When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books to read now .TXT) 📗

Tonight, I’ll find Harry’s suit jacket, left behind on the arm of the sofa. And I’ll keep it and never clean it. Just in case Frankie’s still there. In the ash on the shoulders.

2 gold A Wednesday in August 2016, 7:25 a.m. London

I’m still walking, Harry and Johnny and the baby and the car alarm and the shoes behind me now. I’m not sure where I’m going but it doesn’t matter. I see a church, the door unlocked. I slide into a pew, close my eyes and try to feel something.

A strong smell of wood polish. I thought I was alone but the bitter smell is followed by an old lady rubbing circles into the wooden pews with her cloth, taking her time. I wonder what I’ll be like when I’m old. I wonder if I’ll actually get to be old. Barbra Streisand says that in that movie, right? Remember? That she wishes she was old so that at least she’d know she’d survived all this. My dad loves that movie. He always liked chick flicks.

I leave the lady to her work. I’m intruding on her God time and, anyway, the sharp smell of the polish makes me think of cigarettes. I push open the heavy church door and stand on the stone steps pulling my robe closer, wishing I had changed before I walked out on my family this morning. It’s August. I’m in long sleeves and Harry’s old track pants, I mean sweatpants, whatever they call them here—tracksuit bottoms? And I should be fine, I should be hot, actually, but not in London. It might as well be autumn this morning. I keep waiting for the heat. Today in New York it’s probably hot-hot, spike-in-the-murder-rate hot, steam-rising-off-the-sidewalk-after-the-rain hot. Not here, though. Arms crossed against the chill, keys and wallet and phone in my hands, I walk to the corner shop to buy some smokes.

August. When it’s August-hot I remember the last weekend with Frankie at the Jersey Shore; the Saturday barbecues at Matty’s mom’s house that we’d been going to since we were kids; the Brooklyn Cyclones game we went to with Dad. When the heat of August pours out of the sun like syrup I feel the days before we lost him on my skin. And the memories have a place to stick.

The night I left my parents’ house Frankie woke up and stood in the doorway of my bedroom in his underwear while I packed. I was seventeen, he was eleven. He looked like Jordan from New Kids on the Block. Curly dark hair, like Johnny’s now. Destined to be a heartbreaker. I had to explain to him about how I loved him but me and Ma couldn’t live in the same house anymore, so I had to go, but I would still take care of him. I put a dozen Hot Pockets in the freezer and hid a case of mac and cheese under his bed with ten bucks for emergencies. I told him to take Dad’s bus with Matty to school and to call Sharon or Stacy or Danielle because I’d stay with one of them.

“What about my games? Who’s gonna go to my games?” he said. He was really good at basketball. I said I would be there, even if he couldn’t see me I would be there and I would watch. And I would wait for him after school every day to check in and make sure he was OK.

I looked at him. His little-boy body was lit by the nightlight in the hall and it made a shadow the size of the man he would be one day. I told him I loved him and that he was better than all of us put together and I held him but he squirmed to get out of my grasp and he said, “Ew, Jeej, that’s gross,” so I had to settle for rumpling his hair. I was already halfway down the block when he came running after me in his underwear and sneakers. He said, “You didn’t take any food.” He gave me a juice box and a bag of Cheetos. “Love you,” he said and ran back home. I waited in the street until I saw him go inside.

I went to every game, I waited for him after school, like I promised, and I gave him half of every paycheck from my job at the bagel store to make sure he had everything he needed. I took care of him like I did our whole lives, from when he was a baby. Then he grew up.

That summer before he died was day after day of heat, sudden summer rain that left us just as hot, Technicolor sunsets over New Jersey seen from the deck of the ferry, cold beer and cigarettes on the fire escape of his new apartment. He moved into a building on Victory Boulevard with Matty and they couldn’t afford A/C but that didn’t take the shine off it being their first place. I came over after work once a week. We’d go up to the roof and look at the disco-ball shimmer of Manhattan against the black sky, and that’s when he would talk, lay out his plans, map his future. I was proud of him, the boy I raised. We didn’t know that we were looking at his grave.

When August comes around and I feel like I can stand it, I listen to his voice. I kept my old answering machine and re-saved his messages until I figured out how to get them recorded. Two messages: “Jeej, how you doin’, just seeing how you doin’ ’cuz you had that thing today at work, love you, bye.” And then: “Jeej, I’m short this month for Ma’s bills, I need $65 if you got it, OK? It’s OK if you don’t got it, but if you got it. Bye.” His voice in