Jerome had cut back on his drinking, some. Also cut back on salt. (Lula now used low-sodium salt, cooking. Why food tasted flat to him now.) He didn’t smoke much these days anyway, cigarettes were so damned expensive, and made him cough like hell, mornings. Taking the blood-pressure pills seemed to help. He guessed the pills had helped but the refill had run out. Hadn’t been back to the cardiologist in a year. If the beat beat beat kept him awake at night sometimes or pausing short of breath at the top of stairs he’d resolve to make an appointment but next day, so many distractions he hadn’t time. If he’d mentioned to Lula she’d have made the appointment for him, marked it on the calendar in the kitchen, she’d have nagged him about keeping the appointment but he never got around to mentioning it to Lula for specifically that reason (the nagging) and now they were in one of their spells of not-speaking to each other because he’d (supposedly) hurt her feelings over some trivial matter and God damn if he was going to make it up to her when it was so trivial he couldn’t remember what the fuck it was, even.

  Not that he gave a shit that the woman imagined she was punishing him, he did not.

  Oh fuck, he did. Felt like hell when his wife turned away from him. And he knew, she wasn’t feeling so well lately. All of the kids gone from the house now, just the two of them but God damn he wasn’t going to grovel.

  There’d been other women. He hadn’t been faithful to Lula. Not one of the men, the husbands he knew, he’d grown up with, guys he’d gone to school with, not one of them had been faithful to their wives and (yet) most of the marriages had endured. They were Catholics, the marriages endured even when love wore out, frayed like much-laundered cloth in which stains remain. Till death do us part—bullshit like everything else in the Church but still, he and Lula were together.

  What had kept them together was Lula forgiving him. And what allowed her to forgive was loving him.

  A woman’s weakness, love without question. Love without doubt. Love like oxygen you’d suck through a filthy broken straw, fall on your knees in mud, anything to survive because you can’t live without him.

  She wasn’t going to let him go, she’d said. After it had come out he’d been seeing someone and wasn’t going to apologize. He could try to make her hate him and even so, if she’d hated him, even then she would not let him go. That was love.

  Crossing the street to avoid the young black men. Had to be five, six of them. Not that he was afraid of them. Walking fast. Not too fast. A car double-parked nearby, door open. Rap music from the car loud, grating. Punk music, you couldn’t understand the words. Had to be cursing whitey. Mocking whitey. He had the car key in his fingers that had gone cold as ice. There came a shout—Hey mister!

  Black gangs had targeted him before. It was deliberate, premeditated. They’d targeted his sons Les and Rick who’d had nothing to do with whatever had happened to Hadrian Johnson but who gave a fuck about that, nobody gave a fuck about actual justice.

  Had to be, these punks knew who he was. Not a day of his life in South Niagara after all that publicity, KERRIGAN in headlines for weeks, that half the black population in the city didn’t know who he was. Whose father he was.

  Soon after Jerome Jr. and Lionel had pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to prison the vandalism began. Windows broken in Jerome’s car parked in the driveway, tires slashed. Rocks thrown at the front of the house, garbage dumped on the lawn. Vehicles speeding past the house at night, shouts and threats. Jerome had had to guard the property with a (borrowed) rifle. Him, Les and Rick, some of their friends. Armed and ready with guns. Black Rock Street vigilantes, they called themselves. (White) guys from other neighborhoods, some of them total strangers to the Kerrigans, volunteered to help protect the Kerrigans from their enemies. If one of them sets foot on my property I have the right to kill him—Jerome Kerrigan had been quoted, actually misquoted in the papers for what he’d said had been different, he was sure—If anybody sets foot on my property to attack my family or me I have the right to kill him. That’s the law.

  There’d been a South Niagara PD cruiser parked out front of the house, two weeks or so. Two cops. Still the kids had to go to school, Les and Rick, poor Katie so anxious she’d started pulling hairs out of her scalp.

  Lula had been terrified to sleep in the house. Terrified it would be set on fire, they’d die in their sleep. Took Katie and stayed for a while with relatives in another neighborhood till things quieted down after a few weeks.

  If Jerome’s uncle Tom Kerrigan had stayed out of it, that might’ve been better. But there came old fiery Tommy Kerrigan back into the public eye campaigning—again—and winning—again. You’d wanted to think that the wily old bastard had retired from politics but no, he’d been vehement and energized, winning the Republican primary on a campaign of law and order, fair treatment for all races—meaning that “whites” were being mistreated in South Niagara as elsewhere in the U.S., his own nephews were “victims” of black racism: persecuted because they were white. Such bitterness Tommy Kerrigan stirred up, virtually all of South Niagara was divided: pro-Kerrigan, anti-Kerrigan. He’d singled out no one by name because that wasn’t Tommy Kerrigan’s style but it was implicit that certain black leaders, black ministers, liberal white politicians, were responsible for the gross “miscarriage of justice” that had sent his nephews to prison.

  Years later now. Things had quieted down in South Niagara. Tom Kerrigan had retired from politics at last, permanently. Had to be over eighty. He lived in Naples, Florida, with his (much younger) wife, said to be incapacitated by a series of strokes. But one of his Republican protégés was a U.S. congressman and another was preparing to run for state senator. Jerome Kerrigan could not escape the ignominy of his name.

  God-damned unfair, he’d always had black friends. Veterans like himself. Race issues hadn’t entered into any of their exchanges for twenty years or more and then suddenly, they stopped seeing one another.

  Why his God-damned blood pressure was high. Just thinking about it like poking a sore tooth. Plus money. Always money.

  At work that day feeling dazed from the early-morning until late. Head tight. Pounding pulses. Probably not a good idea to stop for a drink but badly needed a drink. Also, the Shamrock was a place where Jerome Kerrigan was known. For himself, not his name or his damned uncle. At the bar, the familiar soothing incantation of complaint. The speech of his friends as it had once been the speech of his elders. A kind of harmony, in complaint. Corrupt politicians, union officials. Whoever happened to be mayor, governor of the state. President of the U.S. Jerome could count on it, he’d know virtually all of the men in the Shamrock beyond a certain age. Young guys he wouldn’t know but older guys, he would. He’d gone to school with some of them. He’d gone out with their sisters, their wives—long ago. His kids knew their kids, or had once. He’d had disagreements with all of them but could not have said what the disagreements were, for the most part. A fixed number of people you know, you can’t feud with all of them but must relent, forgive. Certainly, forget.

  It was a taboo subject among the men, how families disappoint. Maybe you could complain about your old drunk father but not about the wife—not really. Joking, harsh joking, might be OK but nothing too personal, private. Nothing about the wife’s health. Mention chemo and your best friend’s eyes go blank. And talking of children, grown-up kids and how they turn out—pretty much forbidden.

  If you love them something terrible happens to them. Though if you stop loving them the pain is worse, like a limb torn off.

  Never forgive Violet. His baby Violet Rue.

  Jerome Jr. and Lionel he’d forgive, before her. His sons had made stupid choices. It was drinking that had been the stupid, fatal choice—every bad decision that night had followed from that.

  Ran in the family. Irish genes. Everybody knew: drinking made you drunk, and drunk made you stupid.

  Though they were sober when they’d lied to him. To him. Claiming they were scared, didn’t know what to do, panicked and drove away and afterward begging him to forgive them and so he’d forgiven them eventually, though he was disgusted with them, and disgusted now when he recalled. His grief at losing Jerome Jr. was contaminated with this disgust and with the fury of disgust that his sons, his oldest children, had so betrayed him.

  But the daughter had never said she was sorry. She’d never asked to be forgiven. Wanted to be loved as if nothing had gone wrong between them.

  His heart had been lacerated, the daughter’s betrayal was an open wound even years later. For he’d loved her best.

  It wasn’t that she’d spoken to the police about her brothers but that she hadn’t come to him first, to tell him. Together, they’d have worked out what to do. But she had acted heedlessly, without consulting him. Her father.

  She had gone outside the family, that was the unforgivable sin. And old enough to know, not a child.

  Thinking of this, how his daughter had betrayed him, felt as if his heart were lacerated anew, he could not bear it. His breath came short, a vise seemed to be tightening around his chest. His anger, his fury—collapsed into a pounding fist.

  “Hey mister—you OK?”

  He was on his knees. The ignition key had slipped from his icy fingers. Pulses beat harder, harder—he pitched forward onto the pavement with a strangled cry as the boys approached cautiously, staring at him.

  “Mister? Hey?”

  “He’s drunk?”

  “Somethin wrong with him, see—his face . . .”

  Warily they circled him. A white man, looked like an older man, they’d be blamed for knocking him down, taking his wallet. But couldn’t just let him lie there struggling to breathe so one of them ran into the Shamrock Tavern yelling there’s a man fell down outside, somebody call 911 for an ambulance.

  By the time the ambulance arrived not one of the black teenagers remained in the vicinity. Got out of there in their car and on foot, fast as they could.

  White cops gonna show up, see black boys and a white man down on the street and suspect the worst. And if they tried to run then, risking a bullet in the back.

  The Return

  HESITANTLY KATIE HAS SAID, SHE THINKS IT WILL BE ALL RIGHT.

  I am wondering what all right means.

  If I return to South Niagara. Stay with her and her family.

  For my first real visit in more than thirteen years. A week, two weeks?

  If Mom will agree to see me, that is all I want.

  For Daddy has died. (It is difficult for me to utter these words—Daddy has died.)

  All right now—for Daddy has died, and the bitterness has died with him. It is hoped.

  Or possibly Katie means it is all right for me to return to South Niagara though our brother Lionel has been released from prison and is living here. All right—Lionel won’t murder me.

  It is hoped!

  ON THE PHONE WE’D CRIED TOGETHER. AND SEEING EACH OTHER, first time in years, we hugged each other, hard. And we cried.

  “Oh, Violet! I am so sorry.”

  So sorry I cut you out of my life. So sorry I ceased to love you.

  In that instant I forgave my sister. Of course.

  We did not seem to each other like adult women. Grieving for our father we were young girls again as if no time had passed.

  Years that had drawn us apart. My sister had been my closest friend and she was married, she’d had a baby (a daughter) without me. Scarcely with my knowing. How was it possible?

  Now, Katie would be my sister again. No mistaking the relief in her face, her happiness at seeing me, running to greet me, hug me, as I drove up in the Honda Civic, peering through the windshield at addresses in an unfamiliar part of South Niagara—West Cabot Road.

  “Oh my God, Vi’let—it’s you.”

  Laughing, in each other’s arms. Tears shining on our faces hot as acid.

  From my aunt Irma I’d heard the (belated, shocking) news. My father had died of a massive stroke the previous week. He’d been drinking heavily, it was said. Strangers had found him in the street outside the Shamrock Tavern, they’d called an ambulance but he didn’t survive the night.

  Both Katie and Miriam tried to contact me but had only outdated phone numbers. Irma recalled that I’d transferred to the state university at Mohawk and in this way managed to be connected with me through the university’s student affairs office, after some difficulty. Oh Violet. I have sad news . . . .

  The family was in shock. Jerome had died so suddenly, without warning—so young, at only sixty-four.

  But I thought—the stress of Daddy’s life! His feuds, his hatreds. He’d worn himself out fighting enemies.

  Thirteen years, a son in prison. The other, older son killed in prison. The daughter who’d betrayed him. Never can you outlive the shame, the ignominy, if you are a man of pride. Each day you are reminded anew. Each day is contaminated.

  Still, I’d stubbornly believed that Daddy would relent and forgive me, one day. So long as it was a choice of his and not forced upon him by anyone else, that might have been possible.

  Deciding on a whim one day to call me. Summon me.

  Hey Violet Rue! Been missing you like hell.

  In My Mother’s Garden

  KATIE INSISTS YES IT WILL BE ALL RIGHT.

  Of course, she has prepared Mom. And Mom is expecting me.

  Not in the house in which we’d grown up at 388 Black Rock Street but in a smaller house in the same neighborhood, a half-mile away.

  I am nervous! Wiping my sweaty palms against my jeans.

  I am driving to this house, alone. In the trunk of the Honda Civic are several potted plants for my mother’s garden which Katie has helped me select at a local nursery.

  Katie thinks it is better for me to go alone. Next time I visit Mom, she will come with me. But this first time—“Just the two of you. That will be better, I think.”

  It is heartening to me, Katie assumes there will be a second visit. That Mom will be happy to see me, and want to see me again.

  Katie has cautioned me not to be shocked by our mother’s appearance. Five months ago she’d had surgery to remove a small growth beneath her arm, near her left breast. The cancer had been stage 3, metastasized to several lymph nodes. But the surgery went well, radiation and chemotherapy have gone well, just a few weeks remaining of the treatment.

  All this is news to me. Another shock. Katie assures me, Mom didn’t want most people to know about the cancer. She’d told her, of course. She’d told Miriam. And a few relatives, close friends. But she hadn’t told her sister Irma, she hadn’t wanted Irma to come visit her, make a fuss. Making a fuss was what Lula most dreaded.

  Of course, she hadn’t told the boys. Les, Rick. Lionel.

  If she’d been able to keep the secret from Daddy, she’d have kept it from him. As it was, she’d hidden the worst of the side effects from our father, sleeping much of the day when he was at work so that she was strong enough to prepare a meal in the evening, and managing her appetite so that she was able to eat at least part of the meal with him, to deflect his suspicions. She’d made up her face, she’d looked almost glamorous. Wore loose-fitting clothes so he wouldn’t notice how much weight she’d lost. As soon as her hair began to fall out she’d had it buzz-cut so that she could be fitted with a glamorous wig, virtually identical with her own hair when she’d been young and healthy and she’d made sure that Daddy never saw her without that wig.

  Amazing! I am filled with admiration for my mother. Thinking how little I knew her.

  And did that work?—I have to ask.

  Katie laughs. “Well—maybe. You know what men are like.”

  “Do I? What are men like?”

  “They can’t face much reality. If they can tell themselves a woman isn’t sick, not seriously sick, if that’s at all possible it’s what they will tell themselves because to think otherwise is terrifying to them.”

  “And was that the case with Dad?”

  “He couldn’t face it, that Mom might be seriously ill. If Miriam or I tried to bring up the subject he’d cut us off. He stayed away from the house a lot. At work, and after work. Not so different from the way he’d always been, in fact. They had that kind of marriage—the wife stays home. The man screws around.”

  “Oh, Katie! That sounds harsh.”

  “Mom dealt with it, she was OK. Not happy, but OK. Every woman she knew who was married had the same experience. She couldn’t have left Dad even if she’d wanted to, she had no income. All she’d ever done was ‘keep house’—take care of children. Then this thing that came along, like a stake through the heart of the marriage.”

  Thing that came along. The way our family had learned to speak of the murder of Hadrian Johnson. A thing, an event, an action that had come along.

  “It wasn’t just that Daddy had affairs—had sex—with other women, that they couldn’t talk about. He and Mom never actually seemed to acknowledge what Jerr and Lionel did. It was like they couldn’t—just couldn’t comprehend it . . . All Daddy talked about was lawyers and appeals, how to get the convictions ‘overturned.’ He had his fixed beliefs, no one dared challenge him. The stress made him unbalanced, ill. And then it killed him.” Katie pauses, wiping at her eyes.

  It has been something of a shock to me, to hear such remarks uttered by my sister. This sudden aerial perspective of our parents’ marriage is new to me. And this new sister, so thoughtful, analytical—this hardly seems like the timid girl I remember.

  “But Daddy loved Mom, in his way. He loved us all—that was what made him so dangerous. When you love someone like that you can turn on them viciously—the way Daddy turned on you.”