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The strong one.
I was the strong one when Mom got sick, even for our dad, the tough ex-Marine who simply couldn’t deal with her illness, or with the prospect of losing her.
Now I had to be the strong one for Brigid. Today, anyway.
“Before I hang up,” Brigid says, “I have to tell you something Rob told me on the phone the other night.”
I hold the phone at arm’s length, stare at it, and sadly shake my head.
“So you’re still in contact with him.”
“Nothing has changed, Jane. I still love him as a friend.”
I can’t help myself. “So you’re the one.”
“Be nice,” she says again.
“What did he tell you that you want to tell me?”
“He says that sometimes he thinks about killing himself,” she says. “And that scared me.”
I don’t believe it. Or him.
“I know depression can be as serious a subject as cancer, sis. But he talked about it during the first trial. And as you remember, nobody really bought it then. Sorry, but I’m not buying it now.”
“No one fully understands someone’s depression except the person experiencing it. Or doesn’t understand until it’s too late.”
“Withdrawn,” I say.
“Will you check in on him?”
I tell her I do that frequently and will try to do it today.
There is a fairly lengthy silence now.
I’m the one who ends it.
“Did he happen to mention why he’s having these feelings?”
“I asked that question myself. He said it’s because of all the terrible things he’s done in his life, things that would make me hate him if I knew about them. Right after that, he said he had to go and ended the call.”
I make her promise she will call me as soon as she knows about the course of her treatment. I tell her I love her more than she can ever know.
Then I stick my phone in my back pocket and walk out into the backyard.
Still no hummingbirds.
EIGHTY-EIGHT
Jimmy
NO MATTER HOW HARD he tries, Jimmy Cunniff can’t get the idea out of his head—or his gut—that Anthony Licata and Joe Champi are the type to take orders and not give them, as slick with their grift as they’ve always been.
But if he’s right about that, it keeps bringing him back to the same place:
Who’sbeen giving them orders all this time?
It’s easy to find the original connection between Champi and Licata, they came out of the academy the same year, originally partnered together in Washington Heights, stayed in touch even if they went in different directions the longer they stayed in the department.
