The Son of John Devlin by Charles Kenney

pop-ups or grounders. And he never got tired of that, never complained. He smiled throughout and joked with me and would tell me when I made a nice catch or a strong throw and when I didn’t.
    “I can recall very vividly him standing there with his suit pants on, his shirt, his tie sort of hanging to one side, his jacket laid out on the grass nearby. I remember the fence to Mrs. Dacco’s yard where the ball would go if I made a high throw. I remember my dad would have a cigarette, a Camel, usually, dangling from his lips while we played.
    “And, finally, when we were done, we would walk slowly to the door and he’d put his arm around my shoulder, and what I remember about that is just being completely happy. Just really happy.”
    Happier, Jack thought, than he’d ever been.
    The night was cold as they made their way back to the house, then huddled before the radiant warmth of the fireplace.
    “So how do you think it happened that he got in with that crowd?” she asked.
    “I wouldn’t—”
    “If you’re not comfortable,” she said quickly, “then I don’t want you to feel as though, you know …”
    “No, I’m comfortable,” he said. “It’s just not something I talk about very often.”
    “But you think about him all the time,” she said.
    “I do. Yes.”
    “Because you loved him so, so much, and that shows through,” she said.
    He was surprised. “I wasn’t aware that—”
    “Are you kidding?” she said. “You guys had something special. I think that’s so wonderful. I’m just sorry that, you know, he was involved in all that. It’s just a goddamned shame.”
    She seemed angry all of a sudden, angry, perhaps, that this father had done that to his son. She was not the first person in his life to express a feeling of anger toward Jock Devlin. Nor, he suspected, would she be the last.
    But Emily could see she had gone too far, and she retreated to the kitchen.
    “So what happened after your father was gone?” she asked, upon returning from the kitchen.
    He was momentarily confused.
    “To you,” she said.
    “Oh, well, I went to live with my aunt, my mother’s sister.” He looked into the fireplace for a moment but said nothing more.
    “And how was that?” she asked.
    He shrugged. “That was fine. She was a nice person, but life kind of overwhelmed her. She was widowed. Her husband had worked for the MBTA and died of a heart attack on the job, so she got an annuity plus a Social Security survivor’s benefit, so she had enough money to get by, but she was a fragile woman. She had three kids of her own. They weren’t too thrilled when I moved in.”
    “You were lucky to have her,” Emily said.
    “I guess,” Jack said, “though I never felt that way. She was reluctant to have me, but there was no alternative. There were no other surviving relatives, nowhere for meto go. I mean, a foster home, but she couldn’t live with that on her conscience. The best thing was that they lived in Roslindale, and so my entire routine—school, sports teams, friends—all remained the same. None of that changed.”
    She frowned and cocked her head to the side. “So who were the adults who mattered in your life?” she asked. “It doesn’t sound like you were close to your aunt.”
    “Not at all,” he said. “It was a very reserved relationship. Very arm’s length. But I had several people who were important to me. One was a hockey coach I had, Mr. Edwards. He was an older guy, his own kids were grown, but he loved to coach and he really kept an eye out for me. He always made sure I had a ride to games.
    “And there was Tom Kennedy, of course,” he continued. “He very quietly made sure I had whatever I needed in the way of equipment or money for travel to tournaments, that kind of thing.”
    “Tom Kennedy the deputy superintendent at BPD?” she asked.
    He nodded. “He’d been my father’s partner way back. And he really was more of a mentor to me than anyone else. As a matter of