When the phone rang it was just after 11 o'clock, but Danny Reagan was still awake. Or awake again, really. Linda had woken up fifteen minutes or so earlier with an incredible craving for pickles, chocolate ice cream, and Danny's grilled cheese in that order. Pregnancy, Danny was beginning to learn, was as unpredictable as a graveyard shift on a full moon. He didn't like being woken up at 11 o'clock at night to make grilled cheese, but he loved Linda so that kind of cancelled it out. She was currently on the couch in the living room, making short work of a tub of ice cream.
And then the phone rang.
"I'll get it!" Linda said helpfully from the couch.
Danny grinned at her, wiping his hands on a dishcloth as he walked through to lounge. She hadn't moved.
"Oh, you will, will you?"
He picked up the phone and put it against his ear, fully expecting it to be the barman from O'Flanagan's. Instead, he was treated to an earful of hysterically sobbing Jamie.
"Dad…didn't mean to…he's gone now…Billy…weed…"
"Kid?" Danny said, trying in vain to make sense of the incoherent words that was spilling from the telephone. "Jamie? Hey, Jamie! Calm down and tell me what's going on, buddy. Kid, calm down."
"He just left!"
"Who left?"
"Dad!"
Danny scratched his head.
"Ok, ok. Slow down, tell me exactly what's going on from the beginning. No, no, take a deep breath and calm down. I can't understand you if you keep on crying like that."
There was a presence at his elbow, and he looked over his shoulder to see Linda next to him, a worried look on her face. He put an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer, so that she could press her ear to the other side of the phone. Where Jamie was still sobbing like there was no tomorrow.
"Jamie, calm down now." He put a little bit more bass into his voice, relieved when it seemed to work. "That's good. Tell me what the hell's going on."
"Dad left," Jamie said with a gulp. "It's a long story but I went to a party with Billy Carlotti and smoked weed and the cops showed up. Dad was really angry and I thought he was going to kill me for sure, but then I said some horrible things to him and he started yelling and then he just stopped and left without a word."
Danny's mind was reeling, as he tried to imagine Jamie, his sweet angel-faced little brother Jamie for 'sakes, smoking weed. And Dad knowing about it and leaving without taking a strip off Jamie's hide with him.
"What did you say to him?" he finally said.
Jamie sobbed again.
"It's been so horrible," he said. "Ever since…ever since Mom died, he's been so quiet and he never talks. Like he doesn't care anymore. He doesn't eat either, you know. He just sits by the fire and drinks scotch. It's like he's not alive anymore."
"You told him that?"
There was silence.
"That's hardly a horrible thing to say, kid," Danny said, gently. "Hard to hear maybe but –"
"I didn't say it like I said it just now. And I swore at him too. And – and I told him that I hated him and said if Mom was the one who was still alive, she'd still have cared for me." Tears was beginning to creep into his voice again. "And he looked to strange before he left, Danny, I'm afraid…I'm afraid…."
He sobbed and couldn't speak further, but Danny knew what he was afraid of. He thought about his father's pale, elusive face the last few weeks since his mother died and was suddenly afraid of exactly the same thing. There had been several occasions in his childhood when his father had been furious with him, but he'd never been one of those fathers who had to go for a drive or a run before he was cool enough to deal with you. He'd certainly never stormed off in the middle of a confrontation like this.
"It's okay, Jamie, it's okay. I promise, it's going to be okay. Listen, I'm going to call the precinct now and ask if Dad's maybe gone there. If not, I'm going to call Erin and Joe and Gramps. We'll find him soon enough."
Jamie sobbed harder, maybe from relief. Linda touched his hand, and he twisted the phone so that she could speak into it.
"Hey, Jamie," she said softly. "Do you want me to come over there, honey? It must be awful, being alone in that big house and not knowing what's going on."
"Could you?" Jamie's voice was very hopeful, and Danny rubbed Linda's shoulder. Thankful, not for the first time and not for the last, that such a wonderful person had decided to put up with the Reagan clan's shenanigans for the rest of her life.
"Sure, honey. I'll get over there right now, while Danny makes some calls. I'll be there before you know it."
"Thanks, Linda," Jamie said, ever polite.
"You sure you'll be okay to drive?" Danny asked, as he dialled the precinct. Linda kissed him on the cheek, already reaching for her coat.
"Danny, I'll be fine. I'll ring when I get there."
He blew her a kiss as she went out the front door, thankfully just before the person on the other side of the line picked up.
Sergeant Hochlin seemed fairly surprised at his question, but she was tactful about it and Danny pretended that he'd only misunderstood his dad's shift schedule. Dad wasn't there thought. Not that Danny'd really thought he'd go there. Even if he did leave simply to cool off before dealing with Jamie, it wouldn't have gone to the station.
He rang Erin next. The phone rang for quite some time before it was picked up.
"Erin Reagan-Boyle speaking," said a groggy voice then.
"Hey, sis."
"What, Danny?"
It wasn't particularly friendly, but Danny didn't blame her. She was having a rough time of it, between a recent divorce and an extremely busy four-year-old and a new job at the DA's office and, oh, suddenly losing a mother to aggressive lung cancer. The only reason she had been asleep right now, most likely, was because she wouldn't have slept much at all the past two or three nights.
"I'm sorry to wake you up, sis, but have you heard anything from Dad?"
It was such a peculiar question that he could almost hear Erin's expression sharpening.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you know how he's been the last couple of weeks? I'm reading between the lines a lot but I'm guessing that it was beginning to freak Jamie out. And that's on us a bit too, because we shouldn't have left the kid to just deal with Dad grieving like that on his own. But anyways, Jamie went and did something amazingly stupid. And then proceeded to make Dad aware of how he's been since Mom died in not the politest way from what he tells me. Dad left, and I'm frankly not sure to do what."
He was aware of the fact that he was rambling slightly, but Erin usually liked to get a panoramic view of things.
"You think he'd kill himself?" Erin wasn't usually this blunt. He could hear the worry in her voice.
"I know Mom's death hit him hard, and I don't think he's done much to deal with it. I'm just…I don't really think he'd do it but I really think we need to find him."
"I haven't heard from him. He's not at the precinct?"
"No, I called."
"Does Joe know anything?"
"Haven't called him yet, but it's more likely than not that he's at O'Flanagan's again getting shitfaced. Dad's not the only one who's not dealing with this well."
"Yeah, I get that," Erin said, dryly. "Can you come pick me up? Nicky's with her dad tonight. We'll pick Joe up if we need to and then I'll help you look for Dad."
"Look, sis, I can hear how tired you are…"
"I'll be expecting you in ten minutes. Don't be late."
Danny called Joe's apartment next, but there was no answer. With a sigh, he dialled O'Flanagan's. The bartender had, coincidentally, been about to call him since it was closing time. Joe was indeed there, and was indeed shitfaced and unable to drive. Danny cursed as he called Erin again.
"Look, sis, Joe is at O'Flanagan's and I gotta go pick him up before they close. Can you call Gramps and just find out if he's seen Dad? Or maybe know of a place where he'd go?"
"Fine. Are you taking Joe back to your house?"
"Nah, I'll take him to Dad's. It's high time Dad had a word with him anyways. He's not listening to me."
"I'll meet you there then."
The bartender at O'Flanagan's was beginning to be a familiar face, which wasn't something Danny exactly liked, and he waved Danny in the direction of a crumpled figure sitting at the far end of the bar.
Joe was far gone, and he didn't react when Danny tapped him on the shoulder.
"C'mon, knucklehead," Danny said, a lot more gruffly than he actually felt. It wouldn't do for his brother to hear all the tenderness and sympathy that he felt. At the very least, it would ruin his street cred for years to come.
He ducked underneath Joe's limp arm and dragged him to his feet. It took an inordinately long amount of time to manoeuvre the two of them through O'Flanerty's swinging door but Danny finally got him to the car and managed to bundle him into the passenger seat. He even managed to strap him into the seatbelt, which was no mean feat.
Joe's head fell sideways, and he slurred something which sounded like 'scotch'.
"Yeah, none of that," Danny said curtly. "And if you throw up in my car, I'm making you lick it up. Tomorrow, when your head is splitting in two."
Joe remained in a drunken stupor the rest of the way home.
Erin's car was already in the driveway when he got there, and she and Linda were in the kitchen when he staggered in with Joe.
Linda had, of course, been present the previous dozen or so times Danny had had to drag Joe home from the bar, but Erin looked slightly shocked. It wasn't a comfortable feeling, Danny knew, seeing their normally exuberant and athletic brother in such a state.
"I'll chuck him in the downstairs bedroom," he told Linda over his shoulder. Joe was moving at the moment, and stopping would only mean having to struggle to get him to move again. "He should sleep it off, but if he wakes knock him over the head with a saucepan or something. Don't, on any account, give him anything more to drink. He's liable to get alcohol poisoning."
"Make sure to put him on his side," Linda called.
Danny did. When he got back to the kitchen, Erin gave him a stiff-lipped smile.
"Gramps hasn't heard from him either. He suggested we drive out to the river."
"He's not coming out?"
"No. He thinks Dad might try to call him or come to him, which is quite likely."
Danny nodded.
"Is Jamie okay?" he asked Linda.
"He's fairly shaken up, but I managed to calm him down. He was worried about Joe too, seems like he thought Joe was avoiding him deliberately too. I explained to him where Joe was, and that seemed to help a lot."
"You told him Joe's drinking?"
"He's not a little kid, Danny." Linda's smile was slightly sad, as if she also missed the days when Jamie had been a kid. "But he is a teenager. He tends to think everything revolves around him somehow. Understanding that Joe has just been dealing with grief in an unhealthy way, and that not coming here has nothing to do with him and everything to do with Mary helped a lot. I think he's realising that it might be the case with Frank too."
Danny gave her a tender look, strengthened by the soft look in her eyes. Then he looked at Erin.
"So, the pier then?"
