His fire fantasy is not lost on me. The matchbook, the school. I am drawing dizzying connections that may or may not be valid, but I can’t unsee them. “You don’t have to defend her all the time,” I tell him. “I’m not heartless. She just doesn’t make it easy. You weren’t there when I was little, when she left.”

“I know,” he says quietly, a distinctly defeated hang to his head.

“Why do you stay?”

“I love her,” he says. “And so do you.”

I want to argue, but the fight has fled my veins.

“When I lost my son,” he starts, his voice soft like tufts of goose down, “I thought I’d never love again. I had a revolver, a Colt Special, and I sat in the dark with the barrel in my mouth many a night, thinking about how easy it would be to stop the pain. But then I’d think, if I died, so did he. Whatever was left of him would be lost. So I’d put it away and fight through another day or week or month. The first time I met your mother, I told her about Noah. Told her the whole story. And she looked at me and said, ‘Every time you think of hurting yourself, you hurt your boy.’ I sold my gun after that.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell him because I am.

He smiles a little. “I still haven’t figured out how to forgive myself for what happened to Noah, but when I look in her eyes, I see the same pain I carry and then some. I know she has walked through hell and back again. But it’s what happened with you, losing you to your grandmother, that did the worst damage. You may not see it, but she’s worked hard to put the pieces she has left back together. For you.”

I’m not sure how to respond to Gary’s speech, where to start, where to end. But I know he’s wrong about one thing. My mom was damaged long before I came along. Damaged by Moony. Damaged by whatever happened to her at Our Lady of Infinite Sorrows. By Father Terry. By my sister. And yes, at last, by me.

XXIX.