Sunset Park

refuses to share with Pilar. The second thing is the letter he wrote to his parents five years after Bobby’s death. He had just finished his Junioryear at Brown and was planning to spend the summer in Providence, working as a part-time researcher for one of his history professors (nights and weekends in the library) and a full-time deliveryman for a local appliance store (installing air conditioners, lugging TVs and refrigerators up narrow flights of stairs). A girl had recently entered the picture, and since she lived in Brooklyn, he played hooky from his research job one weekend in June and drove down to New York to see her. He still had the keys to his parents’ apartment on Downing Street, his old bedroom was still intact, and ever since he’d left for college the arrangement was that he could come and go as he pleased, with no obligation to announce his visits. He started out late on Friday after finishing work at the appliance store and didn’t enter the apartment until well past midnight. Both of his parents were asleep. Early the next morning, he was awakened by the sound of their voices coming from the kitchen. He climbed out of bed, opened the door of his room, and then hesitated. They were speaking more loudly and more urgently than usual, there was an anguished undertow in Willa’s voice, and if they weren’t exactly quarreling (they rarely quarreled), something important was taking place, some crucial business was being settled or hashed about or reexamined, and he didn’t want to interrupt them.
    The proper response would have been to go back into his room and shut the door. Even as he stood in the hallway listening to them, he knew he had no right to be there, that he must and should withdraw, but he couldn’thelp himself, he was too curious, too eager to find out what was going on, and so he didn’t budge, and for the first time in his life he eavesdropped on a private conversation between his parents, and because the conversation was largely about him, it was the first time he had ever heard them, had ever heard anyone, talk about him behind his back.
    He’s different, Willa was saying. There’s an anger and a coldness in him that frighten me, and I hate him for what he’s done to you.
    He hasn’t done anything to me, his father answered. We might not talk as much as we used to, but that’s normal. He’s almost twenty-one. He has his own life now.
    You used to be so close. That’s one of the reasons why I fell in love with you—because of how well you loved that little boy. Remember baseball, Morris? Remember all those hours you spent in the park teaching him how to pitch?
    The golden days of yore.
    And he was good, too, wasn’t he? I mean really good. Starting pitcher on the varsity team his sophomore year. He seemed so happy about it. And then he turned around and quit the team the next spring.
    The spring after Bobby died, remember. He was a bit of a mess then. We all were. You can’t really blame him for that. If he didn’t want to play baseball anymore, that was his business. You talk about it as if you think he was trying to punish me. I never felt that for a second.
    That was when the drinking started, wasn’t it? We didn’t find out until later, but I think it started then. The drinking and the smoking and those crazy kids he used to run around with.
    He was trying to imitate Bobby. They might not have gotten along very well, but I think Miles loved him. You watch your brother die, and after that a part of you wants to become him.
    Bobby was a happy-go-lucky fuckup. Miles was the grim reaper.
    I’ll admit there was a certain lugubrious quality to his carryings-on. But he always did well at school. Through thick and thin, he always managed to pull down good grades.
    He’s a bright boy, I won’t dispute that. But cold, Morris. Hollowed out, desperate. I shudder to think about the future…
    How often have we talked about this? A hundred times? A thousand times? You know his story as well as I do. The kid had no mother. Mary-Lee walked out when Miles was six months old. Until you came on board, he was raised by Edna Smythe, the luminous, legendary Edna Smythe, but still, she was just a nanny, it was just a job, which means that after those first six months he never had the real thing. By the time you entered his life, it was probably too late.
    So you understand what I’m talking about?
    Of course I do. I’ve always understood.
    He couldn’t bear to listen anymore.