Tell Me One Thing

Начало книги

SITTING IN ST. TIMOTHY’S CATHEDRAL DURING his father’s funeral Mass, Jamie has no idea how the rest of his brothers and sisters feel about their father’s death, but he knows what he is feeling — nothing. Of that he is sure. Over the forty-two years of his life he has cultivated nothingness when it comes to his father, assiduously. Number seven in the line of eight children, Jamie had ample opportunity to observe the wrong way to deal with Hugh Casey O’Connor Sr.

His oldest brother, Hugh Jr., had taken his father on — matched his screaming rants with his own screaming assaults. Their fighting filled up the house with accusations and hateful words and sometimes whacks and punches. Years later, all that rancor seemed to drain away as soon as the two sat down over an open bottle.

The next brother in the line, Kevin, sidestepped the arguments but not the need for his father’s attention. He played football in the autumn, basketball in the winter, and ran track in the spring, a star in all three, never happier than when his father showed up to watch. And unfailingly sullen and disappointed on the far more frequent occasions when Hugh didn’t. Jamie could see that it mattered far too much to Kevin what the old man thought.

Читать дальше →