small apartment, where a spread of finger sandwiches and desserts lay on a tray on a coffee table. She’d always been a cook. I remember holidays, particularly, when Mrs. Thomas would bring over cakes and cookies of all assortments and it would strike me, within the narrow confines of a child’s observations, that she had no one else to bake for.
I felt that weird symphony of happiness and sympathy, poignant childhood memories fusing with the pain of realizing they’re gone, that life marches onward, trampling everything in its path. Mrs. Thomas was at that stage where hope meant something new and different. I startled myself with the recognition that hope had meant something different to me, too, four months ago.
I played defense to her questioning for a good hour, like I used to when I’d come home from school and my mother would interrogate me. It was annoying at the time, though I wonder how it would have felt had she not inquired. You know you’re a good parent when your child takes you for granted.
I bobbed and weaved, though I tried to fill in as much of the blanks as I could to satiate Mrs. Thomas, who kept insisting that I call her “Lilly” but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. She knew my mother had died and she notably did not raise the subject of my father, currently serving time in prison, so we talked much about Pete—I left out the part about him having a couple of drug-related scrapes with the law, or his inability to find a direction to his life—and mostly about me.
There, too, I edited, letting her take joy in my brief turn as a celebrity athlete, and my scholarship to State. She didn’t seem to be aware—or she’d forgotten—that I’d been kicked off the team for fighting with a teammate, after I’d used up all of my goodwill, even in a sport where violence is prized. She knew about law school and asked me about my law practice. She didn’t know the details beyond that, and when she hit the real sore spot, I decided it best to just tell her that “No one’s tied me down yet,” rather than burden her mind with my misfortune, particularly when I was about to raise another tragedy. She beat me to it, asking after Sammy, and however old she may be, her eyes still worked behind those substantial bifocals, and she knew she’d hit on something dark and messy.
She listened carefully, her facial expressions deteriorating further into sadness with each new development I laid on her, a quick intake of air with each twist to the plot. It’s never fun to hear of a murder, even if it was a scumbag child predator like Griffin Perlini. It’s even worse to think of a sweet, if troubled, young boy from the neighborhood pulling the trigger.
“Oh, my.” Her small frame seemed to turn into itself, as if trying to shield her from the memory of what happened to Audrey Cutler. “You know, Jason, every day I pray for forgiveness that I didn’t say something. That I didn’t call out after that man or call your mother or Mary right away.”
“You had no way of knowing.” It was, in fact, much like the conversation I’d had with Tommy Butcher—there’s no crime against running. That was all she’d seen that night that Audrey was abducted.
Mrs. Thomas nibbled at a couple of fingernails, her haunted expression telling me she was reliving the whole thing. “If I could have been more sure,” she said. “I—I just couldn’t be sure. And Lord help me, I couldn’t say something if I wasn’t sure.”
She was talking about the identification. As the only witness to the abduction, Mrs. Thomas had been asked to identify Griffin Perlini in a lineup. And obviously, she’d been unable to do so, or Griffin Perlini might have stood trial. In her mind, then, she’d failed the Cutlers a second time.
“It would have been almost impossible for you to identify him,” I told her. From my trip back to the neighborhood, I’d estimated that Mrs. Thomas was looking at someone running with his back to her,
I felt that weird symphony of happiness and sympathy, poignant childhood memories fusing with the pain of realizing they’re gone, that life marches onward, trampling everything in its path. Mrs. Thomas was at that stage where hope meant something new and different. I startled myself with the recognition that hope had meant something different to me, too, four months ago.
I played defense to her questioning for a good hour, like I used to when I’d come home from school and my mother would interrogate me. It was annoying at the time, though I wonder how it would have felt had she not inquired. You know you’re a good parent when your child takes you for granted.
I bobbed and weaved, though I tried to fill in as much of the blanks as I could to satiate Mrs. Thomas, who kept insisting that I call her “Lilly” but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. She knew my mother had died and she notably did not raise the subject of my father, currently serving time in prison, so we talked much about Pete—I left out the part about him having a couple of drug-related scrapes with the law, or his inability to find a direction to his life—and mostly about me.
There, too, I edited, letting her take joy in my brief turn as a celebrity athlete, and my scholarship to State. She didn’t seem to be aware—or she’d forgotten—that I’d been kicked off the team for fighting with a teammate, after I’d used up all of my goodwill, even in a sport where violence is prized. She knew about law school and asked me about my law practice. She didn’t know the details beyond that, and when she hit the real sore spot, I decided it best to just tell her that “No one’s tied me down yet,” rather than burden her mind with my misfortune, particularly when I was about to raise another tragedy. She beat me to it, asking after Sammy, and however old she may be, her eyes still worked behind those substantial bifocals, and she knew she’d hit on something dark and messy.
She listened carefully, her facial expressions deteriorating further into sadness with each new development I laid on her, a quick intake of air with each twist to the plot. It’s never fun to hear of a murder, even if it was a scumbag child predator like Griffin Perlini. It’s even worse to think of a sweet, if troubled, young boy from the neighborhood pulling the trigger.
“Oh, my.” Her small frame seemed to turn into itself, as if trying to shield her from the memory of what happened to Audrey Cutler. “You know, Jason, every day I pray for forgiveness that I didn’t say something. That I didn’t call out after that man or call your mother or Mary right away.”
“You had no way of knowing.” It was, in fact, much like the conversation I’d had with Tommy Butcher—there’s no crime against running. That was all she’d seen that night that Audrey was abducted.
Mrs. Thomas nibbled at a couple of fingernails, her haunted expression telling me she was reliving the whole thing. “If I could have been more sure,” she said. “I—I just couldn’t be sure. And Lord help me, I couldn’t say something if I wasn’t sure.”
She was talking about the identification. As the only witness to the abduction, Mrs. Thomas had been asked to identify Griffin Perlini in a lineup. And obviously, she’d been unable to do so, or Griffin Perlini might have stood trial. In her mind, then, she’d failed the Cutlers a second time.
“It would have been almost impossible for you to identify him,” I told her. From my trip back to the neighborhood, I’d estimated that Mrs. Thomas was looking at someone running with his back to her,
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