CHAPTER 3
It’s almost four thirty, and the whole family is sitting around the kitchen table set with empty jelly jar glasses, plates, and silverware on the threadbare green quilted place mats Katie sewed in home ec ages ago, waiting for Patrick. No one has seen him since yesterday afternoon. Patrick bartends nights at Ironsides, so presumably, he was there until closing, but he never came home last night. They have no idea where he is. Meghan keeps texting him, but, no surprise to any of them, he’s not answering his phone.
Joe noticed Patrick’s empty, perfectly made twin bed on the way to the bathroom early this morning. He paused before continuing down the hall, his focus drifting above where Patrick’s head should’ve been to the poster on the wall of Bruins center Patrice Bergeron. Joe shook his head at Bergy and sighed. Part of Joe wanted to go in and mess up the blankets and sheets, make it look as if Patrick had been home and was already up and out, just so Rosie wouldn’t worry. But that’s not a believable ruse anyway. If Patrick had come home, he’d still be in there, passed out until at least noon.
It’s best if Rosie knows the truth and is allowed to express her concerns. Joe can then listen and nod and say nothing, concealing his own darker theories beneath a veiled silence. What Joe is capable of imagining is far worse than anything Rosie might cook up. The lad drinks too much, but he’s twenty-three. He’s young. Joe and Rosie have their eyes on it, but the excessive drinking isn’t where either of their real worries lie.
Rosie’s terrified that he’s going to get some girl pregnant. This highly religious woman actually slips condoms into her son’s wallet. One at a time. Poor Rosie is gravely mortified each time she checks inside and finds only a couple of bucks and no condom, often many times in the same week. But she always resupplies him, sometimes with a little cash, too. She then makes the sign of the cross and says nothing.
Although Joe wishes Patrick had a steady girlfriend, someone with a name and a nice face and a pretty smile who Patrick cared enough about to bring home to Sunday supper, Joe can live with the womanizing. Hell, part of him even admires the boy. Joe also can forgive him for not coming home at night and for the time he “borrowed” Donny’s car and totaled it. Joe’s more worried about the drugs.
He’s never held this kind of suspicion with the other three kids and has no direct evidence that Patrick is using. Yet. He can’t help finishing that thought every time with a “yet,” and so therein lies Joe’s worry. Whenever Joe’s working the midnight shift and gets called to the Montego Bay boat launch or some other secluded parking lot to arrest some punks for drug possession, he finds himself first searching the young faces for Patrick’s. He hopes to God he’s wrong and is being unnecessarily paranoid, but there’s a familiar attitude in these kids that reminds him too much of Patrick, an apathy and recklessness beyond the normal sense of invincibility of young people. It worries Joe more than he’d like to admit.
He’s not a stranger to arresting family, and it’s no fun. He caught his brother-in-law Shawn literally red-handed, stained head to toe in exploded red dye, with a thick, crisp stack of one-dollar bills sandwiched between two fifties shoved inside the pocket of his hoodie—only minutes after a bank was robbed in City Square. Another brother-in-law, Richie, is still doing time for drug trafficking back in the late nineties. Joe remembers eyeing Richie through the rearview, handcuffed and staring out the backseat window of his cruiser, and Joe felt ashamed, as if he’d been the one who committed a crime. Rosie was heartbroken. He never wants to put another relative in the back of his car again, especially not his own son.
“Meghan, text him,” says Rosie, her arms crossed.
“I just did, Ma,” says Meghan.
“Then do it again.”
Rosie’s concern is deteriorating to anger. Sunday supper is nonnegotiable for the kids, especially on a Sunday that Joe is home, and to be this late is approaching unforgivable. Meanwhile, Rosie will keep cooking the food that was already overcooked a half hour ago. The roast beef will be dry, tasteless leather, the mashed potatoes will be a bowl of gray glue, and the canned green beans will have been boiled beyond recognition. As he’s done for twenty-five years, Joe will get through supper with a lot of salt, a couple of beers, and no complaints.
The girls have a harder time with Sunday supper. Katie is vegan. Each week she passionately lectures them about animal cruelty and the outrageously disgusting practices of the meat industry while the rest of them, minus Meghan, all shovel in heavily salted mouthfuls of overcooked blood sausage.
Meghan typically rejects most of the meal because of fat and calorie content. She’s a dancer for the Boston Ballet and, as far as Joe can tell, eats only salads. She usually picks at the obliterated canned vegetable while the rest of them, minus Katie, fill up on meat and potatoes. Meghan’s not too thin, but her eyes always look so hungry, following the movement of their forks like a caged lion stalking a family of baby gazelles. Between the two girls, you need a degree from college to learn and memorize all the rules and restrictions surrounding their diets.
JJ and his wife, Colleen, will politely eat anything Rosie puts in front of them. God bless them. That takes some highly skilled manners.
Joe and JJ are a lot alike. They share the same name, the same stocky build, and the same sleepy blue eyes. They both have pasty white skin that blooms an unflattering carnation pink whenever they get excited (the Red Sox win) or angry (the Red Sox choke) and that can sunburn in late-afternoon shade. They both have the same sense of humor that at least half the time Rosie thinks isn’t one bit funny, and they both married women who are far too good for them.
But JJ is a firefighter, and that’s the most striking difference between them. For the most part, Boston firefighters and cops consider themselves brothers and sisters, here to protect and serve this great city and her people, but the firefighters get all the glory, and that bugs the piss out of Joe. Firefighters are always the big heroes. They show up at someone’s house and everyone cheers and thanks them. Some of those guys actually get hugged. The cops show up and everyone hides.
Plus firefighters get paid more and do less. It drives Joe nuts when they respond to fender benders where they’re not needed, messing up traffic, getting in the way of BEMS and the police. Joe thinks they’re bored and trying to look busy. We got it, guys. Go back to the house and take another nap.
To be honest, he’s actually grateful that JJ didn’t become a cop. Joe’s proud to be a patrol officer, but he wouldn’t wish this life on any of his kids. Still, sometimes Joe feels strangely betrayed by JJ’s career choice, the way a Red Sox player would feel if his son grew up and became a New York Yankee. Part of Joe is busting with pride, and the other part wonders where he went wrong.
“What’s goin’ on, Dad?” asks Katie.
“Huh?” asks Joe.
“You’re all quiet today.”
“Just lost in thought, honey.”
“Havin’ two of them in there can be tough,” ribs JJ.
Joe smiles.
“Now I’m thinkin’ you should go get me a beer,” says Joe to JJ.
“Me, too,” says Katie.
“I’ll have one,” says Colleen.
“No beer until supper,” says Rosie, stopping JJ at the fridge.
Rosie looks up at the kitchen clock. It’s now five o’clock. She continues to stare at the time for what feels like a full minute and then, without warning, slams her wooden spoon down on the counter. She unties her apron and hangs it on the hook. That’s it. They’re eating without Patrick. JJ opens the fridge and retrieves a six-pack of Bud.
Rosie pulls what used to be roast beef out of the oven, or the “taste extractor” as Joe likes to call it, and Meghan helps her transport the entire meal to the small, round table. Everything is overcrowded—elbows bump neighboring elbows, feet kick opposite-facing feet, bowls touch plates, plates touch glasses.
Rosie sits down and says grace, and then everyone rotely says “Amen” and begins passing food.
“Ow, Joe, quit bumping me,” says Rosie, rubbing her shoulder.
“Sorry, honey, there’s no room.”
“There’s plenty of room. Stop fidgeting so much.”
He can’t help it. He had three cups of coffee this morning instead of his usual two, and he’s feeling on edge, wondering where Patrick is.
“Where’s the salt?” asks Joe.
“I got it,” says JJ, who showers the food on his plate and then hands the shaker over to his father.
“Is that all you’re having?” Rosie asks Katie, looking at her big white plate sporting only a modest mouthful of wilted gray beans.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“How about some potato?”
“You put butter in it.”
“Just a little bit.”
Katie rolls her eyes. “Ma, I’m not just a little bit vegan. I’m vegan. I don’t eat dairy.”
“And what’s your excuse?” asks Rosie, referring to Meghan’s similarly empty plate.
“Do you have any salad?” asks Meghan.
“Yeah, I’d like a salad,” says Katie.
“There’s some lettuce and a cucumber in the fridge. Go ahead,” says Rosie, sighing and waving the back of her hand at them. “You girls are so difficult to feed.”
Meghan pops up, opens the fridge, finds the two ingredients and nothing else, and sets herself up at the counter.
“How about some cow?” offers JJ, extending the platter of roast beef under his sister’s nose.
“Stop it. That’s disgusting,” says Katie, pushing the plate back toward him.