Jack had never heard such an apt description of himself. His childhood trauma, even by Irish Catholic standards, had been repressed: the maternal neglect; the domineering, unfaithful father; the mysterious fate of his sister, beautiful Rosemary, who was only twenty-three when she disappeared, the remaining siblings understanding they were never to ask where Rosemary was or what happened to her. Jack had lost his twenty-nine-year-old brother Joe Jr., a navy pilot, in a midair explosion during World War II; four years later, in 1948, Jack’s beloved sister Kick died in a plane crash. She was only
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