Forever by Pete Hamill Page A

lee of the house as the drizzle fell from the Irish sky. The dog was on his side, lost, forlorn, empty, his eyes wide, his pink tongue flopping over his teeth, his body trembling with hundreds of small breaths. He was as inconsolable as the boy. They huddled together in the dark for a long time.
    Then people started to arrive, trudging through the rain, kicking mud off their shoes at the door, entering in a tentative way, saying what they could say, which was not much. Sorry for your trouble, each of them seemed to say. Sorry for your trouble. Some of Robert’s friends came from school, all but Tommy Hastings, who someone said was beyond consolation, blaming himself. But Robert hid from them in the dark with Bran, and walked with the dog through the black rain to the stable to feed Thunder. There the boy begin to bawl again, and Thunder pawed the straw at his feet and Bran let out a long banshee howl.
    From the stable, Robert saw the Rev. Robinson coming up the road, awkward and gaunt. He remained hidden in the dark and was relieved that the preacher didn’t stay long. Then everybody was gone. Da called “Son, son, come home now” from the door, and Robert walked slowly back with Bran. The boy didn’t want to enter the house, but in a hoarse, low voice, his father told him to come in and change into dry clothes. “Him too,” he said, nodding at the soaked dog. Bran seemed to understand that they needed him with them that night. He shook off the rain, twice, and followed the boy to his room.
    When Robert returned in dry clothes, his father was staring at his wife, at Rebecca, the descendant of Noah. At the boy’s mother. He said nothing. The doors were now closed and locked against the world. But the world would not leave them to their grieving.
    There was a sudden sharp knock on the door. Bran barked angrily, as if he needed to take out his anger on someone, anyone. Da only looked weary: another mourning visitor, paying respects. He sighed and went to the door. A thin, trembling man stood there, a scarf tied tightly around his head under a tall fur hat. He bowed in a nervous way. Da barred the way to the house, leaving the man in the dripping rain. Bran barked and barked, while the boy tried to calm him.
    “Yes?”
    “Excuse me, sir. You’d be Mister Carson, sir, am I right? Mr. John Carson?”
    “Aye.”
    “Sorry for your trouble, Mister Carson,” the man said. “But I’ve got something for you.”
    The man peeled off a kid glove and slid an envelope from inside his coat. He handed it to Da, then bowed, turned, and was gone. Father and son heard the receding gallop of a horse.
    The father stared at the envelope, then turned it over. Heavy vellum paper. The deckle-edged flap sealed in red wax, embossed with a W.
    He cracked it open with a finger. Inside there was a lone vellum card. He exhaled disdainfully, then showed it to his son. A single word was written with a steel pen: Sorry. Clipped to the card was a ten-pound note.
    Da held the ten-pound note between thumb and forefinger as if pinching the tail of a rat.
    “Ten pounds,” he said. And for the first time he sounded bitter instead of grieving. “That’s what he thinks an Irish life is worth.”
    He walked past his son to the hearth and dropped the bank-note in the fire.
    Then he turned to the boy.
    “It’s the two of us now, son.”
    The boy rushed to him, into his enveloping arms, and then all the caged words burst from him, rushing on a river of guilt, If I’d only stayed by her side, if only I hadn’t seen Tommy Hastings, if only I hadn’t tried to cross the lane, words of anger and protest and revenge, I’m going to find him, I’m going to make him pay, I’m going to get that cruel, slaving pig, and then no words, just bawling. Then sobbing. Hopeless. Empty. Shuddering. And when Da led him to bed and consoled him with whispered words and told him to sleep, because they were going on a long journey in the morning, Robert didn’t want him