Riven - Jerry B. Jenkins [116]
“Thank you, Dad. That gives me a real picture of what Ravinia will be encountering over there. Hey, big ball game on tonight. You follow baseball, do you?”
“Sorry, I can’t say that I do,” Thomas said. “Just never really got into it.”
“Really? Because it looks like there could be a New York subway series this year.”
“Subway series?”
“You know, both teams from the same city? New Yorkers can watch all the games just by taking the subway between Shea and Yankee Stadium.”
“No kidding.”
Dirk threw his head back and laughed. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
“I used to watch the Cubs and the Sox now and then when I was a student, if somebody got free tickets.”
“Well, you see? If they had both been in the World Series the same year, that would have been a subway series in Chicago.”
Thomas looked puzzled.
“You see what I mean, right?”
“I think so, but what would be the odds they would both make it the same year?”
“I wouldn’t even want to try to compute that. But, anyway, Dad, I guess you’re not interested in watching the game tonight?”
“Oh, I see! You want to watch a game. By all means.”
“Oh no, not if it’s only me.”
“We can watch, sure.”
Thomas tossed Dirk the remote, and as he began changing channels, Grace and Ravinia emerged from the kitchen. “Oh, Dirk,” Ravinia said. “Now, no, you promised.”
“It’s okay with Dad,” Dirk said. “Let me just see if there’s any score yet.”
Thomas had called his late father-in-law Dad. But Grace’s father had actually seemed like a second father to him. Thomas didn’t feel like Dirk’s father at all. Maybe that would come.
41
Touhy Trailer Park
Brady’s little street proved nearly as bad as the obliterated neighborhood he had just come through. Where his trailer had once stood lay only the concrete two-step riser that had led to the front door. Even that was gone from most of the little homesteads.
Brady had always loathed this park and the ugly metal box he called home. But now he felt as devastated as the acreage he stood in. It hadn’t been much; in fact it had been a depressing, desolate place he had always longed to escape. But it was also where he’d grown up and the only real home he had ever known.
Would Touhy Trailer Park rebuild? He couldn’t imagine it. If he owned a park like this, he’d just leave it in his rearview mirror and make a new start in Florida or Texas or California. What did owners do in situations like this?
Worrying about everything and everybody other than the matter at hand worked at keeping Brady from awful realities only so long. He forced himself to keep moving, and as he scanned the debris for anything resembling his trailer, he came across the figure of a thin, trenchcoat-clad woman, shivering in the rain with her back to him.
Her arms were folded across her chest, and she wore a transparent plastic rain hat. She was staring at the wreckage of a trailer about forty feet away and was apparently unable to talk herself into moving closer.
Brady moved next to her and startled her by putting his arm around her shoulder. It struck him that he had not touched his mother in years.
“Brady,” she said, her voice thin and raspy. “You heard from Petey?”
“No. You?”
She shook her head. “No school today. He’s with friends somewhere.”
“I wish. I think he was here, Ma.”
She turned to look at him, and Brady pulled away, hunching his shoulders against the cold.
The trailer was broken in half, lying on its side, familiar contents appearing to have gushed out. Kitchen appliances lay about, closets broken open, clothes and junk spilled here and there. Furniture was soaking up the rain.
“I got to check, Ma. Got to look for him.”
“He’s not in there, Brady. No possible way.”
“I need to make sure. You coming?”
She shook her head.
The closest emergency crew was two blocks away. Brady didn