Public Secrets

ago it was King, and now this. What’s happening to the world?”
“Mr. McAvoy …” Alice started down the stairs, her face as white as her apron. “Is it true? Are you certain?”
“Yes. It should be just a nightmare, but it’s true.”
“Oh, that poor family.” Alice wrung her apron in her hands. “That poor mother.”
“He was a good man,” Brian managed. “He would have been their next president. He would have stopped that bloody war, I know it.”
It disturbed Emma to see tears in her father’s eyes. The adults were much too involved with their own grief to notice her. She didn’t know anyone named Kennedy, but she was sorry he was dead. She wondered if he had been a friend of her da’s. Maybe he’d been a soldier in the war her father always talked about.
“Alice, fix some tea. Please,” Bev murmured as she led Brian toward the parlor.
“What kind of a world have we brought our children into? When will they understand, Bev? When will they finally understand?”
Emma went upstairs to sit with Darren and leave the adults to their tears and tea.

They found her there, in the nursery, an hour later. She was singing one of the lullabies Bev often sang at bedtime while she rocked Darren.
Panicked, Bev started in, only to have Brian catch her arm. “No, they’re fine. Can’t you see?” It eased some of the rawness inside him to watch them. Emma rocked with her feet dangling far from the floor, and the baby carefully supported in her arms.
Emma looked up and smiled beautifully. “He was crying, but he’s happy now. He smiled at me.” She leaned over to kiss his cheek as he gurgled. “He loves me, don’t you, Darren?”
“Yes, he loves you.” Brian moved over to kneel in front of the rocker and wrap his arms around both of them. “Thank God for all of you,” he said as he held out a hand for Bev. “I think I’d go mad without you.”

B RIAN KEPT HIS family closer during the next weeks. Whenever possible, he worked at home, and even toyed with the idea of adding a recording studio onto the house. The war in Southeast Asia preyed on his mind. The horrible and useless fighting in his homeland of Ireland tore at him. His records soared up the chart, but the satisfaction that had rushed through him in the early days paled. He used his music both as a projection of his feelings and a buffer against the worst of them. His need for family kept him level.
They were sanity, he was certain.
It was Bev who gave him the idea to take Emma to the recording studio. They were about to lay the first tracks for their third album. An album Brian considered even more important than their debut. This time, he had to prove that Devastation wasn’t a fluke, nor a pale imitation that was clinging to the coattails of groups like the Beatles and Rolling Stones. He had to prove to himself that the magic, which had dimmed so during that last year, would still be there.
He wanted something unique, a sound distinctively their own. He’d shuffled aside a dozen solid rock numbers he and Johnno had written. They could wait. Despite Pete’s objections, the rest of the group was behind him in his decision to pepper the cuts with political statements, down-and-dirty rebel rock, and Irish folk songs. Electric guitars and penny whistles.

When Emma walked into the studio, she had no notion she was being allowed to witness the making of music history. To her, she was spending the day with her da and his mates. It seemed like an enormous game to her, the equipment, the instruments, the tall glass room. She sat in a big swivel chair, sipping a Coke straight from the bottle.
“Don’t you think the tyke’s going to get a bit bored?” Johnno asked as he fiddled with the electric organ. He wore two rings now, the diamond on one pinky and a fat sapphire on the other.
“If we can’t entertain one little girl, we’d best pack it in.” Brian adjusted the strap of his guitar. “Anyway, I want to keep her close awhile. Jane’s making noise again.”
“Bitch,” Johnno said mildly, then picked up a glass of Coke liberally laced with rum.
“She won’t get anywhere this time either, but it’s a nuisance.” He cast a quick look at Emma and saw she was occupied with talking to Charlie. “She’s trying to say she was tricked into signing the papers. Pete’s handling it.”
“She just wants more money.”
With a grim smile, Brian nodded. “She won’t get more out of Pete. Or out of me. Let’s have a sound check