve been a terrible goddamn mother.

—No, no, you’re fine.

—There weren’t ever no goddamn castle.

—There’s a castle for sure, he said.

—I’m not an idiot, she said. You don’t have to treat me like a child.

—It’s okay.

—I let her shoot up.

—You don’t have to be so hard on yourself…

—She shot up in my arms.

She turned her face to the sky and then grasped the nearest lapel.

—Where’re my babies?

—She’s in heaven now, don’t you worry.

—My babies, she said. My baby’s babies.

—They’re just fine, Till, said a woman near the grave.

—They’re being looked after.

—They’ll come see you, T.

—You promise me? Who’s got them? Where are they?

—I swear it, Till. They’re okay.

—Promise me.

—God’s honest, said a woman.

—You better fucking promise, Angie.

—I promise. All right already, T. I promise.

She leaned against Ciaran and then turned her face, looked him in the eye, and said: You remember what we done? You ’member me?

Ciaran looked like he was handling a stick of dynamite. He wasn’t sure whether to hold it and smother it, or throw it as far away from himself as he could. He flicked a quick look at me, then the preacher, but then he turned to her and put his arms around her and held her very tight. He said: I miss Corrie too. The other women came around and they took their turns with him. They were hugging him, it seemed, as if he were the embodiment of his brother. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows, but there was something good and proper about it—one after the other they came.

He reached into his pocket and took out the keyring with the pictures of the babies, handed it to Jazzlyn’s mother. She stared at it, smiled, then suddenly pulled away and slapped Ciaran’s face. He looked like he was grateful for it. One of the cops half grinned. Ciaran nodded and pursed his lips, then stepped backward toward me.

I had no idea what sort of complications I had stepped myself into.

The preacher coughed and asked for silence and said he had a few final words. He went through the formalities of prayer and the old biblical Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, but then he said that it was his firm belief that ashes could someday return to wood, that was the miracle not just of heaven, but the miracle of the actual world, that things could be reconstituted and the dead could come alive, most especially in our hearts, and that’s how he’d like to end things, and it was time to lay Jazzlyn to rest because that’s what he wanted her to do, rest.

When the service was ended the cops put the handcuffs back on Tillie’s wrists. She wailed just one single time. The cops walked her off. She broke down into soundless sobs.

I accompanied Ciaran out of the cemetery. He took off his jacket and hung it over his shoulder, not nonchalantly, but to beat the heat. We went down the pathway toward the gates on Lafayette Avenue. Ciaran walked a quarter of a step in front of me. People can look different from hour to hour depending on the angle of daylight. He was older than me, in his mid-thirties or so, but he looked younger