Chapter 1 1 SEPTEMBER 1974 I WAS ALONE, standing in line at a Pirates-Phillies game, waiting to buy a soft pretzel and beer, when I thought I heard my name on the public address system. Just a flicker of consciousness, the kind of thing that comes and goes and never crosses your mind again--unless there's a reason. My name is Jim Thomson. It's a common name, short and easy to remember. Still, when I meet people, they often get it wrong. I'll introduce myself and the person will smile and shake my hand and end up calling me Tim or Tom, last name Thomas or Johnson. It's the kind of mistake we all make now and again. We get preoccupied; we're daydreaming half the time, even when we're looking someone straight in the eye. I remember my mother scolding me when I was a boy, saying, "You hear what you want to hear." Which is exactly what happened that night at the ballpark, my name blaring from the loudspeakers, the PA announcer asking Jim Thomson to please report to the information booth, and I, distracted by who knows what--a girl in a low-cut halter? a sudden roar of the crowd?--ignored the summons. It was mid-September 1974, a balmy evening at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. I was a third-year graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, working on a PhD in American studies. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, I was a loyal Pirates fan and went to the Vet in South Philly a few times each season to watch them play. That night the Pirates took an early lead but couldn't hold it. I'm sure I stayed until the last out as I always do, a lesson I'd learned as a kid when my older brother, Keith, and I left a Cubs-Pirates game in the top of the ninth and missed an improbable game-winning rally. I drove home from the stadium and parked in front of the house. My wife, Connie, and I had recently moved to a small duplex in Narberth, a suburb on the Philadelphia Main Line, with our two-year-old daughter, Meg. As I was getting out of the car, Connie turned on the porch light and came out the front door in a sleeveless yellow dress. "Didn't they page you at the game?" She crossed her arms, clutching her bare shoulders as if it were cold out. "I called and asked them to page you." I was standing on the sidewalk. I couldn't tell if she was angry or worried. "Why? What is it?" "I didn't know what to do . I kept waiting and waiting for you to call." Connie sobbed and covered her face with her hands. I ran up the steps and put my arms around her, panic in my head-- Not Meggy. Anything but Meggy. "Tell me," I said. "It's Eileen. She's dead." It was just words for an instant, the news of my sister's death an abstraction. As if I were suddenly living in a world without cats or trees. A world without Eileen. "How?" "She killed herself." "No. She wouldn't ." Tears rolled down Connie's face. "With a gun," she said. I let out a howl of grief and rage and disbelief, a guttural sound I'd never made before--or since. Our mailbox was a wooden case that had once held some weather instruments on my ship in the Navy. I punched the box and skinned my knuckles on the sturdy louvered slats. Connie looked frightened, helpless. "Did she leave a note?" I said. "I'm not sure. I don't think your mom knows much yet. Your dad's still at work. She said she was going to wait for him to get home before she told him." I felt a sudden pang of conscience, trying to remember the last time I'd called Eileen or written her a letter. I hadn't seen her in nearly four years. "I better go call," I said, sucking blood from my knuckles. Such a welcome and curable pain. My parents' line was busy. So was my brother Keith's. Connie and I sat down at the kitchen table. She told me Mom had called from Pittsburgh around seven thirty. The conversation had been short, a blur of emotion and chaos that had left Connie thinking Eileen had been killed in an automobile accident. It wasn't until she'd spoken to Keith's wife, Alide, that she found out it had been a suicide. Connie told me she'd put Meg to bed soon after, then called the stadium to page me. "They didn't want to do it," she said. "I don't know why. But I just kept pleading with the guy until he promised." I thought back to that moment in the concessions line at the ballpark, that flicker of recognition. Why hadn't I inquired about the page? Did I think only doctors got summoned? The parents of lost children? Or did I have some subliminal understanding that this message could lead only to heartache, to some life-changing event? Whatever the reason, it earned me two and a half hours of not knowing, a period of time when the most important thing on my mind was the outcome of a baseball game. I pictured Connie sitting there alone with that horrific news, waiting for my call. I phoned my parents again and my father answered. "Hello?" It was a question--one-half hope, as if this might be the call that would undo everything, Eileen on the other end of the line, telling him it was all a mistake; the other half dread, as if he expected another blow, some new weight added to his unbearable sorrow. "It's me, Dad." "Jim," he said, relief and disappointment in a single syllable. "I can't believe this." "No, neither can I. I keep thinking maybe... if only I..." The words caught in his throat. "I'll let you talk to your mother." "Hi, Jim," Mom said. "Connie told me you went to see the Pirates." "Mom, I'm sorry. I should have--" "Oh, no, honey, that's all right. I had the game on the radio. It was a comfort, knowing you were there." The way she said it made me feel like a little boy again, and I let go and cried. Excerpted from A Better Ending: A Brother's Twenty-Year Quest to Uncover the Truth about His Sister's Death by James Whitfield Thomson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
