A Great Reprieve

In terms of accommodation, Eric's Corey Street apartment wasn't much to speak of and I doubt I would have had any difficulty finding something a little more welcoming - had I looked around that is. But I felt no desire to search elsewhere. The bad décor and the minimal appliances didn’t concern me much. I was more interested in who I might be forced to share an apartment with, and those few simple words from Eric - 'you’ll have the place mostly to yourself' - were all the convincing I needed.

I headed straight back to Billy’s place, eager to pack my belongings together in preparation for the move. By the time I arrived back in the North End it was late in the evening and my brother’s two-story house lay dark and empty. Billy had become something of a workaholic in Boston and I had no doubt he was still tied to his desk at the office.

Stepping inside, I switched the hall light on, its yellow glow igniting the house with a mark of occupancy and steering the initial veil of darkness up towards the peak of the stairwell. I decided I’d call Billy right away, give him the good news - I’d be out of his hair by tomorrow. But his response to my new living arrangements came as something of a surprise to me, for instead of wishing me luck with an obvious expression of relief in his voice, he paused in dismay, and breathing heavily down the phone line, he mumbled: “You’re leaving already?”

His tone sounded so unbearably wounded that it sparked a sorry picture in my mind: Billy sitting alone on the other end of the line, encircled by the pale light of his desk lamp and surrounded by a flock of vacant desks bathed in absent shadow. Finally, I was forced to remind him that my living here was only ever meant to be a temporary situation. “Of course,” he agreed at last, shaking off his surprise and doing his best to sound detached and resolute.

But he turned painfully quiet then - in spite of himself - and he hung up shortly afterwards.

I had to admit, I was glad to be leaving Billy’s place behind, to be breaking out on my own for the first time. Billy had relocated to Boston a couple of years previously to work as a journalist for a local newspaper, and when the time came for me to fill out college applications, Boston City University seemed as good a choice as any. The fact that I could avoid the insular tone of campus life by staying with Billy only added to the appeal. But after only a couple of weeks of living with my older brother, that appeal was already wearing thin.

It frustrated me how insistent Billy was in maintaining a close link with home. I hadn’t realized it when I was still in Fair Haven, didn’t really notice how often he came home on weekends, how many phone calls he made during the week. But I guess it made sense for him; he hadn’t created much of a life here in Boston. He had his work, his home. That was about it. It seemed to console him to retain some sort of connection with Fair Haven, and with our parents, in a way that I would never fully understand.

Boston was my great reprieve. I had escaped at long last and I didn’t want to be constantly reminded of what I’d left behind.