“Not dead,” Bob repeated. “He went to prison in 1979. His friend shot someone—a rival drug dealer, it sounds like. That guy gave your dad the gun to get rid of, but the cops caught him with it, which made him an accessory to murder. And because he’d been in trouble before, the judge threw the book at him.”
Andy thought later that he must have said something or made some noise, because he felt Maisie’s hand on his shoulder, and her face looked frightened. He shook his head, mouthed, It’s okay, held up a finger again, and said, “What kind of trouble?”
“Drug dealing, larceny, burglary, grand theft auto . . .”
“Wow,” he said, and tried to laugh. “Maybe tell me what he didn’t do. Maybe that would take less time.”
“I have to put some of this in my story,” Bob said. “You understand. If I don’t write about this, somebody else is going to, and now that I know about it, I can’t not use it. I just wanted to give you a chance to say something, if you want to.”
“I get it,” Andy said. He walked down the hall of their spacious and still barely furnished apartment, then into the bathroom, where a face he didn’t recognize stared from the mirror. Alive. In prison. He’d never tried to get in touch. His mom had never said a word. Had she known? How could she not have? “But it wasn’t . . . I mean, he wasn’t—he was an accessory, but he didn’t kill anyone, right?”
“It looks that way. He just got caught holding the gun. Bad luck.” Andy couldn’t stand the sympathy in the Grim Rieper’s voice, thick as frosting on a birthday cake. “Why don’t you take some time? Talk to your people. I’ll ask you to comment at some point, but don’t worry about that now.”
A horrifying thought struck him. “Are you going to talk to him?” Andy asked.
“I’ll probably reach out. He was paroled eighteen months ago. He’s living in Philadelphia now,” said Bob. “It’s a part of your story.”
My story, thought Andy. Is that what he’d become? And if he had to be a story, why couldn’t he just be the one he’d crafted, the one he’d been working on since high school, the one Vanity Fair and the Philadelphia Examiner and all those other places had been content to repeat? Andy Landis, winner. Andy, who’ll push himself to the front of the pack and hang on. He’ll pay the price, no matter how high. Andy Landis, who came up from the slums of Philadelphia to win gold in Greece. Wasn’t that a story anyone would want to read? It was simple. Inspiring. American.
He must have said goodbye somehow, because Andy found himself with a phone in his hand buzzing the dial tone, and Maisie looking at him.
“You’re not going to believe this,” he began . . . and then he found himself wishing, with an intensity that felt like a fever, that he wasn’t talking to her; that he was telling Rachel instead.
But Rachel wouldn’t take his calls, and Maisie was looking at him, a question on her lovely face.
“It’s my dad,” he said.
“What do you mean, your dad? Your dad’s dead.”
“That’s what my mom told me,” Andy managed. “Except SI just found out that he’s not. He spent twenty years in jail, and now he’s living in Philadelphia.”
“Jesus, what’d he do?
“He was an accessory to murder.” Andy punched in his mom’s number. When she didn’t answer, he said, “Hey, Ma, it’s Andy. Can you call me as soon as you get this? It’s important.” Even as he was hanging up he was realizing that there was nothing that Lori could possibly say to explain this, no way that she could justify that big of a lie.
“Oh, baby,” said Maisie. She put her hands on his shoulders and started kneading, a move Andy always found more of an annoyance than a comfort—her hands were so small that she couldn’t exert enough pressure for it to feel good—but he’d never said anything. “Oh my God. I can’t even . . . Tell me what I can do.”
“I don’t know,” he said. He didn’t know how he felt or what he wanted or what the next move should be. He dialed his mother again. No answer. Maisie started in on his neck, and Andy felt like the apartment walls were crushing him, like his clothes were too tight, like his skin was shrinking, and that if he didn’t move he would explode.
“Give me a minute.” He scrambled into pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and one of the dozens of pairs of sneakers he had, and was out the door without stretching or planning or even telling her where he was going, across the street and into the park, running without a heart monitor or energy gels or the watch that tracked his distance and speed, as fast as he could, until he stopped somewhere along the East River path, pulled out his phone, and punched in the digits he was surprised he still remembered.