Even as he collected his things—his old wooden box of memories, and his books, including The Quarryman—he looked at the bridge from the window. What good was the mark of a masterpiece? It had stood to prove all he’d worked for, and saved absolutely nothing.
When we left, he’d held it out to our father:
The bronze and the pale-covered book.
“It’s time I gave you this back.”
As he walked toward my station wagon, there was a final father’s last gasp; he ran up quickly, behind him. He said, “Clay—Clay!”
And Clay knew what he’d wanted to say to him.
But he knew he was leaving us all.
“Clay—the backyard—” and Clay cut him off with his hand. He said what he’d said to him years ago; a child and not yet a bridge:
“It’s okay, Dad. It’s okay.” But he soon added something else. “She really was something, wasn’t she?” and our father could only agree.
“Yes,” he said, “she was.”
When he got in the car, Clay watched us.
We all shook hands with our father.
There was talking, and Tommy calling Rosy, and Clay gone to sleep in the station wagon; his face against the window.
He slept through us crossing his bridge.
* * *
—
At home, it took most of a day and a night, as he and I sat in this kitchen. My brother had told me everything—of Penelope and Michael, and all of us—and all he had been with Carey. Twice I nearly broke down, and once I thought I’d be sick; but even then he’d talked on, he’d rescued me. He’d said, “Matthew, but listen to this.” He told me how when he’d carried her, she was that pale and blond-backed girl again, and the last thing she’d seen was the pegs. He said to me, “Now it’s you, Matthew. You have to go out and tell him. You have to go out and tell Dad. He doesn’t know that’s how I saw her. He doesn’t know that’s how she was.”
When he was done, I thought of Penelope, and the mattress, The Surrounds. If only we’d burned it when we should have! God, I thought so many things. No wonder, no wonder. He was never the boy he’d been; he would leave now and never return. There was just too much of him left here: the carry of too much memory. I thought of Abbey Hanley, then Carey—and what she’d called him at Bernborough Park.
We’d lost our beautiful boy.
* * *
—
When he left, next day, there wasn’t much said, you know by now how we are. It was Clay who did the most talking, I think, for he was the one who’d prepared.
To Rory, he said, “I’ll miss our hart-to-harts,” and there was rust and wire around him. They laughed to ease the ache.
For Henry, it was simple.
He’d said, “Good luck with your lotto numbers—I know you’re going to win.”
And Henry, of course, half tackled him.
He’d answered him, “One to six.”
When he tried offering Clay some money, one last time, Clay just shook his head again.
“It’s okay, Henry, you keep it.”
And Tommy—young Tommy.