“I need to know the truth.”
“Why? Why would you bring this up, especially now that the monster who murdered him is finally dead? Put it to bed. It’s over.”
“Did Dad work for Cozone?”
“What?”
“Was Dad on the take?”
For a woman who needed help getting up, Mom moved now with dizzying speed. “How dare you!” She twirled and, without any hesitation, slapped Kat across the left cheek. The sickening sound of flesh on flesh was loud, almost deafening in the stillness of the kitchen. Kat felt tears come to her eyes, but she didn’t turn away or even reach up to touch the red.
Mom’s face crumbled. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”
“Did he work for Cozone?”
“Please stop.”
“Is that how he paid for the apartment in New York City?”
“What? No, no. He got a good deal, remember? He saved that man’s life.”
“What man?”
“What do you mean, what man?”
“What man? What was his name?”
“How am I supposed to remember?”
“Because I know Dad did a lot of good work as a cop, but I don’t remember him saving any real estate magnate’s life, do you? Why did we just accept that story? Why didn’t we ask him?”
“Ask him,” Mom repeated. She retied her apron string, pulling the ends a little too hard. “You mean, like you are now? Like an interrogation? Like your father was some kind of liar? You’d do that to that man—to your father? You’d ask him questions and call him a liar in his own home?”
“That’s not what I mean,” Kat said, but her voice was weak.
“Well, what do you mean? Everyone exaggerates, Kat. You know that. Especially men. So maybe your father didn’t save the man’s life. Maybe he only, I don’t know, caught a burglar who robbed him or helped him with a parking ticket. I don’t know. Your father said he saved his life. I didn’t question his word. Tessie’s husband, Ed? He used to limp, remember? He told everyone it was from shrapnel in the war. But he was clerical because of his eyesight. He hurt his leg falling down subway stairs when he was sixteen. You think Tessie went around calling him a liar every time he told that story?”
Mom brought the sandwich to the table. She started to cut it diagonally—her brother had preferred it that way—but Kat, ever the contrarian, had insisted sandwiches be cut to make two rectangles. Mom, again out of habit, remembered, angled the knife, cut it in two perfect halves.
“You’ve never been married,” Mom said softly. “You don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“We all have our demons. But men? They have them much worse. The world tells them that they are the leaders and great and macho and have to be big and brave and make a lot of money and lead these glamorous lives. But they don’t, do they? Look at the men in this neighborhood. They all worked too many hours. They came home to noisy, demanding homes. Something was always broken they needed to fix. They were always behind on the house payments. Women, we get it. Life is about a certain kind of drudgery. We are taught not to hope or want too much. Men? They never get that.”
“Where did he go, Mom?”
She closed her eyes. “Eat your sandwich.”
“Was he doing jobs for Cozone?”
“Maybe.” Then: “I don’t think so.”
Kat pulled the chair out for her mother to sit. Mom sat as though someone had cut her knees out from beneath her.
“What was he doing?” Kat asked.
“You remember Gary?”
“Flo’s husband.”
“Right. He used to go to the track, remember? He kept losing everything they had. Flo would cry for hours. Your uncle Tommy, he drank too much. He was home every night, but rarely before eleven o’clock. He’d stop at the pub for a quick one and then it would be hours later. The men. They all needed something like that. Some drank. Some gambled. Some whored. Some, the lucky ones, found the church, though they could kill you with their sanctimonious baloney. But the point is, with men, real life was never enough. You know what my dad, your grandfather, used to say?”
Kat shook her head.
“‘If a man had enough to eat, he’d want to grow a second mouth.’ He also had a dirty way of saying it, but I won’t repeat it here.”
Kat reached out and took her mother’s hand. She tried to remember the last time she had done that—reached out to her very own mother—but no memory came to her.
“What about Dad?”
“You always thought it was your father who wanted you to get out of this life. But it was me. I was the one who didn’t want you stuck here.”
“You hated it that much?”
“No. It was my life. It’s all I have.”
“I don’t understand.”
Mom squeezed her daughter’s hand. “Don’t make me face what I don’t need to face,” she said. “It’s over. You can’t change the past. But see, you can shape it with your memories. I get to choose which ones I keep, not you.”
Kat tried to keep her voice gentle. “Mom?”
“What?”
“Those don’t sound like memories. They sound like illusions.”
“What’s the difference?” Mom smiled. “You lived here too, Kat.”
Kat sat back in her chair. “What?”
“You were a child, sure, but a smart child, very mature for your age. You loved your father unconditionally, yet you saw him vanish. You saw through my fake smiles and all that sweetness when he came home. But you looked away, didn’t you?”
“I’m not looking away now.” Kat reached out her hand again. “Please tell me where he went.”
“The truth? I don’t know.”
“But you know more than you’re telling me.”
“He was a good man, your father. He provided for you and your brothers. He taught you right from wrong. He worked long hours and made sure that you all got a college education.”
“Did you love him?” she asked.
Mom started busying herself, rinsing a cup in the sink, putting the mayo back in the fridge. “Oh, he was so handsome when we met, your father. Every girl wanted to date him.” There was a faraway look in her eye. “I wasn’t so bad back then either.”
“You’re not so bad now.”
Mom ignored the remark.