It's a long drive up from the Cape, but Mary Quin does it without complaint. Eddie is her oldest, her baby, and she loves him the way only a mother can love her firstborn.
"Hi, Ma," Eddie said, climbing into the car.
Eddie is 50 years old, mentally retarded, and smarter than a lot of people. He lives in a group home in Wakefield and works as a janitor at a workshop in Woburn.
Mother and son have a little tradition this time of year. She picks him up, they have lunch, and she takes him to the stores, so he can buy Christmas presents for his brother and sisters.
They were sitting in the China Moon, in Stoneham, waiting for their lunch, when Mary noticed Eddie wasn't himself.
"What's the matter, Eddie?"
"I seen it on TV, Ma," he said. "There was a fire, in Everett, and everybody's house got burned up. There was an oil truck and it crashed and it burned."
Eddie couldn't stop thinking about the people in Everett since he saw it on the news.
"I've got a lot of clothes, Ma," Eddie said. "I've got clothes at my house, and I've got clothes at your house down the Cape. I want to give some of my clothes to those people."
Mary Quin told Eddie that it wasn't clothes that the people in Everett needed. She had heard they needed other things, like money and gift cards.
Eddie thought for a moment. Then he pulled a dog-eared bank book from his back pocket.
"Ma," he said. "Can you take me to the bank?"
At the bank in Wakefield, Eddie told the teller he wanted a check for $25. The teller said she could give him an
"What do you want the check for?" the teller asked.
And so Eddie told her and then the teller walked over to the bank manager. When the teller came back to the window she told Eddie she wouldn't charge him for the check.
Mary Quin called a telephone number that had been set up to help the people who got burned out in Everett. After she explained what her son had done and that they didn't know where to bring the check, the guy on the other end of the line didn't say anything for a while. Then he asked Mary to wait for a week and to bring Eddie to the Everett Recreation Center at a certain time. Mary asked why they had to wait a week and the guy said he needed to talk to some people first.
So a week went by and Mary drove back up from the Cape, to Wakefield, to get Eddie and they headed to Everett. Mary took Eddie to Sweetser Circle. They got out of the car and stood in front of some rubble that used to be the homes of 13 families.
Eddie turned his head from side to side. He didn't say anything for the longest time. It was freezing.
"Ma," he finally said, "how many people died?"
"Eddie," Mary Quin said, turning to him, grabbing his arm. "Don't you remember? Nobody died. Nobody at all died. It was a miracle."
Eddie brightened.
"Oh, yeah," he said. "A miracle."
When they got to the rec center, there were a lot of people standing around, waiting. They had come to see this man, this wise man, bearing a gift. They had come to see Eddie.
Eddie handed the check to Carlo DeMaria, the mayor-elect, and DeMaria shook his hand, and then Eddie looked up and realized everybody was looking right at him. He knew he had to say something, and so he said the only thing that felt right.
"Merry Christmas, everybody," Eddie Quin said.
Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com.
