Truth in Advertising Page 0,78
changed much in forty years. Beiges and browns on the walls, the furniture. Cheaply framed posters of Cape Cod, the Freedom Trail, the Boston skyline.
Tom Hanley introduces himself as my father’s attorney, shakes hands, smiles, looks us in the eye. A full head of snow-white hair, stocky, broad-shouldered, fat fingers. Two rings. One a large class ring. Boston College. The other a gold Claddagh ring with a diamond on his wedding finger. He keeps smoothing his tie over his belly, a nervous tic maybe. His tone is more like that of a parish priest about to say a funeral mass.
“Coffee? Water? Something stronger? The restrooms are just down the hall if anyone needs one before we start.”
He’s saying, I’m sorry. I know this is painful. I want to make it a little easier. Boston Irish. Don’t say what you’re feeling. Find another way to say it.
We take our seats. A woman who Tom Hanley introduces as Rosemary sits with a stenograph at the end of the table. And there, on the table in front of Tom Hanley, to the left of his yellow legal pad and gold Cross pen, sit the remains of our father.
“Okay,” Tom Hanley says. “This is the reading of the Last Will and Testament of Edward Lawrence Dolan, Senior. Present at the reading are Thomas Hanley, attorney at law representing the deceased, Rosemary Kelleher, stenographer, and the children of Edward Lawrence Dolan, Senior, Edward Lawrence Dolan, Junior, Kevin Francis Dolan, Maura Ann Dolan-Macaphee, and Finbar Thomsen Dolan.”
He pauses. It feels like church. Why do I keep needing a toilet?
“‘I, Edward Lawrence Dolan, a resident of Bradenton, Florida, and Hyannis, Massachusetts, hereby make this Will and revoke all prior Wills and Codicils. I was born May 17, 1926, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I am not currently married but I was previously married to Emily Kelleher Dolan from October 1955 to 1980 and the marriage ended by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1982. I have four living children.’”
Eddie is looking out the window. Kevin is looking at his iPhone. Maura is examining her nails.
It takes only a few blurred minutes to read through the will itself because there was nothing to bequeath. No money, no houses, no antiques, no art, no cars, no stocks or bonds. Except the letter.
Tom Hanley removes the letter from a binder and lays it out in front of him on the table. He sips from a glass of water. He looks at us. “We good?” No one says anything.
He reads. “‘My dear children.’”
Eddie, stage whisper: “Oh, give me a break.”
Kevin says, in a voice a bit too loud, “Eddie.”
Eddie shakes his head back and forth, stands, and goes to the window, hands in his pockets, back to us. Tom Hanley is unfazed. How many times has he sat in this room, read these kinds of documents to families? Hurt families, fractured families, loving families. Every time drawn back into the past, to the beauty of a memory, the pain, the ongoing tragedy of family. He seems like the kind of guy who’d be a great neighbor.
Tom Hanley continues. “‘My dear children.’”
He pauses, as if a small scold to Eddie, as if to say, You dumb asshole, you still don’t get it, do you?
One day you will sit down and write out something that you know will be read after you die. If you’ve done it all wrong, they will be the words you hope will replace the actions of your life. I wasn’t a very good father. And I wasn’t a very good husband. If you think it is easy for me to write these words you are wrong. I tried. I swear to God Almighty I did. What I tell you now I tell you not as an excuse but so you might understand. Your mother and I grew apart. She stopped being in love with me years before I left. I couldn’t be the man she wanted or needed. I couldn’t get a handle on my anger or, for a long time, my drinking. But just so you know, I did not choose to leave. Though I believe it was for the best in the end, your mother asked me to leave. Your mother had met someone else.
Tom Hanley is channeling Anthony Hopkins because he knows to pause here, the perfect dramatic beat, not too long. He’s ready for this. He’s read the letter before today and knows the effect these words will have on us.
“He’s a liar!” It’s Maura.
“This is