Free The Art of Forgetting by Peter Palmieri

him?” Monica asked.
                  “All the girls had a crush on him,” Erin said. “He was such a beautiful boy.”
                  “Was?” Lloyd said.
                  “I still see a little of that boy in you, but…”
                  “Go on,” Monica said.
                  “Well, I guess you’re a man now,” Erin said in a level voice.
                  “No he isn’t,” Mark said. “Trust me, Lloyd is still a little boy.”
                  “You never told me you knew Lloyd,” Monica said squeezing her cousin’s arm.
                  “Well we don’t really know each other, do we?” Erin said.
                  “I’m just trying to picture you,” Lloyd said. “Which house did you live in?”
                  “The one-and-a-half-story, red-brick bungalow with bay windows, which pretty much describes every house on our block,” Erin said with a laugh.
                  “We lived on the same block?”
                  “I’m Sean Kennedy’s little sister.”
                  “Sean Kennedy? You’re Milk-Duds’ sister?”
                  “Milk-Duds?” Monica asked.
                  “God, I hate that nickname,” Erin said.
                  “Cousin Sean?  Why’d they call him Milk-Duds?” Monica asked.
                  “He got caught stealing candy once from the corner grocery,” Lloyd said. “This old Greek, Mr. Demetrios, owned the store. Must have been a direct descendant of Archimedes ‘cause he had the whole place rigged up with little mirrors so he could see every corner of his shop while he sat at the cash register. We didn’t know this until Sean put a box of Milk Duds in his pocket. Didn’t he end up doing time in juvenile hall?”
                  “No. Nothing ever came of it,” Erin said.
                  “But I thought –”
                  “Mr. Demetrios never filed charges,” Erin said. “But my dad decided to scare him straight, so he got your father to come over in his Chicago PD uniform, slap hand-cuffs on him, toss him in the back of the squad car and haul his butt off to the precinct to have him booked. Your father played along until Sean was in tears. Then he bought him an ice-cream cone and phoned my dad to come and pick him up.”
                  “And now he trades futures at the Mercantile Exchange,” Mark said. “I guess once you start down a path of crime, there’s no turning back.” His wife swatted him on the arm.
                  Lloyd smiled at Mark’s joke but a jolt of electricity traveled down his spine. She knew my father !  Lloyd had always felt like he had lived two lives: his childhood on the North Mason corner of Chicago and the new life that began when he moved with his mother to the suburb of Des Plaines after his father’s death.  Lloyd rarely acknowledged his old life. He didn’t so much hide it but simply ignored it, tucked away in the far corner of the attic of his consciousness so as not to be an encumbrance. The thought of those days always plunged him into a deep melancholy but now, being in the presence of someone who knew him as a child, who knew the real Lloyd, was oddly liberating, if terrifying.
                  “You remember all that?” Lloyd asked.
                  Erin touched his elbow, “I remember your father. I’m so sorry Lloyd.”
                  Lloyd looked over Erin’s shoulder as if he were distracted by something outside the kitchen window. He avoided eye contact thinking that somehow, she might be able to see through him, peer past his façade.
                  “Wait a second,” Lloyd said. “You were that girl always riding the purple Big Wheel.”
                  “So