“We're acquainted. But you do know the family history …”
“ ‘Course I do. Her grandfather was my doctor. Nothing wrong with the Quinns.”
“No dire implications. None at all. The child, I'm told, appeared out of nowhere. Do you know the grandmother?”
“Margaret? Not well, just to arrange the kids’ get-togethers. Why all the questions?”
“Curiosity.”
“Killed the cat, mister. What did you say your name was? Why are you so interested in the Quinns?”
Throwing a five-dollar bill on the counter, he reached for his hat. “I didn't, I'm not.” Hiding beneath the brim, he rose to leave.
She lifted the glass to her lips and closed her eyes to take a sip. “Who are you?” she asked, but he was already gone. The door appeared to have never opened, and the other people in the room took no notice of his departure. “You know that fella?” she asked the bartender.
Engrossed by the basketball game, Jocko shook his head and flipped his towel to the other shoulder.
A moment's indecision scuttled any chance she might have had, for when Eve stepped through the doorway, she found nobody on the streets. The snow had stopped, and the temperature had dropped by ten degrees. Shivering, she walked as far as the bridge, within earshot of the waters far below lapping against the pilings. The sky, broken by clouds that hid and revealed the stars, closed heavily on her head, and she scanned the empty sidewalks for some sign of him. But the footprints in the snow jumbled into one inscrutable rutty path, and there was no diminutive man receding to the horizon, no coat and hat, not a thing. The doorbells jingled when Eve walked back in, and the bartender glanced once from the basketball game. The man in the Pirates cap had ordered a fresh beer. The family had finished their plate of fries and relaxed in their booth, fully sated, flipping through the jukebox playlist. The girl in the corner carried on her imaginary conversation. The bartender gave up on the home team and switched over to an Irish folk concert on PBS. Chilled and sullen, Eve cursed her ex under her breath and sat back on her stool, her whiskey sour acrid and foul. The stranger's coffee mug stood in place, and she was startled to find a thin slick of ice skimming the dark surface. Why had he asked about her little boy's friends? Thoughts of her son and his stillborn pain swirled in her mind.
Once upon a time, Sean had been just and fully hers, the child she bore, the infant at her breast in the middle of the night, the boy she taught to speak and walk, who began to leave her—imperceptibly at first, and then later he orbited into school and found friends, and she found the blank mysteries of his mind and heart too much to bear. This way of his becoming. The sense of loss of her only son washed over her, and Eve wondered whether Sean would ever be the same, whether the boy she knew and loved would ever come back to her.
20
Crossing the silent neighborhood at nine on Saturday morning, Sean was struck blind by the brilliant sunshine reflecting off the ice and snow. He squinted to see, cast his eyes first skyward toward the sun and then at the whiteness all around, shut his eyelids and chanced a few steps in comforting darkness, and then tried to focus on the path for as long as he could bear. His mother had warned him, before she left for work, to wear a hat with a brim, but Sean had ignored her advice, and halfway to Mrs. Quinn's, he felt he could not turn back despite the pain. Desperate for relief, he headed for the woods, though that route would add minutes to his journey, to find some shade, however sparse among the bare sweet-gum, hemlock, and oak.