O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [37]
Her sour memory evaporated when the band started the evening concert at the big gazebo. Zach and Amanda stretched out on the lawn near the benches with a hundred other couples, who were soon in the mood to spoon. Neither of them had ever felt closer to anyone than they felt at this moment.
When a medley of John Philip Sousa’s marches was played with spirit, it made Zach feel grand. He sat up and clapped in time and then offered her his lap as other spooning couples did, and Amanda put her head on it and he touched her hair and traced her face with fingertips feeling of down until her breath became so uneven she had to hold his hand still, lest she cry aloud with joy.
Later she gave her lap to him and both groaned beneath their breath.
The concert ended with a thumping “Stars and Stripes Forever” as the bay mellowed up for the evening. He tugged her gently to her feet. Nighttime was coming. Chesapeake Park glowed with a merry mixture of a thousand gas lanterns and electric lights.
They strolled, just another pair of sweethearts, and stopped at the tunnel of love. The waiting line seemed endless, but their patience was not. They wanted some moments alone. The song from another calliope caught their attention and soon they were standing before the first Ferris wheel in Maryland, only the third in the entire country. It had been in the background all day, but now it loomed and seemed to be a thousand feet high, lifting open seats into a giant circle in the sky.
Amanda felt Zach’s hand go moist with sudden sweat and his lips paled. The wheel stopped for another couple, and another, leaving those on top dangling and swaying.
“We don’t have to go on it,” she said.
“Yes, we do,” he answered.
The attendant clicked the bar over their seat and the great wheel zoomed up counterclockwise, hurling them into space.
Now, over the top their chair went, and they could look down to the blizzard of lights and hear the cacophony of sounds of girls’ screams and barkers’ beckoning and the croaky toots of the calliope.
As they started to come down, the Ferris wheel stopped and their seat swung hard, as another couple was loaded on below . . . move a bit, stop and wait as another couple . . . and another . . .
She looked at him and she was alarmed by what she saw. Zachary was not quite together with things, his face glistening and his hands holding the bar in a death grip.
“Zach!” she cried.
He did not hear.
Four Years Earlier—Paddy O’Hara’s Saloon—Hell’s Kitchen
Any man who had been a Marine sergeant could read trouble on another man’s face. One of the nice parts about living with Zachary was that he rarely showed such feelings. On this occasion the boy was giving off a telltale signal. Something had been gnawing at him for several days.
It was deep into the night, heading for three o’clock. Paddy sat on a bar stool opposite Zach, who was clearing the cash register.
“What’s on?” Paddy asked.
Zach tried to weasel out, but to no avail.
“I’m confronting a problem.”
Paddy leaned over the bar, poured himself a mug, and waited for Zach to unfold his words.
“I dream I’m falling and try to reach for a hand to grab me, but it’s never there. It happens all the time now, every night.”
Paddy grunted. “How much do you remember about getting stuck out on the fire escape?”
“It’s only been spoken of in drifts and whispers. I don’t really know.”
“You was three and a half, living with Brigid up on the fourth story, and you crawled out on the fire escape. The counterweight rope broke and the window slammed shut. You remember any of it?”
“Not truly.”
“We always thought it best, me and Brigid, not to talk about it in front of you. Anyhow, you was hanging on to the rail screaming and she busted the glass to get to you, but you wouldn’t let go, so she wrapped her arms around you and hung until the fire laddies coaxed you in. We should have spoken to you, but you were pretty much a tough kid and I figured you’d outgrow it.”
Zach snapped