"Did the court make him? Is it restitution?"
"Restitution was separate. That went through the Clerk of Courts. Funeral costs, your hospital bills, the ambulance. He paid that off in twenty sixteen. Seven years early." Eamon's mouth twisted. "He worked nights cleaning floors at the Millcreek Mall until he was seventy-five, did you know that? I didn't know that either. I found out. I made it my business to find out everything. The money orders weren't the court. The money orders were him. Nobody asked him to. Mom wrote him once and told him to stop and he didn't stop."
"What did she do with them?"
He laughed. It was not a good laugh. "Nothing," he said. "She didn't do anything. She kept them. She never cashed a single one. I found them after she died. In a boot box in the back of her closet, behind the Christmas wrapping paper. A pair of Sorels she bought in nineteen ninety-eight. Every envelope, opened with a letter opener, in order. Two hundred and three money orders made out to Siobhan Fennessy, every one in that handwriting, and every one with a little note folded around it."
"What kind of note?"
He was quiet for a moment. The rain drummed.
"Weather," he said. "Mostly weather. 'Snowed eleven inches Tuesday. Shoveled the walk for the lady next door.' 'Saw a heron at the Bayfront.' 'Steelers lost.' And at the bottom, every time, one line. The same line, with a different number." He said it in a flat voice, like he was reading it off the inside of his skull. "'Still sober. Six years, one month.' 'Still sober. Twelve years, eight months.' 'Still sober. Nineteen years.'" He stopped. "Twenty-three, now. He got sober in county lockup the night of the crash. Twenty-three years in October."
I wiped a circle in the fog of my window with the side of my hand. Across the street the brown coat had not moved.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you were seven years old."
"I haven't been seven in a long time, Eamon."