Sweet Mercy (18 page)

I nodded. I was quiet for another moment as I pondered the hardest question of all. Then I said quietly, “Daddy?”

“Yes, darling?” He stopped paddling again and leaned toward me.

“The Jones Five and Ten Law?”

Daddy's mouth became a thin line. “Yes, darling.”

“If you know about the selling of illegal liquor, you're just as guilty of the crime as if you were selling it yourself.”

“Yes.”

“And it's punishable by five years in prison and a ten-thousand-dollar fine.”

“That's right.”

“But you're not going to turn in Uncle Cy, right?”

Daddy lowered the oars, stroked once, stroked twice. “I wrestled with that question all night long, Eve. Lord knows I've done plenty that's wrong in my time, though as I've grown older I've tried more and more to come down on the side of right. If it were anyone else, I'd know what to do. Turning in Fludd was easy. But we're talking about my own brother here. Not just my brother but the man who took us in when we needed help. May God forgive me, darling, but no, I'm not going to turn him in. I just can't bring myself to do it.”

I nodded. “Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“I can't do it either. I can't do that to Uncle Cy, even though he's doing wrong.”

“Eve, darling,” Daddy said, “we stumbled into this by mistake, but we're going to get out of it on purpose. Soon as we can, we'll take our leave of this place. Until then, we'll keep our mouths shut and go on about our business.”

Our eyes locked. I'm not sure either one of us could quite believe what we were doing. We had just agreed to break the law. And so, in those few quiet words of complicity, Daddy and I became felons.

W
e docked the boat and, in silence, walked across the island and over the bridge to the lodge. I averted my eyes from the guests we passed, not at all sure that they couldn't see inside of me, all the way to the secret I carried there. By the time we reached the bottom of the porch steps, I felt so weak from the weight of that awful knowledge that I took Daddy's hand in case I should stumble on the way up.

He squeezed my fingers, and we entered the lodge together. As expected, Uncle Cy was behind the desk. He stopped what he was doing and looked at us, his gaze a wall that brought us up short.

“Good morning, Drew,” he said evenly.

“Morning, Cy.” Daddy's voice was equally passive, as though the morning were like any other.

Uncle Cy turned to me and nodded. “Eve,” he said.

“Hello, Uncle Cy.”

An uneasy hush followed. I could scarcely bring myself to look at my uncle. In that moment, I hated him. I had decided
to protect him, and yet I hated what he was doing and what Daddy and I were doing because of him. I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw hurt. Daddy squeezed my hand again, a gesture of empathy.

Finally, Uncle Cy said, “Everything all right, Drew?”

Daddy cleared his throat. “Everything's fine. We've just been out on the river awhile. It's a beautiful morning.”

Uncle Cy nodded. Something unspoken had just passed between the two men, some understanding of where we all stood. Now we would all go on about our business, each of us carrying a piece of the lie.

“Listen, Drew, take the day off. It's Saturday. Take Rose and Eve into town for the matinee or something. Have some fun.” He sounded magnanimous, like he was offering us some great gift, and he even tried to smile as he spoke.

After a moment's hesitation, Daddy said, “All right.” He tugged my hand. “Come on, darling.”

I cast a last glance across the desk. When my eyes met his, Uncle Cy sighed. He seemed to know without my saying so that the familial bond between us had been broken and that, even if I lived to be one hundred, I would never forgive him for what he had done.

Getting away from the lodge for the day turned out to be a good idea. Mother, Daddy, and I had cheeseburgers and chocolate malteds at Huey's Diner on Main Street. The only theater in Mercy was showing
The Public Enemy
with Jean Harlow and an actor we didn't know, James Cagney. Because it had to do with gangsters, we opted to go to Lebanon instead, where the theater was showing
City Lights
with Charlie
Chaplin. It felt good to laugh and to forget, for a little while at least, that Daddy and I had landed on the wrong side of the law. I envied Mother, who didn't know what we knew. I longed for the bliss of ignorance, which I would never have again, because even after we left the lodge I would know what was going on there. I was an insider now, and there would be no getting out.

The next morning as we walked into church, Daddy and I once again held hands in mutual support, knowing we would probably hear something in the sermon we didn't want to hear. I sat between him and Mother, fanning myself with the church bulletin as Reverend Kilkenny ascended to the pulpit. The church was always warm, this being summer, but today it seemed unusually so, in spite of the open windows and the overworked ceiling fans. My cheeks burned and perspiration moistened my skin wherever my body made contact with the wooden pew. I was uncomfortable in body and soul as I awaited the Reverend's words of condemnation.

Oh, God, I'm a criminal,
I thought.
A lawbreaker, a liar, every inch as bad as Uncle Cy and Calvin Fludd. How can you love me now, God? How can you love me now?

The Reverend rambled on for a time, undeterred by the waves of fidgeting and fanning going on among the congregation. Daddy's head began to bob, though he tried valiantly to stay awake. Mother dabbed at her neck with a small white handkerchief. I silently begged Reverend Kilkenny to wrap it up so we could move out of the crowded sanctuary and into the open air. I felt suffocated by the warmth and by my own sense of shame. I longed to go to the island and take a plunge in the river. I imagined myself sitting in the shade of the Island Eatery, drinking a bottomless glass of ice-cold
lemonade. Anything to bring relief from the heat. Anything simply to bring relief.

I didn't realize that my own chin had sunk down low. With some effort, I lifted my head and looked up at Reverend Kilkenny. He had made a fist of one hand and was beating it against his chest. “And the publican,” he was saying, “did not even dare to lift his eyes to heaven but bent low because of his sin and beat his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.'”

He paused and looked out over his wilting audience. I, for one, sat up straighter.

“The Pharisee was thanking God for his own righteousness, you see. ‘Thank you, God,' he said, ‘that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.'” Reverend Kilkenny's arm went straight out, and his index finger pointed over our heads as though the publican was behind us at the far reaches of the narthex.

He held his pose for a moment, then slowly dropped his arm and smiled down at us. “It's all about mercy, my friends. We are sinners, all of us, but God is merciful.”

I drew in a breath and as I did, my right hand rose to my heart. I laid my fist there, over the place where I kept the lie.
Oh, God,
I thought,
be merciful to me, a sinner. Oh, God, please be merciful to me, a sinner.

A
s I walked through the sitting room and down the hallway to the ballroom, I was keenly aware of the illegal stash beneath my feet. Shivers of terror moved up my spine at the thought of it all. I was more afraid now than I had ever been in St. Paul, knowing evil men were traveling through the tunnel, back and forth between our cellar and the gas station, carrying the goods that put money in the pockets of Uncle Cy, Calvin Fludd, the bootlegger in Cincinnati, and any number of otherwise law-abiding citizens of Mercy who took a bribe to look the other way. I felt all tangled up in the web of crime that Prohibition had created, and I sensed that in the end nothing good could come of it.

I was on my way to find Jones. I hadn't seen him except in passing since Friday—the day we took the food to the camp—and now it was Monday night. Jones seemed to me a kind of fellow victim of Uncle Cy's wrongdoing. He too was forced to keep the secret, and by doing so, to break the law.

The door to the apartment was open as it so often was to allow the air to move through. And, as he so often was,
Jones sat at the cluttered table surrounded by his radios and his books. So deeply absorbed was he in one of those books that he jumped when I knocked on the doorjamb.

“Sorry, Jones,” I said. “I didn't mean to scare you.”

He pushed his glasses farther up his nose. “That's all right. I just didn't hear you coming.”

“Are you busy?”

“Not really. I'm just reading.”

“Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

I pulled a chair around from the end of the table so I could sit beside him. “What are you reading?” I asked.

He closed the book to show me the cover. “It's about the Alaskan Territory.”

“Oh yeah. I noticed that book here before. Why are you reading about Alaska?”

“Because I'm going to go there someday.”

My eyebrows rose sharply. “You are? What on earth for?”

“To live. To make a life for myself.”

“In
Alaska
? Why do you want to live up there? Why, there's no one there but the Eskimos!”

His expression told me I'd answered my own question. “That's right,” he said. “Mostly. There's not many people and there's plenty of wide open space up there.”

“But what would you do? How would you make a living?”

“I don't know yet. I suppose I'd have to live off the fat of the land for a time. You know, hunt, fish, gather berries.” He paused and gave a small laugh. “I'll figure it all out once I get there.”

“But how will you even get to such a faraway place? You'd need a whole lot of money to travel so far.”

“Maybe. Yeah, I suppose. But I'm going to get there someday, even if my wallet's as empty as it is now. I'll work on the way up, if I have to. I'll travel awhile, stop in some town or another to work, travel a little more.”

I frowned in thought as I pictured him making his way north through the wilds of Canada. How would people treat him when he showed up in a small town looking for work? With fear? With disdain? With violence? I wanted to warn him not to go, to stay here in Ohio or to go back to Chicago, but not to venture such a great distance through territory that might be far from friendly. But it wasn't my place to say so. Instead, I said simply, “I never knew you wanted to go to Alaska.”

“Does it seem so strange?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Well, yes. It's just . . . I never imagined you wanting to do something like that.”

“Well . . .” He smiled and lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “We all have dreams, don't we?”

“Yes, I guess we do.” I gazed at Jones, at his red eyes blinking behind the thick lenses of his glasses. “I suppose you want to get as far away from Uncle Cy as you can.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Because of, you know.” I looked down at the floor and up again.

He stared at me for a few uncomfortable moments as he registered my meaning. A small nod told me he understood. “I'm sorry you and your father ever found out about it,” he said.

“I'm sorry Uncle Cy got himself mixed up in something like that. I'm having a hard time believing it of him.”

“Why? Because no one with Marryat blood would ever break the law?”

“I thought my uncle was a good man, not an outlaw.”

“So what's your definition of good, Eve?”

My back stiffened and my jaw grew tight. I lifted my chin and said defiantly, “Someone who keeps the law and works to help people, not hurt them.”

Jones narrowed his crimson eyes at me. His pale cheeks took on color and his mouth tightened, as if there were words inside he wasn't sure he wanted to let out. As much as I wanted to be friends with him, we seemed always to end up just inches from an argument. I waited for him to blow, but he must have talked himself out of the fight because when he spoke, his words were quiet.

“Look, Eve,” he said, “I'm keeping my mouth shut for Cy for one reason and one reason only, and that's my mother. What he's doing, he's doing mostly for her sake. There were so many medical bills. You wouldn't believe how many doctors she'd gone to, trying to find some cure. With all those bills Cy might have lost the lodge, and worse, my mother might have died a long time ago if it weren't for the extra money. The offer from Cincinnati came at just the right time, and Cy grabbed it. I'd probably have done the same thing, if I was in his position.”

“So you approve of the bootlegging?”

“I approve of Cy's efforts to take care of us. I approve of anything that helps my mother.”

I was quiet a moment. “You really love her, don't you, Jones?”

“Of course I love her. And lucky for us, Cy loves her too. That's the one thing about him I can appreciate. But just because he's married to her, it's not like he and I are father and son or anything even remotely like that. I'm here because
I'm part and parcel of what Cy got when he married her. That doesn't make him and me close. Far from it. He thinks I'm a freak, just like everybody else. I think he'd rather I wasn't here, wasn't hanging around to scare the guests when they see the red-eyed devil.”

He turned his face away from me then. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. I thought he might be trying not to cry, but when he turned back to me there was no sign of tears. Only anger. Layers and layers of that.

“I think you're wrong, Jones,” I said. “Surely Uncle Cy doesn't think of you as a freak.”

“Why wouldn't he?” Jones snapped. “It's what I am. I'll never be like everyone else. Cy would rather I'd stayed in Chicago with relatives there, but since I'm here he tries to make the best of it. He gives me work to do that'll mostly keep me back here and away from the stares of the guests.” He pulled the Alaska book closer to him and ran his ghostly hand over the cover. “Soon as Mom's better and back here with Cy, I'm going to try to take my leave.”

“But . . . your Mom won't want you to leave, will she?”

“I'm a grown man, Eve. It's time for me to be out on my own. Somewhere where the sight of me won't bother too many people.”

I felt my heart constrict. No wonder Jones had given me his St. Rita medal. St. Rita would never do him any good; he would always be alone and lonely, as long as he lived. I wanted to throw my arms around him and take away the sting of his separateness, but I was as helpless as St. Rita to change what was. Lamely, I said, “Your mother will miss you terribly, after you're gone.”

“She'll have a good life here. I can go knowing she's being
taken care of. At least Cy has done that much for me.” He cleared his throat and put his glasses back on. “Listen,” he said, “I'm really thirsty. You want some iced tea? I've got some in the fridge.”

“Sure,” I said. “I'd like some.”

“I'll be right back.”

When he left, I idly reached for the book, thinking I'd thumb through it while he was pouring the tea. But I didn't get any farther than the inside front cover where a name was written in a tight, left-leaning script. I gasped. In the next instance, Jones stepped out of the kitchen with a glass of tea in each hand. When he saw the look on my face, he stopped.

“Your name,” I said, “is Jones O'Brannigan.”

His eyelids fluttered but his gaze held my own. “That's right.”

I was momentarily speechless. Then, “Why didn't you tell me?”

“You didn't need to know.”

“Your father was the flower-shop owner.”

“Yes.”

“And a gangster.”

Jones nodded. “But that wasn't important. That wasn't what mattered to me. He was the best father, he was—”

“But that's all you've ever known,” I interrupted. “He was a bootlegger, just like Uncle Cy.”

“My father wasn't like Cy at all. To him, I wasn't a freak.” Jones moved to the table then and set one of the glasses in front of me. He sat down. “I didn't tell you because I knew you wouldn't understand. You'd see everything bad about him and none of the good, and you'd judge me as his son by your own impossible standards. But I
was
his son, see,
and the only thing that mattered to me was that he loved my mother and me both. He was a good man, Eve. You've got to believe me.”

I closed the book and slid it across the table to Jones. He was right. Had he told me before, I wouldn't have understood. But now . . .

I lifted my eyes from the book and looked at Jones. “Will you excuse me?” I said. “I have some thinking to do.”

He nodded.

I left the tea untouched and left the room without a word.