Terminal

“We may know but we don’t mention it,” Evelyn said. “And calling it a rug in front of everyone was inexcusable.”

Janet took a sip of her tea and stared out the window. It was true the whole family knew Uncle Albert wore a toupee. It was also true that no one ever commented on it. Janet had grown up in a family where there were many unspoken rules. Individual expression, especially in children, was not encouraged. Manners were considered of paramount importance.

“Why don’t you date that lovely young man who brought you to the Myopia Hunt Club polo match last year,” Evelyn suggested.

“He was a jerk,” Janet said.

“Janet!” her mother warned.

They drank their tea in silence for a few moments. “If you want to talk to him so much,” Evelyn finally said, “why not do it before he leaves? Go see him tonight?”

“I can’t,” Janet said. “Friday night is his night with the boys. They all hang out at some bar near where he went to high school.”

“As your father would say, I rest my case,” Evelyn said with uncamouflaged satisfaction.

A HOODED sweatshirt under a wool jacket insulated Sean from the freezing mist. The cinch for the hood had been drawn tight and tied beneath his chin. As he jogged along High Street toward Monument Square in Charlestown, he passed a basketball from one hand to the other. He’d just finished playing a pickup game at the Charlestown Boys Club with a group called “The Alumni.” This was a motley assortment of friends and acquaintances from age eighteen to sixty. It had been a good workout, and he was still sweating.

Skirting Monument Square with its enormous phallic monument commemorating the Battle of Bunker Hill, Sean approached his boyhood home. As a plumber his father, Brian Murphy, Sr., had had a decent income, and back before it became fashionable to live in the city, he had purchased a large Victorian town house. At first the Murphys had lived in the ground-floor duplex, but after his father had died at age forty-six from liver cancer the rental from the duplex had been sorely needed. When Sean’s older brother, Brian, Jr., had gone away to school, Sean, his younger brother Charles, and his mother Anne had moved into one of the single-floor apartments. Now she lived there alone.

As he reached the door, Sean noticed a familiar Mercedes parked just behind his Isuzu 4 × 4, indicating older brother Brian had made one of his surprise visits. Intuitively, Sean knew he was in for grief about his planned trip to Miami.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Sean unlocked his mother’s door and stepped inside. Brian’s black leather briefcase rested on a ladder-back chair. A rich smell of pot roast filled the air.

“Is that you, Sean?” Anne called from the kitchen. She appeared in the doorway just as Sean was hanging up his coat. Dressed in a simple housedress covered by a worn apron, Anne looked considerably older than her fifty-four years. After her long, repressing marriage to the hard-drinking Brian Murphy, her face had become permanently drawn, her eyes generally tired and forlorn. Her hair, which she wore in an old-fashioned bun, was naturally curly and although it had been an attractive dark brown, it was now streaked with gray.

“Brian’s here,” Anne said.

“I guessed as much.”

Sean went into the kitchen to say hello to his brother. Brian was at the kitchen table, nursing a drink. He’d removed his jacket and draped it over a chair; paisley suspenders looped over his shoulders. Like Sean, he had darkly handsome features, black hair, and brilliant blue eyes. But the similarities ended there. Where Sean was brash and casual, Brian was circumspect and precise. Unlike Sean’s shaggy locks, Brian’s hair was neatly trimmed and precisely parted. He sported a carefully trimmed mustache. His clothing was decidedly lawyer-like and leaned toward dark blue pinstripes.

“Am I responsible for this honor?” Sean asked. Brian did not visit often even though he lived nearby in Back Bay.

“Mother called me,” Brian admitted.

It didn’t take Sean long to shower, shave, and dress in jeans and a rugby shirt. He was back in the kitchen before Brian finished carving the pot roast. Sean helped set the table. While he did so, he eyed his older brother. There had been a time when Sean resented him. For years his mother had introduced her boys as my wonderful Brian, my good Charles, and Sean. Charles was currently off in a seminary in New Jersey studying to become a priest.