Page 26 of A Week Away

I was very proud of the fact that one of those sentences was true. Cass did want to find his father. Suzie looked at me skeptically but then turned to study Cass.

“You want to find your father? Why didn’t you ever say anything? You always act like you’re perfectly fine with just Joanne.”

“I don’t know. It just… It seemed like a good idea.”

“Do you need money? Are you in trouble? Is Joanne not taking care of you?”

“I’m seventeen. She doesn’t need to take care of me. I just want to find my dad. Can you talk to… this guy?”

“If you want me to, of course. Let me get cups.”

I stared at Cass for a moment. I wanted to say, “Fuck, why didn’t we think of a cover story on the way over.” Well, I knew why. The kid was difficult and I barely wanted to talk to him most of the time. Sure, I felt bad for him. But I also didn’t trust him. That was not a good combination.

Aunt Suzie was back. She had the pot of coffee and three mugs hanging from the fingers of one hand. She’d clearly been a waitress at one time. Normal people don’t carry mugs like that. She plunked the mugs onto the table and poured us each a cup of coffee. Then she sat down at the table.

Aunt Suzie and I took our coffee black. Cass loaded up on milk and sugar.

“All right. Go ahead.”

“Your brother disappeared in 1982?”

“Yeah. July. Around the twenty-first. We’re not really sure. Joanne claims she came home on the twenty-first and all his things were gone. No one has seen or heard from him since.”

“And the last time anyone saw him? Other than Joanne.”

“Probably a few days before the twenty-first.”

“But you would have been there,” I said to Cass.

“I was four.”

“Yes, I remember that. But you might have been there.”

“And he might not have been there,” Suzie said. “He could have been with Joanne’s mother or someone in her family or even a friend.” To Cass she said, “You were passed around a lot. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

“So you think he wasn’t there the night Dom left?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Tell me about your brother, just in general.”

“Dominick was good-looking, really good-looking. But I don’t think he knew it. He talked about Joanne like he didn’t deserve a girl as pretty as she was. But I think he could have done better. He just didn’t know it.”

I took a sip of my coffee and waited, hoping she’d go on. “He wasn’t book smart, but he had common sense. He certainly wasn’t street smart. We come from decent hard-working people and that’s all he wanted to be. He loved building cars. He loved everything about them.”

“What can you tell us about his marriage?”

“It gave us Cass.” She turned and smiled at him. “That’s the only good thing I can say about it.”

“I know Cass is sitting right here, but I need you to be as honest as you can be.”

She looked over at the boy and he nodded, giving her permission.

I asked, “Do you know specifically what was wrong with their marriage.”

“Well, Joanne was what was wrong. She’s a bitch. And I don’t call other women names lightly.” She paused and sipped her coffee. “Nothing was ever good enough for her. And Dominick gave her everything he could, but she was never happy. It was never enough.”

“Do you know what might have been happening right before he disappeared?”