Forever by Pete Hamill

grabbing him by the waist, pivoting at once, jerking him free of the mud, and hurling him to safety.
    As the horses smashed her into the mud and the steel-cased wheels rolled over her.
    Rebecca Carson did not scream.
    Her body simply issued a great whoosh. As if all the air and all the life and her very soul had been abruptly squashed out of her.
    It was Robert who screamed.
    He screamed and ran to her, pulling himself through the sucking mud, and screamed and fell face forward into the mud and screamed and rose and screamed and felt hands grabbing his arms while he screamed and felt the rain hammering him and his dead mother and he screamed.
    When there were no screams left, and no voice, Robert sat splay-legged in the mud, holding his mother’s ruined head, and saw through tears and rain that the black coach was stopped a dozen yards beyond them. The door opened. The Earl of Warren put a tentative foot on the runner below the door, brushing in a distracted way at the rain pelting his black velvet coat. He looked at Robert cradling the broken body of his mother. Then the earl sat back heavily in the coach and closed the door behind him. But the black coach did not move. A murmurous crowd was thickening now, with shopkeepers and Tommy Hastings and other boys and men who looked grim. Patch came slopping through the mud.
    “Bloody stupid Irish,” he said. “Running in front of a coach like that.”
    Robert stood up, moved around Patch, and dashed to the coach, slipping and floundering. He jerked at a door handle. When it opened, the earl stared at him with concern on his face.
    “I’m sorry, lad,” he said in a smooth, sympathetic voice. “I didn’t see what happened, but there’ll be an investigation, and there’ll be some compensation. Of course, I’ll pay for the funeral services and—”
    Robert leaped at the earl, punching at him, screaming I’llkillyou, I’llkillyou, I’llkillyou, up on the runner now, reaching in and grabbing at his neck, trying to hurt him, to give him pain, crazy and snarling: “You goddamned slaver, you slaver, you cruel rotten slaver.” All of this in a matter of seconds. And then Patch was pulling the boy off the earl, whirling him, heaving him like a sack of potatoes through the rainy air into the mud. Three rain-soaked redcoats were suddenly there. One slapped Robert’s muddy face, making his ears ring. Another raised his rifle butt as if to batter the boy. Then the earl emerged again and shouted: “Stop, you brainless bugger, it’s his mother .”
    The redcoat obeyed. Robert rose from the mud and saw the earl peering down at Rebecca’s body, his face a mixture of fear, pity, and surprise. Robert felt his rage seep out of him like rain-water and he fell into a drawn-up ball beside his mother’s body. Now some of the men came from the side and lifted him, and carried Rebecca out of the mud and laid her in front of the fishmonger’s shop. Robert saw the earl wave with a sneer at Patch, ordering him to get up on the coach. Then he slammed the door and leaned out the open window.
    “Take her home,” he said in a vague way to the crowd. “And the boy too.” He paused, then added in a subdued voice: “I’ll take care of everything.”

10.
    B ehind the closed door of the bedroom, Da washed the Irish mud off the body of his wife. He dried her. He dressed her in her best cashmere gown. Standing outside the door, Robert heard him murmur one sentence: “O my Rebecca, O Rebecca, I will see you soon enough.” Da attached her double-spiraled silver earrings. Then he carried her out of the bedroom and placed her upon a pair of planks stretched across the low stools beside the hearth. In the light of the fire and the lanterns, she seemed to the boy to be sleeping. He and his father stared at her for a long while. Outside, Bran began a low, pained, desolated howling.
    “Comfort the dog, son,” Da said. “We can comfort each other later.”
    And so he did, lying with Bran in the