The Shortest Way Home by Juliette Fay Read Free Book Online

from high school.”
    “From the tennis team?”
    “Yeah, Pop. Sean. You remember.”
    “Of course, I remember,” Mr. McGrath said irritably. “He just looks . . . older.”
    Cormac chuckled, but his discomfort showed. “Well, we’re not eighteen anymore.”
    “No, you certainly aren’t,” Mr. McGrath shot back with a grin. “You’re on the back nine now, pal-o-mine.”
    “Yeah, and you’re up at the clubhouse, tossing back brewskies and cleaning your clubs.”
    Mr. McGrath gave Cormac a playful slap to the back of his head and turned to Sean. “How’ve you been, son? You eating well over in Sri Lanka?”
    “Actually, it’s been Africa for the past few years. How about you? I hear your new boss is a real slave driver.”
    They chuckled over this and traded pleasantries for a while. After a few minutes, Mr. McGrath started to worry about his cannoli filling getting dry, and another burst of customers lined up at the counter. Cormac confirmed their plans for dinner, and Sean went on his way.
    As he walked back to Aunt Vivvy’s, Sean considered the day ahead. No plans whatsoever , he’d told Cormac, and nothing could be truer. It was a stark contrast to the constant activity at the hospital, and weirdly disconcerting. But the reliable impatience he’d always felt to get to the next place, the next incubator of suffering, was gone. If anything, he just felt weary. Suddenly Tierra del Fuego seemed very far away. Maybe the thing to do would be to stay in Belham for a couple of weeks and recharge. Summer in New England was beautiful, he seemed to remember. He would read books, mow the lawn, take naps. It would improve his back pain, too—more than staying in run-down hostels and riding third-world public buses, at any rate.
    It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was something, which was better than the nothingness he’d been feeling for so many months. And it was an answer to that nagging question of what he was doing here. He was resting up for the next adventure.

CHAPTER 5
    T hat evening, Sean drove Aunt Vivvy’s Chevy Caprice to the address Cormac had written on a blank cake order form. It was not the same Caprice his friends had nicknamed Old Ironsides for its likeness in size and turning radius to the Revolutionary warship docked in Boston Harbor. That car had eventually been sent to its final resting place by Hugh, who had proven its destructibility with a series of newsworthy crashes.
    Aunt Vivvy had gone right out and bought another Chevy Caprice. Around that time, Sean had made a brief stopover for Hugh’s high school graduation. One night he’d accepted Hugh’s invitation to get high behind the shed. It had been about the only way Sean could manage to get his party-boy brother to spend time with him, and they had gotten into a gasping fit of hilarity over Aunt Vivvy’s buying another Caprice.
    “I mean why does she have to have a Caprice , for chrissake?” Hugh had chortled between tokes as they sat facing the woods with their backs against the shed. “She’s like the least capricious person on the planet.”
    “Maybe she’s secretly capricious, and we just don’t know it,” Sean had giggled.
    “Yeah, like she has this whole secret capricious life! Vivian Preston, woman of whimsy!” They had howled at the very thought.
    “She could be a spy,” said Sean, eyes watering with laughter. “But like a double agent because she’s so freaking capricious she keeps switching sides!”
    “No, wait!” Hugh could barely breathe he was laughing so hard. “A stripper!”
    The comment made no sense, but the sheer absurdity of it made them fall into each other, pounding on each other’s arms, convulsing with hilarity till their ribs ached.
    Good times with Hugh.
    Driving through the twilit town in this second Caprice, Sean felt his chest tighten. A little over a decade after the car’s purchase, Hugh had died at the age of thirty-two. A bunch of his friends came to the funeral well on their