by his power, and by his personality, too; by the big voice, the vigor, the gift he had for colorful language, the sheer force of the man. On the wall behind his desk at Scanlan & Co., he had hung a framed copy of a quotation about Teddy Roosevelt: “The baby at every christening, the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral.” No one who knew John Scanlan had to ask what it meant. Anyone who had ever been to a christening, a wedding, a funeral he attended knew he outshone the baby, the bride, the corpse. He could inspire love in an instant from anyone who happened to be in his good graces. It was just that so few people ever were.
Tommy could not remember a time when he had ever been in his father’s good graces. As he watched, Mark loped across the parking lot and got into his father’s car.
Tommy turned the radio back on. Sinatra was singing “A Foggy Day in London Town,” Tommy’s favorite song. He closed his office door and sat down at his desk. From his file drawer he took out the photograph of his wife and placed it on one corner of the desk. Another baby. More saddle shoes. Another place at the table to be filled. His stomach had turned sour and his head hurt.
In a half hour, he would go over to Sal’s for lunch. He could think things over. Not whether he would go to his father’s or not; he’d be there, and he’d have Connie with him, even if it meant another argument. It was a question of what he’d do when he got there. He looked at the photograph, at those beautiful eyes. Another baby. He could only push his father so far. The last time he’d taken him on had been the now unimaginable night when he’d won his wife. Tommy would always think of that as his greatest triumph.
“Shit, what can it be now?” he said, as the strings swelled and Sinatra finished singing.
4
NAME THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS,” JOHN Scanlan said absently as he stood in the kitchen of his house mixing martinis.
“Sloth,” Maggie said. “Gluttony, envy.” She stuck her finger into a jar of olives, trying to coax out the three remaining in the bottom. “Avarice,” she added. “Lust.”
“The twelve apostles.”
“John,” Maggie began, as she always did.
Her grandfather had something on his mind. She had known it as soon as she’d seen him that morning, his blue eyes dim, as though turned within. For just a moment, when he saw Connie and Tommy enter the house together, Maggie’s father’s hand held protectively at the small of Connie’s back, John’s eyes had brightened, blazed, danced. Now he seemed preoccupied.
Maggie had been able to recite the deadly sins since first grade. The apostles were a throwaway question. Most recently her grandfather had asked her to recite from memory the Passion According to St. Mark, and Maggie had been amazed when she had learned it successfully. She was even more amazed to be corrected by her grandfather on two small phrases. When she got home and looked at the New Testament, she had seen that he had been right. She wondered who had made him memorize the Passion; she couldn’t imagine anyone making her grandfather do anything.
John filled the glasses from a silver shaker with his initials on it which his wife had purchased because she thought it might make a good heirloom someday. He picked up the matching silver tray and turned to Maggie. “Come into the living room for the entertainment,” he said, and his eyes glistened, his wide mouth creased into a humorless tight-lipped grin.
“What entertainment?” Maggie was still going after the olives.
“Ha!” her grandfather said, pushing through the swinging door.
Maggie heard a little stage cough behind her and knew that her cousin Monica had entered the room. She was wearing the moiré taffeta dress with the high waist and enormous puffed sleeves she had worn the week before for her high school graduation. In it she looked beautiful and virginal, her honey-colored hair flipping up on her shoulders, her nails polished the same color as the add-a-pearl necklace her parents had completed as a graduation gift. When Maggie had stopped after the commencement ceremony to congratulate Helen Malone, who had been in the same graduating class as Monica, Helen had smiled slowly and said, “Your cousin wins the award for best disguise.” Looking over her shoulder at Monica now, Maggie thought