The O'Briens by Peter Behrens

Author:Peter Behrens [Behrens, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780307379931
Publisher: Pantheon
Published: 2012-03-06T05:00:00+00:00

PROVINCE OF QUEBEC, 1929

On the Run

“I believe he’s in detroit,” his mother said.

The O’Brien Capital Construction Co. Ltd. was building a bridge from Detroit to Windsor. In Detroit Mike’s father usually stayed at the Book Cadillac Hotel; he would bring home bars of soap in the shape of books for Frankie, Mike’s younger sister. But Mike had also overheard his mother telling Aunt Elise that his father could be in New York, and by then — Mike was nearly fifteen — he had a pretty good idea what New York was all about.

Later that evening he was in his room doing a delicate bit of soldering on his radio set when his mother entered without knocking.

“That radio’s taking too much time from your schoolwork!”

He reminded her that the science master at Lower Canada College had encouraged the boys to build sets, even helping them order parts. The radio wasn’t taking time from his schoolwork; it was schoolwork.

“Do not speak to me like that, Michael!”

“Like what?”

“As if you know everything and I don’t know anything! Don’t use that tone of voice.”

“What tone of voice?”

“Oh, stop it.” She sat down suddenly on his bed. “Oh, stop it, myself. The smell of that awful gunk has gotten to my head. I can’t think straight.”

“Solder doesn’t smell any worse than your fixer.”

“I suppose it doesn’t.” Flopping backwards, she lay staring up at the ceiling.

At least she wasn’t holding a camera. She sometimes came into his room and snapped photos of him doing homework or working on his radio or assembling a model plane. Other parents brought out the camera to record birthday parties or Christmases, but she had always taken pictures of them doing ordinary things. Homework. Eating breakfast. Riding their bikes. Mike and his sisters were so accustomed to it they hardly noticed. Their father filed all her photographs in albums. He used to keep the albums in his office downtown but he had brought them home. Now they were in a special bookcase in his study. Mike and his sisters were allowed to take them out and look through them, but they never did.

He suddenly felt sorry for his mother.

“I’ll open my window and leave the door ajar. The draft’ll suck out the fumes.”

She got up, came over to where he was sitting, and rubbed his hair. “Don’t stay up too late.”

After she left he went back to soldering, most of his consciousness concentrated in his fingers. He was surprised when the notion of leaving home — of running away — came to him all of a sudden, like a flashbulb popping. It wasn’t a plan he had been cooking up; it wasn’t really even a plan. All of a sudden he just saw himself walking down the Westmount hillside, headed for the train yards.

His parents had been at odds with each other lately, never raising their voices but mostly keeping to separate parts of the house. His sisters had their own lives, their school friends. He’d slip away and they’d hardly notice.

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