A/N: I have been blown away by the support for this. Thank you, everyone. If you only knew how nervous I was, before posting began. I can hardly believe we got here... Please let me know what you think of this chapter.
It takes me a month to get a visitor's permit.
A month to think it all over. Think about what an idiot I was, not to realize, not to fucking notice. And I thought Curly was the no brains of the family.
The family. Ha fucking ha.
On the drive down there, I think about it some more.
I only went to Gramma's in the first place to get Ma to quit bitching about the stuff.
'Ron can't move the furniture on his own, not with his back', 'Ron can't lift all those boxes, not with his back.'
Ain't nothing wrong with his back that getting off it once in a damn while wouldn't cure.
But, I ain't inhuman. I see that it's her Ma's stuff we're disposing of, and I get that - for all they fought like two wet cats in a bag - she's doing it tough now the old girl finally croaked. So I go over there, to help her shift the crap around and let her pick what we got to take back to our house.
If Gramma's timing had been a little better, if she'd held on for a couple of months, Curly'd have been out the reformatory and he could've helped. As it is, Angel tags along, thinks it's worth poking about in a few boxes. Yeah, 'cause there'll be real diamonds in there somewhere, among all the rosary beads.
"Tim, you want these?" No jewelry, but some medals, couple of photos of Ma's brothers in uniform, the ones who went down in Korea. Older stuff, too. Her dad, I guess, in a different uniform, the first war it looks like. I don't remember him. He looks like Curly in the picture.
What am I gonna do with a box of medals though? I'm picking up the box to take to Ma, see if she's interested, when I see the other stuff, baptism certificates and first communion cards. A birth certificate.
'Dominic Francis Peter'. Ha! I used to think I got it unlucky, with 'Timothy James', not to mention Saint 'Jerome', the patron saint of stupid kid brothers. Only suddenly, I ain't smiling no more, because the rest of it ain't right.
"Tim?" Angel didn't see it, don't know why I'm flying out the room, yelling for Ma, letting the door bounce off the wall as I go into the kitchen.
"What're you yelling about? Show a little respect-" she starts up, which really sets me off.
"Respect? Are you fuckin' kidding me?" I wave the piece of paper at her. "Why didn't you never say? Why'd you let me think he was my uncle?"
Because Dom's birth certificate don't say that his mother was Maggie Riley, it says 'Maria Frances Riley'. Still 'Riley' though, because there's a big, fat space under 'Father's name' that ain't nowhere filled up by the word 'illegitimate'.
Ma puts her hand over her mouth, like a lady in some movie, real shocked.
"Jesus, Ma, does he even know?"
"I think so."
"You think so? You got a son out there and you don't know if he knows it? Don't you fucking care?" I'm shouting and Angel's slipped out of the bedroom to listen. I hear Ron coming back in from the car, making his way through the boxes in the entryway.
"It was for the best. I was only -"
"Yeah, Ma, I did the math." She was only a week off nineteen when she had me, making her fifteen when she had Dom. Angel's age when she got knocked up. Holy Christ.
I know there's a sneer on my face, but I can't help it, no more'n I can help the next thing that comes out my mouth:
"I know you only got married four months before I was born, so it ain't a big surprise to find out that you were the neighborhood whore before that."
A couple of things happen real quick.
Ma slaps me hard around the face and bursts into tears. And Ron, even with his supposedly bad back, slams me into the wall, face first, twisting my arm up, hard.
"You don't speak to your mother like that!" he yells. "You little shit, who the hell d'ya think you are?"
I ain't sure which surprises me more, to be honest. Ma bawling or Ron getting the jump on me.
I shake him off easy enough, shoving him away and yanking my shirt straight, shaking out my arm where he twisted it. My blood's boiling enough to take him on – he ain't laid a hand on me since I was fourteen and got to be taller than him. I grabbed the belt off him and threatened to lay into him and that's when his stepfatherly duties evaporated.
"Tim!" Angel says urgently. "Don't. Please."
Ron's over by Ma anyway, patting her on the shoulder or something.
"Why didn't you never say?" I know it's redundant, but I hear myself ask again. "You know we used to hang together."
I have a sudden memory of some chick thinking we were brothers, commenting on it. Dom just smiling, letting her think so. Fuck. I think he knew. Why wouldn't he tell me?
And that's what I'm still thinking, on the drive to McAlester.
In the search room.
As I wait, watching the other prisoners file in.
"How's it hanging, kid?"
I frighten myself by not recognizing him. He's up in front of me, speaking to me, before I realize it's him. He was nineteen the last time I saw him, same age I am now. Four years ago. Four years between us. The parallels make my head spin.
Is this how I'm going to look? Or is this prison looking back at me? I toss him the smokes I brought. The packet is open and a little squashed, thanks to the search. He lights up right away.
"Gramma died." This is the first thing I say to him.
He looks puzzled. "Yeah. They told me."
I know enough not to ask how he's going. How 'things' are. They just are and will be for as long as he's got left. He looks thin. Hard. Looks like he's losing some hair, but that might just be the prison cut.
"So," I say, trying to sound like it ain't no big deal, "they got this space on the visitor's permit, 'relationship to prisoner'. I put 'brother'."
He quirks an eyebrow. "You did, huh?"
I shrug.
Dom smiles slightly for the first time. "Took you long enough, you stupid fucker."
"Why didn't you say?"
Now he shrugs. "It is what it is."
"But when did you know?"
"Christ." He screws up his face, thinking back. "Guess I found out when I was about thirteen. Rooting about, looking for cash. You know how it is." He exhales slow, getting every second of smoke he can out of the weed. "How are the kids?"
I tell him Curly's in the reformatory, again. And I tell him Angela is a holy terror who gives me sleepless nights.
He leans back in his chair, laughing silently. "Yeah. I can see that'd be the case. You running the yard?"
I tell him, no yard, not no more, but we got the warehouse and yeah, I run the fucking show.
"Never doubted it, kid, never doubted it." He looks at the weed butt with regret, grinds it down in the tiny foil ashtray so generously provided. He gestures to his face. "What's with that? Trouble?"
"Nah. A one off." I ain't about to tell him it was a lousy hobo got lucky with a busted bottle.
"Your old man's out, right?"
I nod. As far as I know. What I don't know is if he's Dom's old man too. Ma ain't said one more word about it. But we look so alike, could that be down to sharing just one parent?
Dom's worked his way around all of us. Only one thing left to ask.
"So. How's Ria doing?" He calls her Ria. Like he always did. Not your ma. Not our ma. That may be the freakiest thing, and I'm glad he didn't say it. "She take it bad about Maggie?"
"Some. Ron's still around."
"No shit? That's gotta be a record."
I suppose she was married to Dad longer, but he was inside for about half of the time. Maybe ol' Ron is the keeper.
We talk a little about stuff I have the boys doing. Some of the deals I got set up.
There's a freaky buzzer noise to signal the end of visiting. Some broad on the other side of the room starts to wailing.
"You gonna come up again?" The question surprises me. Dom's voice is real low. "Ma used to come. Not regular. Birthdays, shit like that." I realize he's talking about Gramma. I never knew. She never said. I can't even imagine her making the bus journey all this way.
"Yeah." I nod quickly, the guards are starting to hurry people. "If..if you want."
"Well, I'd rather see ya on that side of the table, than in the lunch line, Timmy. That's for fuckin' sure." Dom's eyes dance for the first time, as he resurrects the old nickname I hated. A guard is barking in his ear, making him stand up. Dom jerks his head as another prisoner goes past, to get his attention:
"Hey, Dave. This here's my tuff kid brother I told you about."
I watch him walk away from me.
I won't cry. I don't do that.
The End.
