Page 76 of The Gallagher Place
Glory brushed past Marlowe to take Enzo’s arm, and he stared at her as if he’d never seen her before.
“Here, Enzo, let’s get you up to your room.”
As Glory and Enzo made for the stairs, Henry’s voice rang out from the kitchen. “They badgered him for hours, the lawyer said. Demanded his entire life story, and now he’s all muddled. He keeps spouting random fragments.”
Clearly, Enzo’s mind was far more deteriorated than they’d realized.
“The lawyer said they have nothing, absolutely nothing. Just random details and old memories. An anecdote about boots. An old bracelet of Nora’s that Enzo could have picked up and returned to her after she left it here,” Henry said. “It was barely grounds for arrest in the first place. None of it would hold up.”
“Where is Nate? Is Stephanie with him now?” Frank was entirely sanguine.
“Yes, they’re right behind us, driving back,” Henry said.
“Snow is on the way, could be six inches,” Frank said. “But they’ll beat it.”
The kids would be excited. The snow would keep them occupied with sledding for at least a day or two.
Henry’s voice dropped to a lower register, and Marlowe knew they were talking about her. Frank would tell him that she had drunk herself into a stupor but was docile this morning. Marlowe didn’t need to eavesdrop to know.
She crept up the stairs and stood in the shadows of the hall outside the spare bedroom.
“I was born in Italy; they did not believe it, but I was,” Enzo was saying.
“Yes, I know, of course.” Glory’s tone was distracted. She was only half listening.
“Then Paris and then England, only for a few months.” Enzo laughed then, and it was a dry sound, like dead leaves rustling in a fall breeze. “You know in England, they call stone walls cairns. A cairn. Yes.”
“Here you are, just lie back.” Glory’s hands were probably occupied, fluffing pillows and arranging the covers over Enzo’s scrawny legs.
“But then I went back to Paris. No other city can compare.”
Sudden tears stuck to Marlowe’s eyelashes. She used to cling to every one of Enzo’s words about late-night meals in tiny restaurants tucked beneath old buildings, and long walks along the Seine. She and Nora used to perch on the kitchen stools, elbows on top of the counter, while he cooked dinner.
“Tell us about Paris,” Nora would say.
And Enzo always obliged.
“The lights are like nothing you have ever seen,” Enzo would say. “They glow as if they are touched by fairies.”
Nora and Marlowe planned out their future trips. They made lists of all the places Enzo mentioned. The Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Champs-Élysées and the Louvre were on it, but also the smaller, obscure streets and restaurants Enzo could rattle off the top of his head.
When Marlowe finally got to Paris, she did a painting for Enzo. It was a view of the Seine on a June evening, with the lights gleaming atop a line of lampposts that seemed to stretch on forever. Enzo sobbed when she gave it to him.
When Enzo paused mid-memory, Glory interjected. “Just close your eyes for now, and I’ll bring you up some tea later, all right?”
Enzo was silent, and Marlowe could picture him blinking up at Glory, questioning exactly who the old woman was and why she was bringing him tea. Marlowe wondered if her mother resented the fact that she was stuck caring for two aging old men.
And then his memory wheel started up again. “It was July when I first saw New York, and I could not believe the heat.”
Marlowe didn’t bother to hide as her mother emerged from the room. Glory closed the door with a tight click, her mouth set in a thin line of anger as she regarded Marlowe.
“They broke him,” Glory said. “His mind is gone.”
Glory stomped downstairs, her loafers flying over the steps as she made a beeline for the kitchen. Marlowe plodded behind, thinking of Paris, but she froze halfway down the staircase.
Cairn. Enzo said that stone walls were called “cairns” in England.
Only they weren’t.
