Kevin O'Brien Bundle by Kevin O'Brien Page B

as to who she is or what she did before she met your father. And I’m supposed to entrust you and Erin in her care? It’s crazy.”
    Chris wondered why—after all these months—his mother was suddenly dying to find out more about Molly. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Mom,” he said. “She doesn’t talk much about her background or her family. . . .”
    He remembered helping Molly move her stuff up to the third floor after she’d converted it into an art studio. A photo of a good-looking guy in his twenties had fluttered out of an open shoebox full of snapshots and postcards. Chris has asked who it was, and Molly had stared at it for a moment. Her eyes had filled with tears. “That’s my brother, Charlie,” she’d said at last. “He’s dead.”
    “How’d he die?” Chris had asked.
    “He—ah, he killed himself,” she’d admitted, her voice a little strained.
    Not wanting to upset her any more, Chris had decided to stop asking questions about her dead brother.
    He never asked Molly about her mother, either. But apparently, she was a widow who lived in St. Petersburg, Florida. Every once in a while, Chris could hear Molly talking on the phone to her—usually behind the closed door of the master bedroom or in her art studio on the third floor. The conversations didn’t last long, and Molly never sounded too happy. “Yes, Mother, I’ll get a check to you this week,” she’d say in a dull monotone.
    Chris didn’t want to tell his mother any of this. It seemed wrong somehow. Besides, he needed to get off the phone and go to swim practice.
    “Listen, Mom, I gotta wrap it up here, okay?” he said into the phone.
    “Well, I’ll see you weekend after next—if not sooner,” she said. “I love you. And call me if you start to feel sad or blue. Promise?”
    “I promise,” he said. “Bye, Mom.” Chris clicked off the cell phone.
    He ducked back into the library to grab his jacket and books. After a quick wave to Ms. Chertok, he headed out again.
    The pool was in a different wing on the other side of the school. Chris kept his head down and eyes to the floor all the way there. It had become his posture of the day. He just didn’t want to talk to anybody.
    As he stepped inside the locker room, he was hit with a familiar combo-waft of chlorine-chemical smell and B.O. Most of his teammates had already gone to the pool area, but a few still lingered at their lockers. He could hear them in the next row, belt buckles clinking against the tiled floor, locker doors banging.
    “Hey, did you hear this one?” one of the guys was saying. It sounded like Dean Fischer, who was kind of a wiseass jerk. “What was Ray Corson’s favorite song?”
    There was a silence. While Chris worked the combination of his locker, he imagined the other guy shaking his head.
    “‘Don’t Let Your Son Go Down on Me’!” Fischer said, cackling. “Get it? That old song by Elton John . . .”
    Chris started to unbutton his shirt. He’d first heard that joke when Mr. Corson was forced to leave the school.
    “Don’t you get it, moron?” Fischer was saying. A locker door slammed. “Corson and Ian Scholl, remember back in December? And at the same time, Corson was trying to get into Chris Dennehy’s pants, too. Dennehy’s the one who walked in on them. . . .”
    In his blue Speedo, George Camper, the captain of the team and a nice guy, strode past Chris. George shot him a concerned look before he disappeared past the row of lockers. “Hey, Fischer,” George said. “Do me a favor and shut the hell up.”
    “‘Don’t Let Your Son Go Down on Me’? Get it?” Fischer was saying to his buddy. “Are you brain-dead or something? Don’t you remember? Chris Dennehy and Ian Scholl—”
    “Shut up already!” Chris heard George growl. Then there was whispering.
    Chris buttoned his shirt back up. He quickly collected his jacket and backpack of books. He just couldn’t stick around there. He closed his locker, spun the