The City Below
“Terry and Nick—the sight of one so evoked the other that people in the Town never imagined they would turn out to be so different from each other.
Their father had gone late to the war, and had not come back—Battle of the Bulge, Flo always said. That was why she and her babies had moved back in with her father above the store. Cronin's own wife had died in Ireland giving birth to Flo. No one referred to it, but in the Town, Cronin and his daughter were regarded as if they had replaced each other's spouses. Slightly strange.
But the boys were alike in their bright normality, as American as Irish. Toddlers around the store, they were favorites of the Altar Guild ladies, who praised them for their freckles. As altar boys they always served together, gliding across the polished sanctuary of St. Mary's in cassocks that hid the movement of their legs. But they were headlong players in the neighborhood too, on their bikes and clamp-on skates, shooting hoops at the playground and stealing Pep...si bottles like other kids, pelting cars with snowballs and lying for each other when they were caught Only a year apart in age, they had the air of twins, which served each well when he needed to deny something.MoreLess
Their father had gone late to the war, and had not come back—Battle of the Bulge, Flo always said. That was why she and her babies had moved back in with her father above the store. Cronin's own wife had died in Ireland giving birth to Flo. No one referred to it, but in the Town, Cronin and his daughter were regarded as if they had replaced each other's spouses. Slightly strange.
But the boys were alike in their bright normality, as American as Irish. Toddlers around the store, they were favorites of the Altar Guild ladies, who praised them for their freckles. As altar boys they always served together, gliding across the polished sanctuary of St. Mary's in cassocks that hid the movement of their legs. But they were headlong players in the neighborhood too, on their bikes and clamp-on skates, shooting hoops at the playground and stealing Pep...si bottles like other kids, pelting cars with snowballs and lying for each other when they were caught Only a year apart in age, they had the air of twins, which served each well when he needed to deny something.MoreLess
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