the
framed photograph of their mother in the bedroom and knew by this that Jeremy
was living here. He carried that photo with him everywhere he went, wasn’t
likely to have left it behind had he leased the place out. She remembered
visiting him in the hospital after his first breakdown, when he was at last
diagnosed as bipolar. This was just months after their father had been killed. Jeremy
had asked her to get the photo of their mother from his place — he was staying
with some friends in a dive on the Lower East Side — and bring it to him. He
had landed in the hospital after crashing a car he and one of his roommates had
stolen while high. Fiermonte, Cat later learned, had pulled some strings to get
the charges dropped, then arranged for Jeremy to enter a treatment center — his
first of many.
Cat looked at
the photo for a moment, at the woman she barely resembled, then continued her
search. She found, however, nothing of significance — no computer, no hard line
phone so she could check the caller ID or press redial, and no cell phone. She
saw a few books, noticed that among them was a copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of
War . She picked it up and looked at it, instantly recognized the well-worn
copy as Johnny’s, given to him by their father. She opened it and read the
inscription, then closed the book and returned it to where she had found it.
She wondered how
Jeremy had come to possess it. Had he found it when they emptied out the house
in Ossining prior to selling it? She wondered, too, why hadn’t Johnny taken it.
But then she understood.
It carried a
memory he could not bear.
She checked the
closet next, saw only clothes — Jeremy’s clothes, another good sign — then
checked the toilet tank, found no drugs in a Ziploc bag stashed there.
She checked
every drawer, every possible hiding place in the tiny apartment, and found no
drug paraphernalia whatsoever, not even common household items that could be
used as paraphernalia. She was relieved to know that there was nothing for
Morris to find, but more than that, she was heartened by the fact that there
was actually a possibility that Jeremy had gotten himself clean.
Of the three
us, she thought, who would have ever believed it would be poor Jeremy who
turned himself around?
If this was all
that she came away with, then it had been worth the risk of coming here — and worth
enduring the memories this place churned up, memories of the father she had
loved so much and lost too soon.
She was about
to give up and get out of there when she noticed a notepad on the kitchen
table. The top sheet was blank, but there was something about the way the
notepad had been placed in the exact middle of the table. She thought about
this for a moment, then retrieved a pencil from a nearby kitchen drawer and
began to draw back and forth across the paper with the side of the pencil tip.
A game from
their childhood, a way for she and Jeremy to leave secret notes for each other
after their mother had passed.
A suddenly
lonely and heartbroken boy turning to the only woman left in his life.
What had been
written on the page that was torn off had left an impression on the page below.
And it was beginning to emerge.
A ten-digit
number.
A phone number,
she quickly realized. The area code was 917. A New York area code.
She continued
darkening in the rest of the page, and something else emerged.
An eight-digit
number.
Some kind of
code, perhaps?
And then one
more thing showed itself.
The final
thing.
She looked at
the page — white hollow letters on a field of scribbled gray.
She had often
helped her brother with his homework when he was a boy. School was difficult
for him; it wasn’t that he didn’t have the smarts — he did, clearly — it was
simply that kids were cruel and he was an emotional child, sensitive, not tough
enough. Not his father’s son, nor his brother’s brother.
Jeremy had
always belonged to their mother, and then, after her death, he had belonged
framed photograph of their mother in the bedroom and knew by this that Jeremy
was living here. He carried that photo with him everywhere he went, wasn’t
likely to have left it behind had he leased the place out. She remembered
visiting him in the hospital after his first breakdown, when he was at last
diagnosed as bipolar. This was just months after their father had been killed. Jeremy
had asked her to get the photo of their mother from his place — he was staying
with some friends in a dive on the Lower East Side — and bring it to him. He
had landed in the hospital after crashing a car he and one of his roommates had
stolen while high. Fiermonte, Cat later learned, had pulled some strings to get
the charges dropped, then arranged for Jeremy to enter a treatment center — his
first of many.
Cat looked at
the photo for a moment, at the woman she barely resembled, then continued her
search. She found, however, nothing of significance — no computer, no hard line
phone so she could check the caller ID or press redial, and no cell phone. She
saw a few books, noticed that among them was a copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of
War . She picked it up and looked at it, instantly recognized the well-worn
copy as Johnny’s, given to him by their father. She opened it and read the
inscription, then closed the book and returned it to where she had found it.
She wondered how
Jeremy had come to possess it. Had he found it when they emptied out the house
in Ossining prior to selling it? She wondered, too, why hadn’t Johnny taken it.
But then she understood.
It carried a
memory he could not bear.
She checked the
closet next, saw only clothes — Jeremy’s clothes, another good sign — then
checked the toilet tank, found no drugs in a Ziploc bag stashed there.
She checked
every drawer, every possible hiding place in the tiny apartment, and found no
drug paraphernalia whatsoever, not even common household items that could be
used as paraphernalia. She was relieved to know that there was nothing for
Morris to find, but more than that, she was heartened by the fact that there
was actually a possibility that Jeremy had gotten himself clean.
Of the three
us, she thought, who would have ever believed it would be poor Jeremy who
turned himself around?
If this was all
that she came away with, then it had been worth the risk of coming here — and worth
enduring the memories this place churned up, memories of the father she had
loved so much and lost too soon.
She was about
to give up and get out of there when she noticed a notepad on the kitchen
table. The top sheet was blank, but there was something about the way the
notepad had been placed in the exact middle of the table. She thought about
this for a moment, then retrieved a pencil from a nearby kitchen drawer and
began to draw back and forth across the paper with the side of the pencil tip.
A game from
their childhood, a way for she and Jeremy to leave secret notes for each other
after their mother had passed.
A suddenly
lonely and heartbroken boy turning to the only woman left in his life.
What had been
written on the page that was torn off had left an impression on the page below.
And it was beginning to emerge.
A ten-digit
number.
A phone number,
she quickly realized. The area code was 917. A New York area code.
She continued
darkening in the rest of the page, and something else emerged.
An eight-digit
number.
Some kind of
code, perhaps?
And then one
more thing showed itself.
The final
thing.
She looked at
the page — white hollow letters on a field of scribbled gray.
She had often
helped her brother with his homework when he was a boy. School was difficult
for him; it wasn’t that he didn’t have the smarts — he did, clearly — it was
simply that kids were cruel and he was an emotional child, sensitive, not tough
enough. Not his father’s son, nor his brother’s brother.
Jeremy had
always belonged to their mother, and then, after her death, he had belonged
Similar Books
