Free The Last Whisper in the Dark: A Novel by Tom Piccirilli Page B

friends.”
    “Why did they do that?”
    “It was a misunderstanding.”
    “You need to stay away from him, Terry. You need to stay away from her.”
    “I am. I will. Ma? This guy? John?”
    I dropped heavily into a chair. She grabbed the empty glass from my hand, filled it, and brought it back out to John. His laughter filled the house. I knew he was brimming with schemes and scams and rip-offs that would bring doom on us. I glanced into the living room where Gramp was watching cartoons. He seemed to be grimacing as John’s chortle rang through the place.
    My mother returned and said, “It’s disturbing, isn’t it, how much he looks like your brother?”
    “I hadn’t noticed. What’s he doing here?”
    “My brother Will phoned earlier this afternoon. My father had a stroke last month. He’s dying and wants to see me.”
    “And you’re complaining about the fucking pharmacy?”
    She took a breath and shut her eyes and found her resolve. “I’m sorry. It was a defense mechanism. I suppose I’m in denial. It’s a lot to take in. I haven’t heard from my family in over thirty years. I haven’t seen them since I got married. Talking to Will again … it brought back a lot of memories.”
    I’d never met anyone from her side of the family. I knew absolutely nothing about them. After she and my father started becoming serious her parents asked what kind of a boy he was. She told the truth. They ordered her to stop seeing him immediately. She returned one last time to pack her belongings and found the pictures of herself turned to the wall. She never went home again.
    “Was that him on the phone just now?”
    “Yes.”
    So, I had a grandmother too. “What was that like? After thirty-plus years?”
    “It reminded me how much I missed him. And my parents. And how much I still resent them, for what happened.”
    My mother was the strongest person I knew, but this family, a family she had married into at the loss of her own, had cost her a normal life. She spent her life in a house devised by crooks, built on fifty metric fuck tons of unfenceable loot stashed away in caches in the walls and ceiling and floors. She’d been braced by the cops a thousand times, had spent all her time holding the Rands together despite our best efforts to destroy ourselves. She’d seen Mal in the yard with his guts hanging, she’d listened to the TV as the crowds outside the prison cheered while my brother died. She watched over Gramp, feeding and cleaning him, engaging him on the off chance that he could still understand enough to deserve human conversation. I suddenly wanted her to leave us and save herself.
    “What are you going to do?” I asked. “About your father?”
    “I’m not sure yet. I have to think about it.”
    I wanted another drink. She knew I wanted another drink and moved the tray away from me. I">“Is it?”tp said, “So if you talked with your brother, then why’s this one here? This nephew of yours.”
    “He wanted to come.” She peered out the kitchen window at John and my old man freezing their asses off on the porch. My father stayed out there because it was his spot. It was usually the spot where the old dogs rested and kept watch. “I think he’s always wanted to come. He seems quite lonesome.”
    Cousin John wasn’t lonesome. He wasn’t disaffected. He wasn’t eager for newfound blood attachments. The restrained joy I’d seen was all about money and action and some kind of score.
    “So even though they threw you out of the house they’ve kept tabs on you all this time?” I asked.
    “Considering the Rand family history, nobody had to exactlykeep tabs. All they needed to do was watch the police blotter. Or the television.” She poured herself two fingers of scotch and drained half the glass. I had never seen my mother drink alcohol before.
    She reached over and with two fingers plied my gray patch. We were both acutely aware that these white streaks were from her side of the