Malcolm didn’t get a lawyer for the closing, out of respect for Hugh. He couldn’t ask Jess to come with him because she’d find out about his side deal, and then what would he do? Stand there looking at his shoes while she asked Hugh a hundred questions? And also, there might not be any going back now, even if he changed his mind, even if Jess made him. As soon as he told Hugh that he wanted to buy the building after all, he set something in motion, and later that very afternoon Bronx Stevie dropped off a check. “From the boss,” he said simply, and then asked for a Guinness. When Malcolm opened the envelope, he found a check written for an amount far larger than the one he’d written when he and Jess bought their house, wiping out all of their savings. Included also was a letter to the loan officer at the bank, explaining Hugh and Malcolm’s long relationship, confirming the money was a gift, free and clear.
“The letter is for show, of course,” Bronx Stevie said, and Malcolm was surprised he’d read it. The envelope had been sealed.
He waited two days to deposit the money. Jess always looked at their month’s-end balance, so he waited until the new month. Rumor was that Hugh bought each of his sons their first homes, and though Malcolm was not na?ve enough to think Hugh thought of him as a son, twenty-four years of working for him must mean something.
After, they celebrated with a bottle of bourbon Hugh had been keeping for a special occasion. Hugh’s lawyer whistled when he saw it, hung around for one, and when he left, Hugh went to his car for a box of cigars, which he offered around the bar. He and Malcolm sat on side-by-side stools, smoking, drinking, talking about the old days, the craziest nights. The time they found a gun on the floor, just lying there under a chair alongside a crumbled napkin. The time someone left an urn of ashes. The time a woman unzipped her dress and stepped out of it, her breasts absolute perfection where they sat in her bra, a silvered C-section scar above her panties, the inscrutable expression on Malcolm’s face when he simply picked up the dress and handed it to her like it was nothing, no big deal, and told her the floor was filthy so she should probably just put it back on. And then, when she did put it back on, right there in front of them, how he’d suggested gently, “Is it time to call it a night?”
There were stories Malcolm had forgotten, but they rose up again unbidden like they’d taken place the day before. He felt so full of joy that he wanted to call Jess, tell her to get down to the bar because there was finally something to celebrate. The bar was his! Officially. Not just in spirit but in name and deed. A place he loved. His. He wanted to ask her if she remembered the night she won the ladies’ darts championship. He wanted to ask her if she remembered when that band called her up during their session, put her on the spot, and she surprised everyone with the most clear-throated rendition of “The Parting Glass.”
“I didn’t even know you knew that song,” Malcolm said at the time.
“Everyone knows that song,” she said. “Everyone here, I mean.”
Her voice was strong and unwavering, and the whole place had hushed to listen. You are full of surprises, he thought that night, looking at her. She had something other women didn’t. She was entirely herself, she never looked left or right to figure out how to be. She could be wild sometimes—dancing and laughing like the rest of them, walking barefoot through town with her high heels hooked on her fingers. But she could be intensely quiet, too. If someone was telling her something important, or if she sensed something was troubling them. If she had something on her mind. He looked over to the corner where she stood to sing that night, but instead of a band set up there was a four-top, three seats taken.
People still talked about their wedding party at the bar. How fun it was despite the short notice, Jess a sober bride. It started at two in the afternoon and by the time everyone left it was dawn the next day, Jess sleeping in a chair with Malcolm’s suit jacket draped around her. Malcolm’s roommate had moved out several months before, so Jess moved in with her overnight bag, said she’d get the rest from Cobie’s when they could borrow a truck. Hugh apologized that he couldn’t be there, but he gave them the party as his gift—a table spread with appetizers and a steep discount on the open bar. He had John hang a sign on the door that said the Half Moon was closed for a private event. Cobie had filled the place with flowers, mason jars full of daisies. Jess’s high school friends had gone in on little bottles of champagne as favors, and Gail Gephardt made the cake. Jess’s parents stayed for about two hours, sipping drinks, still shell-shocked, Malcolm supposed. He tried to put himself in their shoes and decided it was nothing to feel insulted about. Jess’s mother was more disappointed than her father, for her girl to have all that promise and then get herself bogged down with a baby before she’d had a chance to find her footing. To be tied to a local bartender for life. “Ouch,” Malcolm said when Jess reported that, and she instantly went pale. “Oh my God, why did I tell you that?” She hugged him. “Because it’s insane and she doesn’t mean it. When she’s worried she lashes out.”
Gail Gephardt kept glancing over at the Ryans during the brief ceremony at the courthouse, making sure their faces didn’t imply Jess could have done one bit better than her boy. After, the parents all agreed that it would be nice to get a priest to bless the union. Gail said a baby was always good news no matter what the circumstances, but Maureen Ryan didn’t say a word about that.
Everyone knew about the baby coming, though Jess’s mother had cautioned her not to tell anyone until she was at least twelve weeks along.
“Why not?” Jess had asked. They were young and beautiful. Everything was ahead of them.
* * *
Malcolm said he wished his father were still alive to celebrate, and Hugh put his drink down on the bar, as if hearing the thought said aloud took the wind out of him. “You’re a lot like him,” Hugh said after a moment. “Except—”
“Except what?” Sometimes Malcolm got the feeling they’d known each other better than Hugh ever let on.
“I don’t know.” Did you like him? Malcolm wanted to ask, but it felt far too pathetic, hoping his long-dead father was a person people liked. When Hugh finally left, wishing him the best once more, Malcolm picked up his phone to call Jess but got a shock when he saw the time. The closing had wrapped up around two, Hugh’s lawyer had left around four, and it was already eleven thirty. He texted instead.
What are you doing?
Half asleep. Signed and sealed?
All good
Heading home?
In a bit
Let’s celebrate this wknd
Yes definitely
He picked up the near-empty bottle Hugh had left behind and looked at the label.
“Surprised he opened this one,” Malcolm said to Emma, who was behind the bar. “The price of it.”
“Isn’t it yours now?” she said. “Technically?”
“Oh,” Malcolm said, stunned. And everyone around them, everyone tuned in to the special thing that had happened that night, the meeting of a fate, the shaking of its hand, all laughed.
* * *