Orbiting Jupiter

  My father stood up.

  “So Joseph . . .”

  “Mr. Brook’s lawyer is thinking ahead. He wants to be able to demonstrate Mr. Brook’s strong parental affection for his son and, by extension, his granddaughter.”

  “And the girl . . .”

  “Her adoption is in limbo. Madeleine’s parents want to move on, and they want Jupiter adopted into a good home. But until Mr. Brook signs—or stops his delays—that can’t happen. No family will choose a child whose adoption might be contested.”

  “Joseph’s voice doesn’t count?”

  “He’s a minor,” said Mrs. Stroud.

  My father and mother looked at each other. Then they looked toward the living room, where we could hear mostly Mr. Brook’s voice.

  “Jack,” said my father, “maybe you’d better get started on the milking. I’m not sure if Joseph is going to be—”

  “Okay,” I said.

  It was warmer in the Big Barn, the smell of hay and old wood and leather and cow—like always. I walked past Rosie and she looked up, then back down. I guess she was disappointed I wasn’t Joseph. So I started with Dahlia, and I leaned into her and listened to the rhythm of the milk into the pail.

  No matter what is going on, there’s something good about the rhythm of streaming milk, and the warm smell of it, and Dahlia’s mooing, and the sounds of her chewing.

  Except it isn’t so good when you’re about to finish and then you hear Mr. Brook’s voice again from inside your house, all the way across the yard—more annoyed than Dahlia ever thought to be.

  I poured the milk into the cooler and went in.

  No one looked up when I opened the door. They were all pretty much eyeball to eyeball with each other.

  Joseph was standing with his back against the wall.

  “A father’s got rights to his own son, you know,” said Mr. Brook.

  “Who do you think you are, keeping him from me?” said Mr. Brook.

  “Now I’ve got a lawyer too,” said Mr. Brook.

  “You think I’m going to give in to someone just because they’re rich?” said Mr. Brook.

  Mrs. Stroud said, “If you don’t leave immediately, I’ll . . .”

  Mr. Brook came closer to my father. “And who do you think you’re kidding? You know you’ve got a sweet deal going. You get your check from the state every month to keep my kid. You’re in this for the money.” He pointed to Joseph. “Does he know that?” He turned to Joseph. “You know you’re just a job for them? You are nothing but income.”

  My father walked across the kitchen to the desk in the hallway. He opened a drawer and pulled out some papers. He brought them in and stood next to Joseph.

  “Joseph,” he said, “your father’s right: every month, a check comes from the state. I want you to see where it goes.” He held out the papers. “This is a printout from the bank. It shows checks being put into an account every month, starting here, the first month you came to us. You see? And here’s the balance in the account, every single one of the checks added up together. You see that too?”

  Joseph nodded.

  “Now look here. You see your name? The account is in your name. That money is yours. We haven’t taken a dime. It’s for you.”

  “It’s the beginning of your college fund, Joseph,” said my mother.

  Joseph took the printout and stared at it.

  “College fund!” said Mr. Brook. “You think Joe is going to college? Like he’s going to Harvard College and strut around like he’s all smart and everything? Smarter than his dad? You think that’s what’s going to happen?”

  “Yes,” said my mother. “That’s exactly what’s going to happen. Joseph is going to college. And if you asked any of his teachers, they’d say so too.”

  Mr. Brook laughed. “Then they don’t know what for. But I do. And I’m telling you, the day’s not far off when I come back here to take my son away. Like I said, a father’s got rights.”

  “We’ll see,” said Mrs. Stroud.

  “We’ll see?” said Mr. Brook. Then he looked at me, pointed, and turned back to my parents. “How’d you like it if someone came to take your boy away? Huh? How would you like it? I bet you’d do whatever it took to get him back. I bet you would.”

  Mr. Brook laughed again, then walked over to me and took me by my shoulder.

  “Don’t touch him,” said Joseph quickly.

  Mr. Brook’s hand was hard and heavy, and it squeezed into my shoulder bone.

  My father was coming across the room just as he lifted it.

  He laughed again. “See what I mean?” he said.

  My father stood very close to him. Mrs. Stroud took out her phone again.

  Mr. Brook turned back to Joseph. “I’ll get you out of here quick as I can. Then things will be better. I promise. It will be a whole new life for us both. And you won’t have to go to college for it.”

  He found his coat on the rack and opened the door.

  “And, Joe,” he said, “next time you try to tell me not to do something . . .”

  He didn’t finish—but he left.

  It got a whole lot colder in the kitchen than in the Big Barn with the cows.

  And quieter.

  “I guess I’d better get back to milking,” I said.

  Joseph walked across the kitchen. He found his coat too, and we went out together.

  He didn’t talk at all.

  When Rosie heard us, she turned her head back and mooed her happy moo and waggled her rump to tell Joseph she loved him. Cows can be like that when you need them to be. Not always, but sometimes. And maybe Rosie knew Joseph needed her to be like that right then.

  So she mooed her happy moo again, and Joseph rubbed her rump, and he settled the pail beneath her and leaned against her side, and he began to milk, slow and sure, the way he did.

  He didn’t talk the whole time, except to Rosie.

  He didn’t talk at supper until dessert, when in the middle of a quiet, he looked at my mother and said, “Am I really going to go to college?”

  My mother passed him another bowl of her canned peaches. “I think Mr. D’Ulney and Mrs. Halloway would have our heads if you didn’t go to college, Joseph,” she said.

  Joseph smiled—sort of. I think it was the seventh time.

  THE NEXT DAY, the cold broke. It wouldn’t last long, my father predicted, maybe a few days. The sun was out and the sky too bright a blue to look at as the snow melted off the yews and came clumping down. The cows were as restless as spring, thinking there might be new grass out in the fields, even though the snow was still pretty deep. And Quintus Sertorius would not stay in his stall, so after school Joseph and I took him out to the paddock to let him walk around. He plowed through snow way past his knees, with both Joseph and me riding him—Joseph’s first time on a horse, and bareback to boot—and Quintus Sertorius snorted and nickered and swished his tail high and did everything he could to tell us how happy he was that spring was coming, even though it was still a long way off.

  Sometimes it’s like that. You know something good is coming, and even though it’s not even close yet, still, just knowing it’s coming is enough to make you snort and nicker. Sort of.

  I think just knowing my parents were going to help made Joseph believe something good was coming. Even if his father had a good lawyer. And rights.

  My parents would help Joseph see Jupiter.

  And someday, Joseph would go to college.

  BUT THE DAYS dragged on, and they grew heavy with snow again.

  The days dragged on, and they grew heavy with cold again.

  The days dragged on, and they grew heavy with waiting.

  My parents called Joseph’s counselor twice, then three times, and she said she would like a few weeks to evaluate Joseph before she made the decision about him seeing Jupiter.

  When my parents called Mrs. Stroud, she said she would have to meet with Joseph’s counselor first and get her opinion, and when my mother said that they had been
trying to get his counselor to give her opinion, Mrs. Stroud said her hands were tied and we would have to be patient.

  When my parents called Joseph’s teachers and asked them to write letters about Joseph’s progress in their classes, Mr. D’Ulney and Mrs. Halloway and Coach Swieteck all wrote letters right away, but Mrs. Stroud said they would have to be assembled into a file and presented to someone else in the Department of Health and Human Services, and that the someone else was very, very busy and it might be some time before he could make a decision.

  Mrs. Stroud tried to explain this one afternoon to Joseph. In our kitchen. With my parents.

  I was out in the barn. Milking. Of course.

  But when Joseph came into the Big Barn, I could pretty much tell what Mrs. Stroud had told him.

  “Did she say when you can see Jupiter?” I said.

  Waited a long time while he set the bucket beneath Rosie.

  “Nope,” said Joseph, finally.

  “Did she say how long until they decide?”

  “Nope,” said Joseph.

  Waited another long time. I finished Dahlia off.

  “Did she say anything?” I said.

  “Jupiter’s in Brunswick,” Joseph said.

  “Brunswick?”

  “Yeah.”

  He got to work on Rosie.

  “Brunswick is south of here, right?” he said.

  “Joseph, you’re not . . .”

  “South, right?”

  “Yeah, but you can’t—”

  “Jackie, let’s just shut up for now, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said.

  I poured the milk into the cooler.

  “It’s Jack,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Joseph.

  Then we shut up. Both of us.

  We didn’t talk at supper. Or through homework that night. We didn’t talk when I went to bed and Joseph stood in the cold dark, watching for Jupiter. Or at breakfast. Or on the bus. In any of our classes.

  We didn’t talk at all.

  And I don’t think Joseph talked to anyone else, either.

  At the end of the day, when I went out to meet him by the school bus and he wasn’t there, I figured he was walking home so he didn’t have to talk. I got on the bus and watched for him the whole way, past the turn by old First Congregational, past the Alliance bridge, all along the frozen Alliance.

  I never saw him.

  And when I got home, he wasn’t there.

  “Where’s Joseph?” my mother said.

  “I think he might be walking,” I said.

  She suddenly looked worried. “I suppose that’s it,” she said. But she went out to the road to watch for him. Then after a few minutes, she went to the barns to find my father.

  At milking time, Joseph still wasn’t home. “I guess I’ll ride into town,” said my father. “Jack, you get started. I’m sure Joseph will be along.”

  He wasn’t, and an hour later, my father drove back. My mother was waiting at the door.

  They went up to our room.

  Some of Joseph’s clothes were missing. And Walden. And the second volume of Octavian Nothing. He must have stuffed them all in his backpack that morning.

  “I think I’d better call Mrs. Stroud,” said my mother, and she went downstairs.

  “Jack,” said my father, “you done with the milking?”

  I nodded.

  “Rosie, too?”

  I nodded.

  He looked up at the sky, where snow clouds were lowering down like granite slabs.

  “Then let’s you and me get in the pickup. We’ll see if we can find him.”

  And I said, “I think I know where he’s going.”

  My father looked at me.

  “He’s going to find Jupiter,” I said.

  He nodded. “Go tell your mother we’ll be late for supper.”

  seven

  WE weren’t more than ten minutes out of Eastham before it began to snow—and not just a little. The snow came down with hard gusts, socking the sides of the pickup and blotting out the windshield. The sound of the wind was awful, like it was crying and lost and scared and not sure what to do except to wail.

  Which is sort of what I thought Joseph would be like right now, out in the middle of it—except he would never in a million years wail.

  We looked out at the sides of the road, hoping we’d see Joseph trying to hitch. But now it was so dark, and the snow so hard, and the roads already getting bad, I don’t think either of us had much hope. “He’s probably found a place to stay,” said my father.

  I’m not sure he believed it. But what else could we believe?

  Unless we believed Jay Perkins was out on his snowmobile with Brian Boss and Nick Porter, and they had found Joseph. But neither of us said that.

  The snow got thicker and thicker, and forty-five minutes outside of Eastham, we turned around. We hadn’t gotten very far, but we weren’t going to get much farther in this.

  Okay, so I was crying on the way back. My father rubbing my shoulder. Maybe he was crying too.

  At home, my mother fussed with the late supper. Pancakes, since they were easy to keep warm. She had already called Mrs. Stroud. Mrs. Stroud had already called the police, who I guess had already called Eastham Middle, as if Joseph might be hiding out in the janitor’s closet or something. So of course Mr. Canton had already come by, so full of himself, my mother said, all about how he knew something like this would happen, and kids who come from Stone Mountain are bound to run off, and it’s not our fault, it’s just that’s who Joseph Brook is.

  “I thought,” my mother said, “I was going to take this skillet to his face.” She was holding the skillet high over her shoulder, holding it with both hands, when she said this.

  My mother, I should tell you, is a pacifist. She got arrested three times during college for protesting foreign policy in El Salvador. She got arrested five times for protesting against nuclear power. So she doesn’t like pushy policemen very much, or pushy vice principals, and probably Mr. Canton was in more danger of a flattened face than he understood.

  We waited for a phone call and listened to the storm and waited for a phone call and listened to the storm. Mugs of hot coffee and hot chocolate. My parents talking about what they should have done, how they should have known. Wondering where Joseph had found shelter. Wondering if someone had picked him up. If he was okay. If he was lost.

  My parents never asked about my homework—I couldn’t have done it anyway.

  Later than usual, I went upstairs. The room was as cold as it ever had been. The wood floor was freezing. But for a while, in the dark, I wrapped my arms around myself and stood by the desk and looked out the window for Jupiter.

  In the storm, I couldn’t see a thing. Joseph wouldn’t be able to either. And I wondered if Joseph knew that what he wanted, he couldn’t have.

  Madeleine.

  Jupiter.

  I wonder if he knew it couldn’t be.

  Maybe he didn’t want to know it couldn’t be.

  So he was out somewhere in the snow, heading to Brunswick, when it was already too late, which he probably already knew, but he was going to Brunswick anyway.

  Things go through your mind when you’re standing in the cold, in the dark, watching the snow, with your feet freezing on the wood floor. They do.

  THE NEXT DAY, Mrs. Stroud called after morning milking. No sign yet. The police had been alerted between Eastham and Brunswick. State troopers were watching on the highways and even the main back roads. They all had the picture of Joseph when he first went to Stone Mountain, even though it didn’t look much like him anymore because my mother would never let him keep his hair that long. Mrs. Stroud said everyone was confident he’d be found soon.

  My mother said, “It’s still snowing. He won’t be out on the roads.”

  My father said, “Maybe he’ll find someone to help.”

  And I said, “It’s Joseph. He’ll know they’re loo
king for him. He’s not going to ask someone for help.”

  They were quiet a long while.

  We heard the school bus clanking and huffing to a stop out on the road. I didn’t move. No one said anything.

  The bus clanked and huffed away.

  We waited.

  No phone call all morning.

  Or in the afternoon.

  Or at night, when the snow finally stopped and Jupiter came out, bright bright bright.

  The next morning, Mrs. Stroud called again. No sign yet. The police were taking care of things. They would find him soon.

  “That’s what she told us yesterday,” said my mother, still holding the phone.

  “Tell her we’re wondering if we should go down to Brunswick ourselves,” said my father.

  “We think we should go down to Brunswick ourselves,” said my mother into the phone.

  Mrs. Stroud did not think we should go to Brunswick. She was concerned we were getting too involved and had lost a little bit of perspective about Joseph Brook. After he was found, maybe we should reevaluate—

  “Thank you, Mrs. Stroud,” my mother said. She hung up the phone. She looked at the two of us. “We’re going down to Brunswick,” she said.

  My father looked at her.

  I already had my coat on.

  MAYBE JOSEPH HAD found a ride all the way down to Brunswick, but we couldn’t be sure, so my father stopped everyplace that looked like Joseph might have tried to stay overnight: gas stations, fast food restaurants, real food restaurants, motels, churches, even bars. The only picture we had of Joseph was of him standing next to Rosie, and it was better of Rosie than of Joseph, but it was all we had, and my mother showed it wherever we stopped.

  Outside Lewiston, we found our first bit of hope in a little Baptist church set back from the road in a bunch of tall pines. Pastor Greenleaf opened the door to our knocking and he stood with one hand on his mop—he’d been cleaning the lobby tiles for Sunday—and looked at the picture, said, “Yup,” and handed the picture back.