Free Angels of Destruction by Keith Donohue Page A

Wiley Rinnick, but all of them. The first, just thirteen, hung around the house at dusk each night that summer, a cavalier on a bicycle. A handsome brown-eyed boy with a lock curling across his forehead that he swept away whenever he bent to talk with Erica. On an August evening, just before the start of high school, Paul strode like a bear to the curb where the boy was chatting with their daughter. Margaret could see them from the window—the boy slouching behind the high handlebars, Erica leaning against the mailbox, and Paul, the apex of the triangle. Words were exchanged, the boy pinning his curl to his scalp with one hand, his lithe body contracting under the sound of her husband's scolding, Erica straining toward him, tense with sympathy. Off the boy pedaled, never to return, and Paul just watched, helpless, as if on shore bidding a ship goodbye, till the moon brightened the evening sky.
    She curled her fingers around the mug, felt the warmth escaping through the ceramic. From upstairs another fluttery wet sneeze roared through the floorboards. “That girl, I hope she's not caught her death. If you want to see Norah's mother, there's a photo album in the living room. Poor dear, I've got to take care of her now. You'll be all right by yourself, Sean?”
    He nodded. Through the ceiling, their muffled conversation rolled from Margaret to Norah in the rhythm of a love song. He listened, anxious at the strange sound, before remembering his duty and padding off to study the pictures from long ago.

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    H ere is Erica, bald and fat and toothless, naked in the grass. Here is Paul Quinn, making her fly, the baby a blur in the air, his fingers spread like branches for the catch. Here are Margaret's hands, one cupping the baby's head, the other rinsing soap from her daughter's potbelly. The baby's face startled by the suddenness of water. The toddler toddles. A circle of three-year-olds around a birthday cake, the candle flames white streaks on the gray tones of the snapshot, its edges scalloped and marked with runiform: Apr 13 61. Sean turned the page and the images sprang into muted color, washed out by the sun.
    Here is Erica perched on a tricycle, ready to race past the edge of the frame. Topless at some summer spot, a beach house perhaps, sucking on a nearly empty Pepsi bottle. Holding up her first hooked fish, no bigger than her hand. The colors deepen, become more saturated. She is a ballerina, a Halloween black cat, a girl with one tooth missing. Close up she resembles Norah in some ways: the eyes one size too small, the pert nose, the planes of her jawline. Years go missing, unobserved.
    Here is Margaret Quinn, twenty years younger, and next to her, arm around her shoulder, stands a woman close enough to be her sister, he thinks. Diane and Margaret pert in matching shirtwaist dresses, a burning cigarette in Diane's hand, a cocktail glass in Margaret's. Their lips brightly painted, their eyes shining with the glamour of summer. In one corner of the photograph, out of the depth of focus, the blur of a girl. He imagines her chasing the first fireflies of the evening or leaping through the sprinkler or being spooked by an unseen phantom. Then Erica, her back to the camera, looks over her shoulder at the lens. Spread across her outstretched arms is the Andean shawl with the sun aloft.
    Here is Christmas morning, paper on the floor, the tree twinkling and forlorn. The barest smiles. The new white skates appear too heavy in her hands. Her father ungainly in a tight leisure suit, her mother done up in a beehive, two steps behind the times.
    Here is Erica and her best friend Joyce times four—a photo strip from the new booth at Murphy's. From top to bottom: both girls caught in the middle of the giggles, Joyce's hand covering her mouth; Erica, three-quarters profile, fingers to her lips, and Joyce with her mouth wide open; now Joyce is smiling perfectly, Erica's eyes are shut; then flawless, cheek to cheek, happy to be