“Mom liked her job at the college; she was good at it. She stayed in Springfield during the week, and Aunt Stella looked after me, and Mom would come home Friday afternoon. She’d pick me up from school and we’d go off and do stuff, have some real family fun all weekend, and she’d go back Sunday night.”
Luna looked down at the little boy, stroking his hair absently as she looked back over the years.
“I asked her one time why I couldn’t live with her in Springfield, seein’ as she had a place there and all, but she just told me ‘no’ and never said why; I just got the feelin’ that for some reason she really didn’t want me livin’ or bein’ in Springfield. She wouldn’t even take me shopping there; instead she used to take me all the way over to Gainesboro, or even Monte Diablo, more’n three hours Southwest of Holden’s Crossing, rather than take me into Springfield.”
Luna shifted uncomfortably; Joey could see this story was bringing back painful memories, but she shook her head and smiled when he would have asked her to stop.
“Mom never said as much, but I kind of got the feeling she was worried about something or someone in Springfield, and the Terrible Trio were away bein’ marines, which is why she lived in town; she never come out and said so, but I could tell she was afraid to live up at the farm all alone; she felt safe in town, she had Myra Donnelly’s kid brother living in the apartment below, and Logan Hennessey, Natty’s brother, right across the street.”
She paused, her expression sad, and when she resumed, her voice was lower, almost a murmur.
“She was driving back one Sunday, it was a real wet night, a big storm came up, and her car came off the road, and she was killed. I was nearly thirteen when it happened. Jonah came and got me; he said that now my Mom was gone, he was gonna look after me, that I was his baby sister’s baby, and it wasn’t right to just leave me with Aunt Stella, even though she was real good to me; that would be like abandoning me, and he wouldn’t do that, family takes care of its own. He left the Marine Corps, the only thing he ever loved, and he walked away from it so he could give me a home…’
Her voice faltered, and a tear spilled down her cheek. Joey frowned and wiped it away. Luna looked at him questioningly. Joey returned her gaze, but that concerned expression was still there.
“I promised Jonah I’d never make you cry, and here you are, your first morning home with me, crying on my couch…” he murmured, but Luna smiled as she patted his arm companionably.
“Don’t you all worry, I’m not sad, you didn’t make me cry, baby! I just got kind of wistful there for a second thinkin’ about it all. I guess it was just when he said that to me, it felt like he really was family come to get me, not just a face in a picture and a story from my Mom when I was small.”
She blinked, and her eyes were clear again, green and fascinating once more.
“Them other two, Jerry and Jethro, they weren’t gonna leave the Corps, not for me; they wanted to pack me off down to Nogales and go live with that slut Laurie and her latest deadbeat, asshole boyfriend, and her tribe of whoever’s kids they were; Jonah wasn’t havin’ none of that; I hear things got kinda physical…!”
She grinned, her sudden smile literally lighting up the room.
“I guess he really did care about me; he’s the nearest thing I have to a dad. When I needed him, he walked away from the Corps, just when he made Staff Sergeant too…”
She shook herself, and patted his arm again.
“Ancient history, Joey, but now maybe you can tell me something; tell me how Robbie Dolan, only son of the richest family in the state, came to be livin’ in California with you and Miss Sarah and all her family? I know there’s things you need to keep to yourself, but at least tell me what you can, because all I know are rumors and stories, and a big ole mystery right in the middle of it, about the boy who disappeared. Tell me why Robbie Dolan is Robbie Anderson.”
Joey pulled her closer, settling Joe more comfortably between them while he stared unseeing at the opposite wall, gathering his thoughts. When at last he started speaking, his voice was so low she could barely hear him.
“Robbie was… unwanted, yeah, that’s the word I was looking for. His whole family just decided he wasn’t one of them, for whatever reason. I don’t know, and I never asked; it’s a real sore point with Mom; even now, after all that’s happened, it still riles her up. Anyway, they just kind of… left him to one side; everything they had, they gave to Casey, and they never gave him a damned thing; they just left him out.”
His face tightened, a frown-line appearing between his eyebrows as he thought back to his childhood.
“They used to go away on vacation, and take Casey with them; they mostly never even told him they were goin’ away; Robbie’d be knocking on our door the night before they left because that’s when they’d tell him he couldn’t go, so he had to come stay with me ’cause he had nowhere else to go and no-one to turn to; not that I minded, y’understand; Robbie and I grew up together; hell, he could have stayed a week, a month, forever, it wouldn’t have mattered to Mom or me. Mom looked out for him because his family wouldn’t; they just left him out every damned time because he meant nothing to them at all. I never understood that part; Robbie’s a genius, but they were all so wrapped-up in Casey, and so goddamned ashamed of him. It wasn’t right!”
Joey stopped talking, instead chewing his lip, the remembered anger flashing in his eyes, before calming down again.
“They never took him anywhere, or gave him anything, or did anything for him, nothing; he used to walk around in beat-up old clothes, and his house had Mercedes Benz’s and Cadillacs parked out front! When I first knew him, we were in first grade and Mom said I had to make friends with him; he used to get beaten-up a lot, because he had to wear these huge eyeglasses; man, those things were like telescopes! He was almost blind, and all the usual assholes soon worked out that all they had to do was take them away from him, and they could beat on him, because he couldn’t see to defend himself.”
Luna looked closely at him; his eyes were slitted with anger at the memory, outrage still burning there, even after all the intervening years, at the bullying Robbie’d had to endure.
“So I stepped in, partly because Mom wanted me to, mostly because I wanted to. I’d always liked Robbie, he was a quiet kid, but he knew things, all kinds of things. He never rubbed it in your face, or made a thing about how smart he was, and no-one deserves what those assholes did to him; poor kid was like a lump of meat in a dog-pound, he just got ripped-up and chewed-on by everyone. Mom liked him from the first time she met him, and it kind of went from there. Robbie and me lifted weights and ran laps together, but his eyesight was still real bad, and sometimes, when I wasn’t around, one of those assholes would catch him, smash his glasses, and then they’d all whale on him, and his fucking father never did a goddamned thing about it!”
Luna held his arm comfortingly as the old feelings once more rose up in him, the outrage at the injustice and neglect his brother had suffered at the hands of his family. Her expression grew concerned at the effect his tale was having, at the flash of deep anger in his eyes as he plumbed once again the darkness he’d thought was gone forever.
“Baby, don’t, it’s OK, another time, please! I didn’t mean to rake all that up again, you don’t need…”
Joey wrapped his arm around her as she shifted Joe more comfortably in the crook of her arm.
“It’s OK, Luna, I need to tell you all this, so you understand a little better how it is between us. Robbie was always a nice kid, he never hurt anyone, never complained, never bad-mouthed his folks, not once; he just took it, probably because he thought that was how his life was supposed to go; that’s what they did to him, and it made my mom’s blood boil. His whole family spent as much time as they could mocking him, running him down, leaving him out, and making sure he knew he meant nothing to them; they treated him like something you scrape off your shoes; they took away his self-esteem, his future, and any chance for a life of his own, and that’s the most evil, most unforgivable part of the whole thing; Mom once said to me about Robbie that it was a sin to waste your life, but a crime to waste someone else’s; what they did to him was purely criminal.”
He paused, raking his fingers through his hair.
“Robbie’s a genuine, honest-to-God genius. He could have been his family’s biggest asset if they’d ever once given him a chance to show them, or even let him speak up without being shut-out or just plain ignored. When he was younger, mom couldn’t touch him, because he thought that was wrong, not allowed; none of his family ever touched him, picked him up, talked to him, hugged him, nothing; he was like a leper, an outcast; he just stayed in his room because they made sure he knew they didn’t want him around.”
He sighed, frowning still at the memory.
“Mom and me, we tried, and pretty soon my mom was his mom as well; she had to be; his own mother could give a shit if he lived or died, and when he finally walked out, it was Mom who called up Uncle Frank, and between them they got him this gig. When he moved out here, he lived with Uncle Frank and Aunt Caitlin, and pretty soon she was his mom as well.”
He grinned suddenly.
“If you ever take the notion to harm Robbie, you better be damned sure Aunt Kat never finds out, because if she does, she’ll flay your skin off real slow, and bury you in salt; Robbie’s her son, and the twins, Moira and Morag, are his sisters, and they’re as tight with Robbie as Aunt Kat, and just as mean when they need to be. Mom once told Angie Dolan there are people she could name who’d stand over Robbie on bloody stumps and defend him to the last; she was talking about Aunt Kat, Uncle Frank, and the girls, among others. Robbie’s kind of unique; he’s a special guy, and he makes the people around him feel special, too.”
Luna smiled at the note in his voice, once again her talent for reading people clicking into high gear; for some reason, Joey adored Robbie; he really did think of him as his beloved kid brother, every note in his voice and line of his face told her that Joey and Robbie had a special closeness, one she’d never encountered before.