Billy remembered Cormac Cullen’s father, Fintan, cornering him in the school bathroom, back when they were thirteen or fourteen. “You’re so fat you can’t see your own mickey.” Billy felt sick, remembering. The taunt wasn’t true back then, but he’d gone on to fulfill the prophecy.
Ivor moved around the table and dropped onto Billy’s lap. “Everyone had way better ideas than me, too. They said they would use God’s powers to stop hunger and for world peace and to bring the dead back to life.” He slapped his forehead. “Why didn’t I think of any of that?”
Tricia rubbed his back. “I’m with you, son. To be able to talk to people in heaven, that’s exactly what I’d use God’s powers for.”
“Me, too,” Billy said.
Ivor sniffled. “At lunchtime, Cormac said I was a big fat dope and that a turkey had more brains.”
Tricia eased Ivor to standing and wrapped her arms around him. “He’s the dope, and a bloody bully.”
Billy stood up. “I’ll be right back.”
In the yard, he phoned Ronin and made arrangements. When he returned, Ivor was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a slice of apple tart with a dollop of fresh cream. Tricia gave Billy a guilty look. I couldn’t say no.
“Right,” Billy said. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?” Ivor asked.
“It’s a surprise.”
“Don’t go teaching him to fight,” Tricia warned.
“I’m not going to teach him to fight,” Billy said. He wished she hadn’t brought that up. Years ago, when Michael was around eight or nine, he’d also had trouble with a bully. Billy and Tricia spoke with the principal. He chuckled and said, “I’m sure there’s no harm meant.” The day Michael arrived home with a burst lip, Billy brought him out to the garage. There, he instructed Michael on how to best beat up a bag of fertilizer. Michael’s right uppercut proved impressive. The next time the bully picked on him, he broke the boy’s nose. But, afterward, he’d only felt more miserable. “I can still hear the crunch of bone.”
Billy had held Michael’s head to the cushion of his stomach. “I’m sorry, son.”
When Michael returned to school, he was given a hero’s welcome. No one else had ever been suspended for two whole weeks.
Ivor trailed Billy to the back door. “Come on, tell me,” he pleaded.
Anna entered the kitchen. “Where are you two going?”
“I’m taking Ivor on a little adventure,” Billy said, gathering himself.
She lit up. “Can I come, too?”
“No,” Ivor said, fierce. “It’s just Dad and me.”
“Why can’t I go?” Anna asked, disappointed.
“We need to go into town, Anna, remember?” Tricia said, rescuing Billy. “To get your new dance shoes.” She smiled. “We’ll have our own adventure.”
Billy nodded at Tricia, grateful.
“Go on,” Tricia said softly. “Enjoy yourselves.”
Billy crossed the room and kissed her cheek, and the top of Anna’s head.
*
The way Ronin had talked about his uncle’s speedboat, Billy had expected it to be bigger, and sturdier, and with a bit more class. Not this small, gray-white two-seater with the algae stains on its body and the watery dirt on its floor. Even its off-white interior was stained with streaks of green. The white, peeling wheel looked like it belonged to a toy, and orange stuffing bulged from a gash on the driver’s seat.
Billy cast another worried glance over the casket-like boat. The first night they’d brought Michael home in his white, silk-lined coffin, hundreds of mourners had tracked through the house. Over hours, they reached in to touch and kiss Michael, crying and praying. Their constant contact caused the gold edging on the coffin’s net trim to flake and the glitter dotted Michael’s dark hair, navy pin-striped suit, and bony, alabaster face. Specks of gold also got into his thick eyebrows, making them ever more striking. Billy and Tricia’s first impulse was to remove the glitter and its whispers of mistake and wrongness, but then they decided to leave it.
Later, after all the mourners had gone home and the three remaining children had gone to bed, when it was just Billy and Tricia alone with Michael, as it was in the beginning, they had stood over their firstborn in the candlelight and watched him sparkle.
Ivor tugged on Billy’s jacket sleeve. “Dad? Did you hear me?”
“What, son?”
“I said I don’t think Mam would want me to go on a boat.”
Billy forced a smile and winked at the boy. “That’s why we’re not going to tell her. This is just between you and me, man to man.”
“I don’t know.” He was wavering.
“Just try,” Billy said. “Think of school tomorrow and you telling everyone you got to race in a speedboat. Cormac Cullen will be dead jealous.”
“But if I tell everyone, won’t Mam find out?” Ivor said.
“You only tell the kids at school,” Billy said. “And if it does get back to your mother, we’ll tell her you and I made up the story, to trump that bully.”