Free The Walk Home by Rachel Seiffert

he was.” Eric looked at Stevie a moment, next to him on the sofa, like he was impressed. “Nothin much gets past you, am I right?”
    Then he leaned in close:
    “Children ae the Irish, son. You an me both.”
    Eric whispered it, eyes bright, like they were in cahoots. It made his face look kind, and it made Stevie smile. Proper and wide. And when Lindsey saw that she thought she’d got the old man all wrong. He wasn’t like her Dad, he was completely different. Eric read the Bible so he’d know what to draw; he wasn’t like anyone she’d met before.
    “Aye, Papa Robert.” Eric told Stevie: “He came over fae Ireland. Ages before your Maw, but. In 1923.”
    He pulled his eyes wide, like that was time out of mind, to make her boy smile again, and Stevie did. Then Stevie pointed at the Bible:
    “Your Da read aw that tae you?”
    “So he did. Just like his ain faither read before him.”
    Eric nodded.
    “Startin wae creation an temptation, an then aw through the Numbers an Chronicles an Acts, aw through the weeks and themonths. Till he got tae
the Grace ae Lord Jesus Christ be with you, Amen
. An then he turnt tae the first page again.”
    Eric turned the big book over with a thump, and Lindsey thought she knew that weight too, all too well. She looked at the old man and wondered how much he’d felt it, when he was still at home. He was still telling Stevie about his boyhood: how after he was confirmed, he had to take his own turn at reading.
    “Every evenin, just before we got our tea. An I was a growin boy, aye ravenous: wan eye on the Bible, the other on the chops.”
    He pointed beyond his shoulder with his thumb, and said from where he sat, he could see through to the kitchenette, without moving his head, and he showed Stevie what he meant: a stiff-necked pantomime, swivelling his eyeballs.
    “Just between verses, aye? So as my parents wouldnae catch me, watching that pan, full ae potatoes.”
    Eric smiled again, and said his mother got everything ready to fire up, but when Papa Robert came home, he washed his face and hands first, and then he read.
    “I forgot my belly sometimes, right enough.”
    Eric nodded.
    “My Da could tell a story. Fae the Bible, aye, or his ain life in Ireland. Papa Robert could ae tellt you up was down, an you’d believe him, so you would. He had a way ae talkin. A voice you could listen tae, soft. Mair County Louth than Glasgow, even efter aw they years.”
    He was still smiling as he said this, but squinting now too, like it might be painful—complicated—remembering that Dad of his. What had it taken for Eric to escape him?
    Eric fell quiet there, and his eyes fell on Stevie, so Lindsey glanced at her son, and saw that he was listening like he could have listened on for ages. She felt the same way, even if it was darknow and long past Stevie’s tea time. But her boy had that blank-faced look that Lindsey knew: like he might drop off, any second, sleep might take him even against his wishes. Eric saw it too:
    “Aye anyhow,” he sighed. “That’s aw long done. Am I right? Time you were off up the road.”
    “Naw!”
    Stevie shook his drowsy head, and gave a pleading look to Lindsey. She didn’t much want to go either, so she put a finger to her lips, because she hoped Eric might tell them more now—maybe even about his leaving—if they were only quiet enough and waited.
    Eric was sitting forwards, a bit hunched, and the lamplight made him look old, older than he was, and that got Lindsey thinking: based on what Brenda said, he must be somewhere in his fifties. Except he looked more like seventy, so how was that then? She watched his face and wondered: if being alone could age you. Eric had lost his job, and he’d lost his wife; nobody came to his wedding, and now he lived here by himself. It gave Lindsey a sharp and guilty stab, to tot it all up like that. And to think how Graham didn’t want to come and visit; there were so few in the family who made the effort.