Public Secrets

he had never known.
Brian drained his glass, and with oblivion on his mind, poured another.
“Son?”
Looking up, Brian saw his father hesitating in the doorway. He wanted to laugh. It was such a complete and ironic role reversal. He could remember, clear as a bell, creeping into the kitchen as a boy, while his father sat at the table getting unsteadily drunk.
“Yeah.” Lifting the glass, Brian watched him over the rim.

“You should try for sleep.”
He saw his father’s eyes dart and linger on the bottle. Without a word, Brian pushed it toward him. He entered then, Liam McAvoy, an old man at fifty. His face was round and ruddy from the cross-stitches of broken capillaries under his skin. He had the blue, dreamy eyes that had been passed on to his son, and the pale blond hair now wiry with gray. He was gaunt, brittle-boned, no longer the big, powerful man he had seemed in Brian’s youth. When he reached for the bottle, Brian felt a jolt. His father’s hands might have been his own, long-fingered, graceful. Why had he never noticed before?
“It was a fine funeral,” Liam said, groping. “Your mother’d be pleased you brought him here to lie with her.” He poured, then thirstily downed three fingers.
Outside the soft rain of Ireland began.
They’d never drunk together before, Brian realized. He poured more whiskey into both glasses. Perhaps, at last, they would find some common ground. With a bottle between them.
“Here’s a farmer’s rain,” Liam said, soothed by the sound and the whiskey. “A nice soft soaker.”
A farmer’s rain. His little boy had dreamed of being a farmer. Had he passed that much of Liam McAvoy into Darren?
“I didn’t want him to be alone. I thought he should be back in Ireland, with family.”
“It’s right. You done right.”
Brian lit a cigarette, then pushed the pack toward his father. Had they ever talked before, the two of them? If they had Brian couldn’t remember. “It shouldn’t have happened.”
“There’s a lot that happens in this world shouldn’t.” Liam lit the cigarette, then picked up his glass. “They’ll catch the bastards who did this, boy. They’ll catch them.”
“It’s been a week.” It already seemed like years. “They’ve got nothing.”
“They’ll catch them,” Liam insisted. “And the bloody bastards will rot in hell. Then the poor little lad’ll rest easy.”
He didn’t want to think of vengeance now. He didn’t want to think of his sweet little boy resting easy in the ground. Time had passed, and was lost. There had to be reasons for it.

“Why didn’t you ever come?” Brian leaned forward. “I sent you tickets, for the wedding, when Darren was born, for Emma’s birthday, for his. For God’s sake, you never saw him until his wake. Why didn’t you come?”
“Running a farm’s busy work,” he said between swallows. Liam was a man filled with regrets so that one easily melded into another. “Can’t go larking off anytime you please.”
“Not even once.” Suddenly, it seemed vital that he have an answer, a true one. “You could have sent Ma. Before she died, you could’ve let her come.”
“A woman’s place is with her husband.” Liam tilted his glass toward Brian. “You’d do well to remember that, boy.”
“You always were a selfish bastard.”
Liam’s hand, surprisingly strong, clamped down on Brian’s. “Mind your tongue.”
“I won’t run and hide this time, Da.” His eyes, his voice were steady. In both was an eagerness. He would have relished a battle, here, now.
Slowly, Liam removed his hand, then picked up his glass. “I won’t butt heads with you today. Not the day my grandson’s been laid to rest.”
“He was never yours. You never even saw him until he was dead,” Brian tossed back. “You never bothered, just cashed in the tickets I sent to buy more whiskey.”
“And where were you these last years? Where were you when your mother died? Off somewhere playing your bloody music.”
“That bloody music put a roof over your head.”
“Da.” With the stuffed dog clutched in her arms, Emma stood in the doorway, her eyes wide and frightened, her lower lip trembling. She had heard the angry voices, smelled the hot odor of liquor before she stepped into the room.
“Emma.” A bit unsteady, Brian walked over to pick her up, careful not to jar her arm with the cast. “What are you doing down here?”
“I had a bad dream.” The snakes had come back, and the monsters. She could still