Shamrock Alley Read Online Free

stones. “Yes.”
    “It’s Saturday,” she said.
    “Hmmm.”
    Katie had noticed his limp: their eyes had met just at the exact moment he sat down at the table, and John knew his affliction had registered with her. But she didn’t say anything. She rarely said anything, rarely asked him about what happened during his long nights working in the dark and the cold. It was a silent pact they’d made once he joined the Secret Service. And in many ways, Katie’s sudden interest in earning a college degree, their moving into the new apartment, and even the baby were all just little, menial things—just wallpaper to cover a poorly painted room—in order to keep their marriage and his job separate.
    He ate. Through the walls, he could hear the faint drone of someone’s stereo. “You got a busy day planned?” he asked Katie.
    “Not so much.” She ran water from the sink over the frying pan. Steam billowed and hissed. “I’ll try and empty the rest of the boxes from the hallway.”
    “How did we get so much crap?”
    “Don’t ask me. Most of it’s yours. I should really just set it on fire.”
    “I’ll go through it all.”
    “When?”
    “When I have time.”
    He watched her shuffle from the sink to the refrigerator to the sink again. She was beautiful. Even in the final trimester of her pregnancy she looked almost childishly innocent, naïve even. The sideways glances she would throw him from time to time suggested a certain playfulness only to be admired in a grown woman. She’d somehow grown into absolute purity, with all her half-smiles and casual grazes along parts of his body as they passed each other in a room or the hallway. There was mystique in the way she pulled a curl of hair back behind her ear.
    She paused for a moment before the window above the sink, the sunlight striking her in just the right way, and he felt a twang of nostalgia rush through him.
    John put his fork down. “What is it?”
    “Nausea.” She shook her head. “It’ll pass.”
    “You gonna be sick?”
    “No, I’m all right.”
    “Sit down, and stop worrying about dishes and boxes.”
    “I’m okay.” She moved behind him, ran her fingers through his hair while he continued to eat. He could feel her eyes on him, as if she were attempting to wrestle some truth from his skin without his knowledge or assistance. He did not look up at her. With every pause of her fingers in his hair, he felt her concentration grow.
    After a while, she said, “Will you see your father today?”
    “If I have time.”
    “You should find the time.”
    “I want to. We’ll see.”
    “Are you okay?” she said, still running fingers through his hair, her voice a near-whisper now.
    “Just tired,” he said.
    She bent, kissed his cheek. “See your dad,” she said.
    In the bathroom, he stood for some time before the mirror in his underwear. Twenty-six, with a youthful smile and dark eyes, he possessed the body of a runner, augmented by the well-defined pectoral muscles and biceps of someone passionate about exercise and personal upkeep. He was not a fanatic, though he worked out with some dedication when he found the time. Not very tall, his physique suggested a certain compactness that, in turn, implied a degree of discriminating strength. In his youth he’d been thin and small and, on occasion, he thought he almost caught a glimpse of that child still inside him somewhere, perhaps lingering just beneath the surface of his body.
    A faint, puckered scar was visible on his forehead just above his right eye, trickling down from his hairline and quite visible beneath the harsh bathroom lighting.
    He showered and dressed quickly. At one point he found himself thinking about his father, and trying to recall the dream from last night, but quickly chased the old man from his mind when he realized what he was doing.
    Instead, he focused on the events of last night and, more importantly, on the events to come. He wanted everything as straight as possible