The aria ended abruptly. The show was over. Already? I checked my watch. I could’ve stayed to listen for a year, a life-time. As the stage cleared and the few people who’d attended straggled out, I lingered in the auditorium, absorbing every moment. The feeling, the sense of floating, the transference to another time and place.

The first bell rang for class. Reluctantly, I got up. As I wandered down the hall to my locker, still humming “Sempre libera,” a sharp object poked my back.

“Keep walking.”

Every muscle in my body seized. We had metal detectors at the doors of the school. How could a knife get through?

“Your lunch money or your life.”

“Liam!” I whirled on him. “God.” I restarted my heart.

He clicked his mechanical pencil in and grinned.

“Don’t do that. You’ll make me paranoid.”

“Gee.” He cocked his head. “I can’t imagine how that feels.”

I sneered at him. He held my eyes, boring into my soul. It scared me to have him look so deep. He accompanied me to my locker. Five or six girls said hi to him on the way. Satisfied customers. Or girlfriend wannabes.

I spun my combination lock and Liam said, “Can we go again Saturday?”

“What?” I rocked back on my heels. “You really want to?”

“It isn’t a matter of wanting to, Re. Do you have to baby-sit again? I was hoping we could go earlier. Maybe around noon.”

Stunned, I opened my locker and retrieved my English book. “You’re going to let Luna emerge in the light of day?”

“She has to, eventually.”

Why? I wondered. Why can’t you just give this up? Leave it the way it is, the way it’s always been? I turned to say it, but the vibes emanating from Liam made me swallow the words. His need, the longing, they were palpable, physical, flowing back and forth between us as if we shared one vascular system. One heart.

“Are you buying me lunch?” I asked instead. “Lunch at a really nice restaurant. That’s what this will cost you.”

Liam just looked at me.

What?

“Oh, all right.” He huffed like it was a big sacrifice.

“Good. Because if the Materas ask me to sit and I can’t because of you, it’ll cost me like thirty dollars.”

Liam frowned. “I’ll pay you back.” He sounded hurt. Making me feel guilty for caring about the money. It was just a joke, sort of.

The late bell clamored overhead and Liam added, “I better get going.”

He didn’t leave, though. Just stood there blocking my way. “Did Dad say anything after I left?” he asked.

I gulped a lemon. “Not really.”

Liam surveyed the empty hallway behind me. “Did he say he was disappointed in me?”

“No.”

Liam nailed me with a look.

“I’m not lying,” I lied. “He said — get this — he said he’s worried that you don’t idolize him.” I snorted.

Liam’s face welded shut. He lowered his head and let out a ragged breath. For a prolonged moment he didn’t move a muscle. Then he lifted his head and said the weirdest thing: “Dad is my hero. Doesn’t he know that? I feel like I spend my whole life trying to prove it.”

Chapter 13

We arrive at the mortuary a few minutes before the service. Grandma’s there greeting everyone, getting consoled. When she sees us, she breaks away from the crowd and bustles over.

“Pat.” She embraces Mom.

Mom says, “I’m so sorry, Virginia.”

Grandma smiles down on me. “Hello, Regan.”

I burst into tears. All the holding back finally catches up.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Grandma hugs me hard. At least she’s not crying. We’d all be basketcases if she were.

“Liam, don’t you look handsome.” Grandma squeezes him around the waist.

He barely flinches. He’s wearing the new black suit he and Dad went out to buy yesterday. The suit is stiff and so is Liam. He resembles a mannequin. I bet if I kicked him he’d crack and split in two.

A mortuary guy in a dark suit approaches Grandma and says softly, “We’re ready to begin, Mrs. O’Neill.”

Grandma nods and we trail her solemnly into the chapel. There’s a pew reserved for our family. Mom slides in first, then me, Grandma, Liam. I catch a whiff of some old lady’s perfume behind us and sneeze. It smells like moldy weeds. When I plug my nose, Mom hands me a Kleenex.

The service for Grandpa O’Neill begins with a song. “Nearer My God to Thee.” It’s nice, and I close my eyes to feel the music. A minister leads us in prayer and quotes a Bible passage. Then he turns around and sits down.

Uncle Phil rises from a side pew and heads for the lectern. Dad and Uncle Joel remain in the pew, their heads bowed. Uncle Phil clears his throat and says, “Let me tell you about my pop.”

I see Dad’s shoulders begin to shake. Uncle Joel loops an arm around Dad as Uncle Phil launches into a story about Grandpa taking them all hunting for elk, the way he did every fall.

Grandma snarls something under her breath.

“What?” Mom whispers, leaning across me.

Grandma twists her head toward Mom. “Phillip hated to hunt. Every time they came home with a kill, he’d lock himself in his room and cry his eyes out. I guess he forgot about that.”

I glance up at Uncle Phil, who’s chuckling over the time Grandpa got chased up a tree by a skunk. He swore it was a bear.

“Jack never enjoyed it either.” Grandma seethes, “Look at them, all three of them. It just makes me sick.”

My eyes widen. I’ve never heard Grandma talk like this. She’s always so sweet and kind. Reserved, like Liam.

His part finished, Uncle Phil shuffles back to their pew. He, Dad, and Uncle Joel all blow their noses. Tears stream down Dad’s face. He’s next up to speak, but waves Uncle Joel ahead.

Grandma leans across my lap and says to Mom, “He beat them, you know. He used to drag those boys to the basement and belt them till they bled. He was a mean son of a bitch.” She straightens her spine and adds, “But they worshipped him.”

Mom shifts uncomfortably. If she’s as shocked as me, she doesn’t show it. Grandpa was always nice to us. To me, anyway. He used to tease Liam about being a sissy. Spar with him; punch him in the stomach. There was an argument once. Loud. Grandpa hit Liam so hard he fell down and Dad charged across the living room, spinning Grandpa around and threatening him with a fist. “Keep your hands off him,” Dad said. “Don’t you ever touch my son again.”

I try to meet Liam’s eyes, but he’s got a weird look on his face. He’s staring up at Dad, transfixed.

I guess Mom feels she has to defend Dad because she bends over and whispers to Grandma, “Jack said they deserved it. That they were pretty wild kids.”

“Deserved it?” Grandma’s voice carries. Across the aisle, I see heads turn, eyes lock on us. Grandma lowers her chin. She takes my hand and whispers, “What child deserves a beating? You tell me that, Patrice. What child?”

Mom doesn’t answer. At least, not right away. I’m thinking, Thank God Dad never hit us. He never even spanked us.

A tear slides down Grandma’s cheek and she digs in her purse for a hankie. After blowing her nose, she murmurs to herself, “They were boys, Pat. They were just being boys.”

Did that make Dad a hero in Liam’s eyes? There was another time, too. With Hoyt. I don’t know how Dad found out Hoyt was harassing Liam, but he stormed down the block to the Doucets’ house. A few minutes later he returned, red-faced and swearing. I think he almost got into a fight with Mr. Doucet.

Nothing changed with Hoyt; I’d see him lying in wait for Liam. What changed was, the whole rest of the year, Liam’s eighth grade year, Dad had driven Liam to school and picked him up afterward.

Liam worked so hard to please Dad, to earn his respect. Liam was right; it’d never be enough. The weird thing was, Liam didn’t emulate Dad; he didn’t want to be like him. He wanted to be Mom. If Dad was Liam’s hero, why was he so scared of him?

“Where are we going for lunch?” I turned to Liam as he exited the on ramp and merged into traffic.

“Taco Bell,” he answered. He swerved the Spyder to miss a chunk of ice that flew off the rear end of a garbage truck.

“Taco Bell? I got all dressed up for Taco Bell?”

Liam’s eyes flickered over me. “That’s dressed up? You’re lucky I want to be seen with you in public.”

I reached over and slugged him.

We were feeling proud of ourselves for slipping out under Dad’s nose. He was comatose on the couch, lulled asleep by a hockey game, comforted in the knowledge, no doubt, that Liam and I were safely locked away in our holding cells. Wake up, Dad.

It didn’t surprise me that Liam had an extra set of keys to the Spyder. What did shock me was that he’d so openly defy Dad by taking the car out after Dad had expressly forbidden him to drive it.

“I brought the fuchsia sweater and my black jeans,” Liam said. “How do you think that’ll look?”

“You wouldn’t catch me dead in fuchsia. But hey, that’s me.”

Liam said, “It wouldn’t hurt you to add a little color to your wardrobe, you know. Everything you own is so drab.”

“I had my colors done,” I informed him. “Drab matches my personality perfectly. Gray is so ultra, über me.”

He shook his head.

What? It was true.

We’d driven a mile or so in silence when the mood in the car changed. Liam’s face muscles clenched and he gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.

“Which wig are you going to wear?” I asked, trying to distract him, engage Luna.

“The brunette pageboy,” he answered automatically.

“Good choice,” I said, even though I thought the pageboy made him look like a throwback to the twenties. Maybe that was the look he was going for. I remember staggering out of bed one night to go to the bathroom and finding Liam glued to the TV watching this silent movie: Diary of a Lost Girl. He’d seen it a hundred times. Still, he’d smiled dreamily at the screen, totally engrossed. He adored old movies, don’t ask me why. I thought they were hokey.

We exited at Washington Street and headed downtown. Downtown? I almost said what I was thinking: Why so public? We could find a Taco Bell at a strip mall. Minimize the risk; eat in the car. He seemed to know what he was doing, though. Typical Liam — he always measured every angle.

We pulled into an upscale Taco Bell beside a Virgin Records music store. The place was packed, people streaming in and out the door. Liam turned off the ignition and froze, his hands in a death grip on the steering wheel. If I had to talk him into it again, forget it.

“Okay,” he said. “Here’s the plan.”

I flinched at the command in his voice.

He reached over the seat back and retrieved a yellow placard with a link of chain attached. “You go in and check out the girls’ restroom. Make sure it’s empty, then give me a signal. Once I’m in, hang this sign on the door.”

It was a custodian’s warning notice: Temporarily Out of Order.

“Where’d you steal this?”

He grinned sheepishly.

I took the placard and opened my door. Liam grabbed his duffel and followed me as far as the front bumper. “Stay in the hall and guard the restroom until I’m done,” he said.

“Duh.” I widened my eyes at him. “Do you want me to wear this around my neck, too?”

He sneered. His expression sobered. “Thanks, Re. I know I owe you. I owe you so much I’ll never be able to pay it all back.”

My eyes dropped. “Just hurry,” I told him. “I’m starving.”

There were only six or eight tables free. It was noisy, chaotic. People were too busy eating to register a guy slipping into the girls’ restroom, I hoped. Nobody seemed suspicious of this drab queen either, loitering around the toilets for a day and a half. The smell of spicy hamburger made my stomach growl. I loved Taco Bell. Liam knew that.

I checked my watch. What was taking so long? If she was posing —

“Re. Hi. What are you doing here?”

I jettisoned through the ceiling.

Chris smiled at me. Chris? My bones disintegrated. “Uh, fine,” I said.

He made a face.

“Wait. What was the question?”

He laughed. “I never expected to see you clear down here.” He dumped his trash in the bin beside me and stacked his tray on top.

“Well, here I am.” My voice sounded wobbly. Same as my knees. “So. How are you? Traitor.”

He grimaced. “Yeah, I meant to talk to you about that.”

I shot him my best killer look. It was a half-hearted effort, since I was thrilled to see him. Or would’ve been if —

My eyes darted to the restroom door. No movement. I willed Chris to leave. No, stay. Leave.

He propped himself against the opposite wall, shoving his hands into his front pockets. “I didn’t mean to bail on you, Regan. But ...um...” He seemed uncertain, ready to bolt.

“That’s okay,” I said quickly. Don’t go.

“No, it’s not okay.” He held my eyes. “After that quiz, which I knew I bombed, I had to get out of there. I only took chemistry because I needed a science credit and figured, Hey, how hard can chemistry be? Mix A and B. Pour in C. Heat and serve.”

I snorted.

Chris cricked a lip at me. “Yeah, no one told me you had to be a math jock.” He crossed his eyes.