Family and Other Accidents Read Free Page A

Jack’s room because it was bigger and had a double bed. But he never got around to taking Jack’s old stuff off the walls—an Indians poster with a home game schedule from eleven seasons before, framed photos of Chagrin Falls Jack’s high school girlfriend gave him for Christmas a decade ago, and the huge JFK poster over the desk. At first Connor had hated the poster with its intense eyes, but he grew used to being watched by someone with more authority and experience. Now he finds Kennedy oddly reassuring. With Jack hardly ever home, Connor has started running things by Kennedy, just to get a second opinion. Generally the poster doesn’t say much. Though Kennedy didn’t object when Connor said he wanted to leave flat Ohio, with its strip malls and burger chains.
    Downstairs, the front door opens and closes, and Connor watches through the window. Jack is holding Brenda Starr’s hand, walking her to her car. Looking around to make sure nobody is watching, Jack leans in to kiss her, and their faces disappear behind her hair. Body contouring to fit the car, back arched, she has one hand on the metal frame for support, the other against Jack’s chest. Still holding her hand, Jack starts to walk away but then they’re kissing again, then apart, together, apart, together, like scissor blades. Connor looks away. From the wall, Kennedy suggests Connor need only watch and learn.
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    Thirty-three hours before the scheduled sex, Connor finds a box of condoms in Jack’s nightstand drawer, exactly where he thought they’d be. Pocketing two square packets, he puts the box back in the drawer on top of coffeemaker instructions, a broken watchband, cellophane-wrapped restaurant mints, and a picture from Jack’s college graduation that Connor must have taken because Jack and their mother have no heads: tall bodies (their mother’s in some turquoise wrap dress, Jack’s in a black gown) against a redbrick building somewhere in Philly.
    Picking it up, Connor wonders why Jack kept the photo; they have better pictures from Jack’s commencement—a good one of the three of them is in a silver frame downstairs. Yet there
is
something interesting about this shot, where the hands have become the focus. Both sets of fingers long and tapering—Jack’s hold the box with his diploma, while their mother’s clutch her leather handbag. She had used her hands when she’d talked, and his mother had talked a lot, always exaggerated and fast.
    She’d been a member of Coldwell Banker’s Five Million Dollar Club for fifteen years. Other than constantly telling Connor he needed a haircut, his mother had hardly been around to offer sitcom-mom witticisms. But a few months before she died, the two of them had been in a booth at Slyman’s, quickly eating sandwiches before she had to show a house. “You know about sex and love, and all of that, right?” she’d asked from nowhere, reaching out to put her hand on his. He’d looked down at his corned beef and nodded, anticipating the horrible conversation he’d seen in movies. “Good,” she said, focusing again on her turkey sandwich. “Just try not to be careless with people, okay?” That had been the extent of his sex talk. He wonders now if she meant careless with girls like Jenny. Careless the way Jack is careless.
    Lying back on the bed, Connor stares at the ceiling and thinks about the girls Jack has brought home who’ve shared the view. Other young Jones Day associates, an MBA student at Case, his married high school sweetheart, other childhood “friends” who live in more exciting places but come home to Cleveland for Thanksgiving and Christmas. He wonders what they thought looking at the ceiling, what they expected—if they knew they were just there for a little while. Wonders if the reporter has seen Jack’s ceiling yet. Since meeting