The Comfort of Lies (6 page)

Mrs. Graham’s wrinkles deepened as she frowned and shook her head at Tia’s suggestion. “Send him to a home? Must we talk about that again?” She closed her eyes for a moment. “No. No one else would tend Sam like I can. Thank you for worrying about me, but no thank you. If Sam goes away, it’s because I’m dead.”

At this point, Tia was supposed to give Mrs. Graham the social
worker nod, to indicate deference and understanding, and then pull out brochures to encourage her to join Tia in checking out nursing homes for Mr. Graham. Mrs. G’s fragility, high blood pressure, and erratic blood sugar demanded it. Tia knew that if she opened the poor woman’s pocketbook, she’d find the box of licorice that Mrs. G chipped away at all day, Mrs. G’s self-prescribed mood stabilizer. Mr. and Mrs. Graham should be marked as being “At severe risk” when Tia filled out the Grahams’ weekly report, but she knew that check mark would lead to a home visit by someone who wielded more influence than Tia; someone who’d bully and push Sam and Marjorie Graham into leaving the home where they’d lived for their entire marriage.

Tia hadn’t the heart to take them away from each other. She made a vow to get Mrs. G to come in for extra visits so Tia could keep a closer watch on her.

 • • • 

Tia went straight from work to Southie. She exchanged her button-down oxford shirt for a tight Red Sox T-shirt she kept in her desk. She rimmed her eyes with a thick black line and pulled a tighter notch on the worn red belt holding up her black jeans.

Tia hated Friday nights in Jamaica Plain, where politically active men who made her feel inadequate filled the bars, men whose eyes remained locked on Tia’s chest as they lectured about building cooperative housing for immigrants. They made her crave the old neighborhood. A Southie guy might rant about immigrants ruining the world as he stared at your breasts, but he didn’t try to pretend that he wasn’t looking. Most important, if you wrote a Southie guy a letter about his long-lost daughter, you’d hear back from him—even if he only said, “Stay the fuck away!”

She switched trains at Park Street to catch the Red line, getting off a stop early so she could walk the scenic route to Fianna’s Bar. She missed the speed of this train. Living in Jamaica Plain she was forced to use the slower Green line, which ran along trolley tracks for half the routes.

Ocean air sweetened the street. After-work runners crammed
Day Boulevard, taking advantage of the wide street next to the beach. With each step toward her bar, she felt more relaxed. Southie’s proximity to the water had driven up real estate prices to the point where her friends couldn’t afford to buy houses—she knew that—but still, it made breathing possible for her in a way that JP never would.

Glossy wood and brass railings ran the length of Fianna’s, nothing like the old-men bars where Tia’s father once drank. Mirrors lining the walls made everything seem shinier and happier than the truth. Dining customers sat in booths reserved for those having a meal; tables ran a pecking order. At the back, farthest from the bar, cliques of newcomers hung out. Most of them lived in the sanded-wood-floor condominiums and ran the Sugar Bowl ocean loop—the mile-long cement ring surrounding Castle Island, the pride of South Boston—dressed in their college T-shirts. In the middle of the room sat the middle-aged local women—genteel women from the Point, the best area of Southie—who found the bar a respite from taverns filled with men like their husbands.

Up front was reserved for Tia’s friends, kids who weren’t kids anymore, because they owned the place.

Tia had once fantasized showing Nathan off at Fianna’s after they’d married, or at least after he’d left his wife. Nathan would fit in, she’d thought, bringing front and center his raised-in-Brooklyn side instead of his college-professor side. The women would admire Nathan’s built-to-brawl body, how he looked tough but not too forceful.

Tia and Nathan never went to Fianna’s. During the Nathan year, Tia rarely went at all. Since Honor’s birth, she visited too often.

“Hey, Ritchie,” Tia greeted the bartender. He and Tia went to school together; two of the few in their crowd who’d transferred from Catholic to public school. Ritchie’s mom was broke after his father died; Tia’s mother didn’t want to waste the money she’d hoped would finance uncovered college costs.

“Lookin’ good, Tia.” Ritchie winked. He poured Kahlúa, milk, and ice into a silver shaker and shook until it frothed to a peak. Her drink would be extra strong.

Tia carried the drink to the table where everybody knew not only
her name but also her mother’s name, that Tia’s father was a drunken deserter, and that Kevin had popped her cherry.

No one knew about Honor.

“Yo.” Kevin lifted his chin in greeting.

Bobby Kerrigan pulled out the chair next to him. Bobby’s crush on Tia began when they were fourteen and continued right through his marriage, his divorce, and all his relationships after.

Moira Murphy and Deirdre Barsamian—formerly known as the Sweeney sisters—Irish twins, were dressed alike. Loose sweatshirts hid their marriage-and-motherhood fat. Michael Dwyer, the crowd’s big shot, had hung his suit jacket over the back of his chair, a reminder to all of his significant city hall job.

“What’s up, Tia?’ ” Michael asked. “Save any old ladies today?”

“You wish your work was even a quarter as important as Tia’s,” Bobby said.

“Really? City hall doesn’t compare to some center for old ladies?” Michael asked. “No offense, Tia. I was just kidding.”

“Yeah, being the pope of payback jobs is gonna get you into heaven,” Bobby jabbed.

“No offense, taken, Michael.” The smooth sweet drink eased through Tia one muscle at a time. “Why don’t you come by sometime? To the center. Maybe you could find us some funding that I don’t have to beg for. Writing grants is killing me.”

Tia smiled wide. Michael loved playing important and she wouldn’t mind some of that largesse coming to her agency.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Michael winked at her.

“Hey, how’s Robin? Any chance she’s coming back?” Kevin quickly covered his question, which rang so obviously of his crush. “Maybe she’ll fly in and surprise you with a ring. The two of you can finally get married.”

“Really, Kev? You’re really going there?” Tia asked.

He put a hand on Tia’s arm, suddenly all serious. “Hey, you know I’m just joking, right? I don’t care if she’s a dyke; she’s a good shit. Better looking than anything around here, present company excluded, of course.”

Tia fell into the drone of meaningless talk.

Jokes flew.

Old stories were retold.

Moira and Deidre did their wickedly spot-on imitations of anyone missing.

Six? Seven? How many drinks? Southie bartenders poured them twice the size of those downtown or in JP, so she was twice as high as the number of drinks would suggest.

Ritchie shouted last call for the second time.

“I’ll drive you home, Tia,” Bobby said.

“Better pray she doesn’t puke in your car,” Kevin said.

“Fuck you, Sullivan.” Bobby took Tia’s coat off the back of her chair. He placed a gentle hand on Tia’s back.

They remained quiet on the ride. Tia feared she would throw up if she tried to make conversation. Bobby hit the disc button, and Eminem came on.

She and Nathan had made love listening to CDs Nathan brought her, from the romance of Sam Cooke, to the pounding beat of The Pussycat Dolls. He layered soft over exciting in and out of bed. One minute he’d bring her to a crashing explosion; an hour later, he’d ask if she got enough intellectual stimulation from her job.

Nathan brought her an array of new music, books, and films. He introduced her to cutting-edge ideas in the literature of gerontology, singers like the Nigerian-German Ayo, and encouraged her to watch documentaries like
Waste Land,
which he thought would broaden her world.

He told her she was beautiful, smart,
and
good. “The whole package,” he’d say. “That’s what you are.” She fought her fear that he considered her some sort of Southie idiot savant.

Ayo’s “Down on My Knees” was the soundtrack of her pregnancy, breaking her heart, until she finally deleted it and all the other musical and literary traces of Nathan from her life.

They pulled up in front of her house. Bobby turned off the engine. “I’ll walk you up.”

“Mmm, don’t bother.” She tried not to slur. “Just get home safe. The roads are such a mess Friday nights.”

“You’re plastered. Let me make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted.

“I want to help you.” Bobby’s strawberry-blond hair and blue eyes shined in the dark. Too bright.

Tia tried to flip the lock to get out. Bobby leaned over the console of his shiny red Corvette and released it for her. Bobby made the only real money in the crowd, realizing earlier than most how valuable Southie property could be, especially the houses on the waterfront. He knew when to pull back and when to buy property for himself.

Bobby’s hand on her shoulder felt good. Warm and comforting, like a big blanket of you’re-going to-be-okay. She rested against him. Just for a minute. Bobby’s extra pounds made good leaning material. The music played. Bobby went slowly. He put an arm around her and strummed his fingers on her shoulder in time to the song. He reached for her hand. He tucked her fingers in his.

“You get more beautiful every year.” Bobby brought her hand to his lips. “Honest. You’ve spoiled me for anyone else.”

“Where’d you learn those lines?” She let him trace the top of her shoulder. “Corny old Bobby.”

“Excuse me, college girl.” He tipped her face to his and planted sweet kisses on each cheek. Bobby Kerrigan, secret softie. “You know I like that, right? That you went to college? How else do you get anywhere in this world? I admire you, Tia.”

You drive me crazy, Tia. You make me so damned hot, Tia,
Nathan would say.

Bobby’s hand went lower. He played with the bottom of her Red Sox shirt. She pulled away, for a moment becoming, while not sober, not as drunk. His palm brushed her waist where pregnancy stretch marks and puckered skin striated her flesh into an unrecognizable terrain. If he touched her, he’d know her secrets.

She hadn’t slept with anyone since the day the stick showed that positive pink line.

CHAPTER 6

Juliette

Juliette opened her eyes to the welcome sight of Nathan holding her favorite mug: sturdy, big, and rough textured. She struggled to a sitting position, already wanting her first sip, Pavlovian in her response to the rich smell of dark roast. “You’ll never leave me,” Nathan used to joke. “You couldn’t live without your morning coffee delivery.”

Teasing like that was long gone. Much more than trust had been broken when Nathan cheated; a level of ease had disappeared. Kidding about affairs was crossed off the marital banter list six years ago, when the idea of getting her own morning coffee sounded just fine—a terrific bargain to never have to see him again. But, well, life was filled with
buts
, wasn’t it?

Max’s screech drifted in through the bedroom door, followed by Lucas’s louder bellow.

“What are they fighting over?” Juliette asked.

“Some shirt that Max swears you gave him but Lucas says still belongs to him.”

“What does it look like?”

“Blue?” Nathan sat on the edge of the bed. “Maybe green?” He ran a hand down her arm.

Nathan was forty-two. She was a year younger. Worry lines,
which on Juliette portended the not-too-distant day when she’d become invisible, added gravitas to his good looks.

“Are they dressed?” Juliette brushed off his hand, though even as she batted away temptation, she considered it. Locking the door and making love, even if it was silent surreptitious sex, offered a moment’s sanctuary from Wednesday, the worst day of her week. Deliveries poured in. Customers woke up realizing they had to look perfect by some weekend function, and only juliette&gwynne could perform that miracle. Lucas and Max both had practices to which she had to somehow shuffle them in between her work.

Juliette hated Wednesdays.

Increasingly louder shouts came from the boys.

“I better make sure they’re okay,” she said.

Nathan held his hands up. “Stay. I’ll deal with them.” He leaned over and kissed her. “Rain check?”

She squeezed his love handle. “Rain check.”

By the time she’d brushed her teeth and pulled on her robe, the sound of fighting had given way to the clicking of computer keys. Both boys, but particularly Lucas, at fourteen, thought their parents’ refusal to allow computers in their bedrooms was insane. For Juliette, it meant keeping her boys safe. She’d read too many times about some nut going after a kid he’d met on the Internet. She could easily imagine her sweet Max drifting out to a playground where, instead of a fellow Civilization video game player, he’d find a thirty-five-year-old killer pervert.

Juliette stood at the door of the upstairs study, enjoying the sight of them bent toward the screen—Lucas light-haired like her, Max dark like Nathan—and wished she could let them be. Instead she entered, kicking away clutter and boy debris. In her sons’ world, computers, soccer balls, and dirty laundry coexisted quite happily. She was eternally grateful they had moved to a house with enough space to hide the boys’ messes.

“Good morning, honeys.” Juliette leaned down to kiss Lucas’s head. His hair, still damp from a shower, smelled sweetly grassy. She inhaled until he ducked away.

“Morning,” he muttered without looking up.

Juliette hugged her younger boy, who smelled far less sweet. “Mmm. Shower time, it’s getting late.”

“Can we have something special for breakfast?” Max bounced with enthusiasm in that way only young boys could.

“Could you clean this room before breakfast?” She pointed in turn at a crumpled sweatshirt, a bowl lined with dried flecks of the previous night’s chips, and mugs flaky with sugary remnants of something unhealthy.

“Will you make waffles if we do?” Max wiggled his eyebrows and gave a “Don’tcha love me?” grin.

Waffles.