waiter came to clear our plates, Hal settled back in his chair and issued a small, satisfied groan.
“How about some dessert?” He had always loved sweets, could pack them away like a longshoreman.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
I lifted my face to the waiter. “Just coffee, then.”
The waiter marched briskly away, returning moments later with cups and saucers and a small pitcher of cream.
Hal shook his head with a bitter laugh. “A fucking freeway.”
“I know.”
“Mom hated freeways,” he said. “She hated driving.”
“What could we do?”
He shrugged. The answer was what it was, though I also felt his disappointment: I was his father, I should have done something, carried an entire highway in my hands if that’s what the situation required. He took a sip of his coffee and returned it to its place on the table. A shadow fell over his face.
“You know, maybe I shouldn’t say this. But when we got to the cemetery, I realized I’d forgotten all about Sam. I mean, I knew he was there. But somehow it hadn’t really sunk in that we were burying Mom in the same place.”
“That’s perfectly understandable. If you want to know the truth, I thought the same thing.”
“Yeah, well. Even so. He was my brother.” He frowned, disconcerted. “Just that word. Brother. Even to say it.”
It was almost eleven; the room was nearly empty. At a long table in the rear of the restaurant, a group of busboys were smoking cigarettes while they rolled out clean napkins and silverware for the next day.
“This may sound, I don’t know, kind of weird,” Hal said, “but did you ever think I was him?”
“How do you mean?”
“Not that I believe in reincarnation, any of that. It’s probably the stupidest idea I ever heard of, that you come back as a bug or something. But still, it must have seemed strange, the timing of it. His dying, then me born right after.” He stopped and shook his head. “I don’t even know what I’m saying.”
In fact, the idea was not so surprising. Once or twice Meredith and I had even said as much, not really believing it, but trying to take some small comfort in the idea. Over time, though, as we spoke of Sam less and less, the notion had faded away.
“Never,” I said, and did my best to smile. “Not once.”
“Not at all?”
“I promise. Sam was Sam, you’re you. That’s the whole story.”
Silence fell again. “You know,” Hal said, “sometimes Mom, I don’t know, she would look at me. Just look at me. And I would feel like she was seeing somebody else.”
“Sam you mean.”
He shrugged a little nervously, his eyes cast down to the table. “Or maybe me, but also not me. I remember once when it happened, I was doing homework in the kitchen, back before she got so sick. I looked up and she was watching me, you know, that kind of intense look she sometimes had? And I thought, ‘I’m Sam. I’m not Hal. I’m Sam, right here.’ Like I knew. I almost told her.” He lifted a little in his chair. “Crazy, huh?”
In the split second that our eyes met, I saw how painful this memory was for him. It came from a place inside him that I had never seen.
“I don’t think it’s crazy at all. I wish you’d told me.”
He laughed uneasily and looked away. “Now, that would have been some conversation.”
We paid our bill and left. The sidewalks were empty, like the corridors of an abandoned city. A crisp breeze made me pull my collar around my neck as we walked: a last vestige of the spring chill, sneaking in behind the day’s departed heat. When we reached the door of the hotel, Hal stopped and took my elbow.
“Listen,” he said, and looked at his watch. “I probably should have said something before. But if it’s okay, I’m going to go meet some people.”
I was astonished. “What are you talking about? Who do you know in Philadelphia?”
“You remember Dave Rosen, Josh Miner, those guys? They both go to Penn now. I called them when you were asleep just to say hello, and they said they were planning to go out later. They asked if I wanted to come along.”
“Where would they be going? It’s nearly midnight.”
He tipped a shoulder, doing his best to look as if the invitation was inconsequential to him. “Some place on South Street. I don’t think it’s far. I can grab a cab. I think Josh has