Sensing Light by Mark A. Jacobson Page A

spikes.
    â€œCode Blue!” she screamed.
    Kevin rushed in, followed by Herb and two nurses. The white dot now made a flat line as it crossed the screen. Reflexively, Kevin stacked the heels of his palms over Larry’s sternum. Arms outstretched, he rocked up and down until he saw Herb shaking his head mournfully.
    Kevin stopped rocking. He looked at the wall clock. He was supposed to say the time of death out loud. He couldn’t make himself do it.

XIII
    T HE IMPORTED LIGHT BEER Kevin opened on returning to his studio apartment was the only sign of any sophistication or health consciousness acquired since he had moved to San Francisco. He felt lonelier than usual tonight and thought of his mother. He hadn’t talked to her in weeks. His wristwatch showed seven o’clock, not too late to call Boston.
    Francine Bartholomew had prematurely turned gray while Kevin was in high school. When he and his older sister, Katherine, were children, their slim, reserved mother was the obvious source of their red hair and green eyes. The daughter of a policeman, a bully who expected to be served by women, she had all ambition, beyond that of making a good marriage, snuffed out at an early age. Intelligent enough to have gone on to college, she quit school at sixteen to work as a cashier. At twenty, she moved from the modest bedroom she shared with two sisters into smaller boarding house quarters with her new husband. He had set one condition to his marriage offer—a taboo on her working outside the home.
    His mother didn’t answer on the first ring, which struck Kevin as strange. Then he realized it wasn’t Sunday, the usual evening he called her.
    â€œHello,” his father gruffly answered.
    Paralyzed by the sound of this voice he hadn’t heard in three years, Kevin was mute. There was a loud clack as the receiver on the other end of the line slammed down. Angry, and at the same time curious, he dialed the number again.
    â€œWho is it?” yelled his father.
    â€œHi, Dad.”
    There was a pause before his father spoke again, now from a distance. Kevin imagined the old man holding the receiver at arm’s length to prevent contamination.
    â€œIt’s your son, Francine.”
    After another pause, he heard his mother’s voice.
    â€œKev, are you all right?”
    â€œI’m good, Mom. Sorry I haven’t called in so long. It’s been super busy at work.”
    â€œYou’re sure nothing’s wrong?”
    â€œEverything’s fine. Don’t worry, they haven’t cut my salary.”
    Kevin knew this would calm her. By her standards, he was already making a decent living—though she had no idea what it cost to live in San Francisco—and he would be doing much, much better in the near future. If he reassured her on that point, maybe she could control her other fears. Maybe they could even have a pleasant chat.
    â€œDad OK?”
    â€œThe same. The doctor doesn’t seem concerned.”
    Their conversation followed a well-trod path. They kept to the ruts like pack mules, both pretending his father hadn’t just refused to talk to him.
    Kevin’s parents still lived in the tiny three-bedroom brick row house where he and Katherine had grown up, nestled in an all-white, all working-class, virtually all Irish-Catholic, South Boston neighborhood. A safe, comfortable world until he turned fourteen and discovered how different he was from everyone else.
    â€œKevin, could you come home next month for Douglas’s confirmation?”
    His mother had deviated from the script. He deflected her question by asking the date. But instead of scrambling for an excuse, he remembered that Douglas was the youngest of Katherine’s four children. His confirmation would be the last family event at Saint Brigid’s until someone married or died, more likely the latter. Kevin understood how important this must be to his mother. She didn’t ask much of him.