Free Angels of Destruction by Keith Donohue Page B

fifteen.
    Here is Paul Quinn, the final time, standing to the knees in a hole; above the ground, a cherry tree, its roots encased in a burlap ball. The camera has captured his little girl half out of the picture. She grips the trunk with such fierce determination that Sean reads first anger, then jubilation in her expression. Her hair hangs down past her shoulders in two curtains. Her body now looks like a woman's, not a girl's, the swell of small breasts against a tie-dyed shirt, her hips wider at the tops of her jeans, but more ineffably, her carriage—the way she squared her shoulders and lifted her head, in full cognizance of her strength and beauty.
    Here he is, the boy at the class trip to the amusement park, barely noticeable, only in retrospect. The teenagers took over the merry-go-round, laughing, long hair flying, riding mad snorting ponies, an ostrich, lion, leaping deer. Just beyond Erica, who is centered in the frame, the dark-haired boy stares so ardently that his eyes nearly burn through the paper. There he is again, at the margins of a clowning group before the Tilt-A-Whirl, all eyes forward, devil's horns over the unsuspecting, but only this boy, cascades of brown curls, wearing a shirt with the peace sign, only he is gazing aslant at the object of his desire. And a final time, he stands behind Erica, arms clasped in front of her waist, both grinning out of focus as though photographed through a scrim of ice.
    On the last page of the album, here is Erica's junior-year portrait, the one the police and FBI used, the one in all the newspapers and on television, the last known photograph. A formal coda to her childhood. A girl, becoming woman.

18
    “ S he's finally asleep,” Mrs. Quinn told him in hushed tones. “Poor thing. Her temperature is 102 degrees, and she's shaking and chattering like a bag of bones.”
    At the stove, Sean stirred the soup. While he was waiting for her to tend to Norah, he had raided her refrigerator, and a pair of grilled cheese sandwiches browned in a cast-iron skillet.
    “You added a can of water?” Mrs. Quinn hovered over his shoulder, peering into the pot. “It's condensed, you know.”
    “I make my own dinner lots.”
    She patted him on the shoulder. “Of course you do.” He looked so small in her husband's shirt and socks, a stickboy elbows, hips, and shoulders sharp against the flannel. Fatherless child. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and rock and soothe him until his sadness went away. Standing on a stepstool, he had climbed onto the counter to take down the bowls and plates for dinner. She brought the silverware and napkins, two glasses of milk. They sat at an adjoining corner, saving a space for Norah, who would not be down.
    “Your mother works late sometimes. You have to take care of yourself?”
    “Sometimes.” He slurped in a long fat noodle. “Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Saturday morning, sometimes.”
    “Do you get lonesome?”
    “No, I kinda like having time to myself.” He paused, remembering Norah's instructions. “Do you?”
    “Get lonesome? Heavens, no … Sometimes.”
    “I miss my dad. Do you miss your daughter?”
    She nibbled at the burnt crust, showering crumbs. “At first you miss them all of the time. You start to say something, call them for dinner, and then you catch yourself. Or you look up from the crossword or the soaps or your book expecting to see her in the doorway, but she isn't there, she isn't anywhere. And you wonder what is she doing this very minute, wonder if she ever thinks of you, or thinks of you as often as you think of her.” Margaret looked at Sean. “Of course, your dad misses you as much as you miss him, but it's the same, isn't it, for us all? We go on not understanding how it happened this way.”
    He set his spoon down in the bowl and stared at the triangle of his sandwich. Beguiled by the memories he had opened, she went on talking to herself.
    “All day long every day I thought of nothing but her. For