Part 12

It was dark on the hall. Most of the patients were quiet. Midnight shift was easier that way. It was just hard to get yourself up for. There was a cosmic justice in the lower stress level that prevailed once you got yourself there, though.

She left a note for the girl on day shift to ask Dr. Jones about Z. Smith's ability to handle a talk with a police detective.

When she went to check on him he was lying still, awake.

"You're lucky," he said.

"Why?"

"To have that old guy. Your godfather."

"I've always thought so."

"How did he come to be your godfather?"

"My Dad is an engineer, and he's worked for McKinley – that's the name of the company, forever. Since I can remember. When he first got there, he didn't know anything. He says what you learn in college doesn't begin to show what you to do on a job. I don't thing that's entirely true, but that's a family debate subject. Anyway, the person who taught him everything he knows today, and who he has been friends with ever since, was Joe. They just have stuff in common. They go to the speedway together. Joe showed him how to work on cars. They go fishing. Dad needs somebody to help move somebody in or out of a house, he calls Joe, and gets some help with it. Dad needs to figure out what is wrong with a gadget, he calls Joe. Joe comes over, and they figure it out, and they fiddle with it, and they drink beer, and they fix it. I would call them best friends, even though Joe is older than Dad is, more like a big brother he never had, I suppose. Dad has little brothers. They ask him questions. My Granddad is more likely to need help than to give it. If his roof is falling off, Dad and Joe go and fix it."

"And then all this gets passed down to you. How to drive race cars. How to fix fishing poles."

"Yes," she smiled. "And to my brothers, too. I'm lucky that they never leave me out of anything on account of being a girl. But don't you have a godfather?"

"I don't know. I don't think so."

"You're not Catholic, I guess."

"No."

"Didn't your family have baptisms and the confirmations and all that."

"No. Oh no."

"Well, we did. Do. The family is so big, that between their baptisms, and first communions, and confirmations, and weddings and funerals, there's barely a weekend free in a summer."

"Most of that sounds happy."

"Oh yes. Even the funerals aren't too bad. They're always old, old people who die in my family. They are made out of some sort of cast iron, especially Mom's side. My great aunt died just before the 4th; she was 91. Can't argue about somebody dying when they are 91. You tell stories about them and some of them are funny. You end up laughing at a funeral! But I think it is the way it should be. She would have wanted us to laugh. When she was alive, she would have told stories on the deceased, too. Now as to her, you could hardly believe what she was most famous for."

"What was that?"

"A few years ago we were at the Port Charles Grill; I think I was here on a school break. My aunt, her name was Maggie, was there, and her son and his wife, and my Dad's cousin. I think my boyfriend at the time was there, from college with me. We had seen a movie, JFK. Everybody was arguing one side or the other. Someone must have said something for the one bullet theory, and Aunt Maggie argued back and said, 'well, then, why did Kennedy's head go back first if the bullet came from the back?' And as she said that she tossed her head back like the film showed his did. The chair was too light for the force she applied to this demonstration. It flipped back. She ended up with her head in this old guy's lap. He was sitting behind her at the next table. He got into a real tizzy about it too. We were laughing too hard to apologize to him for awhile. Including Aunt Maggie."

He smiled. "So who told the story at her funeral?"

"Don't remember. Anybody could do it. Even people who weren't there, like my grandfather, her brother. He wasn't there in the restaurant that night, but he can tell the story because he's heard it so many times. And he could imitate the irritable old man just like everyone else does too. Which gets everybody laughing again. Even though we've heard that story 100 times. For some reason, it's still funny."

"You're lucky."

"I know. But you must have grandparents. A great aunt or two."

"Never knew them."

"No? That's so sad. I don't know what I'd do without my grandparents."

"Are they still alive?"

"Dad's parents are, and Mom's mother is. Mom's Dad died almost right after I graduated from Notre Dame, and he was 87."

"You went to the same college as your godfather."

"Yep. I wanted to go here, to Port Charles University. But they practically forced me to at least apply to Notre Dame. Then when I got accepted there, I could hardly believe it. I knew I would have to go. They would never let me hear the end of it. Never. There was no way out."

"But are you glad, now?"

"Yes. It is another funny story, so I won't bore you with it now, about how half the family drove me out there. When I moved into the dorm, I was the only one with like an army to move me in. It took about 2 seconds to get all my stuff in the room. The hall was so crowded with Connors and Hanleys and the rest that the other girls were having trouble getting through to their rooms with their stuff."

"So I bet your godfather was part of this crowd."

"Of course. He loved having the excuse to go back there, let me tell you. We went to Indy every Memorial Day, but you don't need me to tell you that."

Later, at the station, Quinn scolded herself. How did I go on about all that stuff when he gave me a clue? And how can a person never have met any of his own grandparents?

But on second thought, she decided that not pressing it had been the better way. She could get a little out of him at a time without stressing him out. If she had asked the next logical question, he would only have refused to answer it. She'd have been starting to lose her patience, and started arguing. This way he wasn't mad at her for the time being, and might be less resistant.

Besides it was probably a lie. If he said he never met them, she realized, then she wouldn't ask questions about them.

And no baptisms and confirmations and all that? The same thing? She thought again about point blank asking him for his religion. What would be the point of refusing to answer that, whatever it was, there would be millions of adherents, and that alone would not identify him. But she'd know something.

"Drat him!" she said to herself. "I'm sick of him! Why doesn't he just answer normal questions like normal people? And he ends up knowing my life history!" She went to get a chart, determined not to think about the Mysterious Zander for the rest of the night.