“And?”
“And . . .” Frank didn’t honestly know and what. How had he mourned Natalie? In an hour at the morgue? On his knees next to his mother’s sofa, in the barn, stabbing at forkfuls of hay? That was what work was for. Hard work burned the muscles, tired the brain. Work trumped mourning. But the truth was, Ian trumped mourning. Frank had mourned, and he had healed, through Ian, balm of the lost. Now would come Colin, rescued from the flood, carried safe to this place. Who knew what this kid would be like? But to find out, and to help this boy, already certainly so marked by loss, Frank would need . . . Claudia. Not some woman. Not a helpmate. Claudia, herself.
That was the truth.
He looked at Claudia now, her wet hair spiking out in back as she toweled it, her skin rosy from her shower, and saw that his life without Claudia would be a round of days, of the challenges of fatherhood, brotherhood, manhood, farmerhood, without the flavor these past few months had taught him to take for granted. She was a doctor, a curious and learned woman, tough and game. She was his friend, his playmate, his physical equal, and the fun they had in bed still dumbfounded him. Like no other woman ever would, she understood Ian. Only a man as anointed with good luck as with bad could happen across two such remarkable women in one life of not even vaguely trying, and only a fool with shit for brains would release a woman like this woman.
“Did you ever suspect anything?” Frank asked her.
“No,” she said. “And I know when people are lying. Maybe it’s because you’re not really lying. You don’t believe you did anything wrong.” She got up and began to painstakingly separate the strands of her hair. “Frank, when I was a resident, I had to do marriage counseling. Couples in trouble always say, But . . . we’ve been through so much together. And I told them, That is the worst reason to hang on! Like digging a hole to fill a hole. I would ask them, what if you substituted the phrase ‘because he refused to work’ instead of ‘You’ve gone through so much together’? Would you think that justified holding on?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, now I feel like that. You and I have been through so much in a very short time, really since the day we met. Of course I feel as though I have known you forever. Everyone feels that. And while I don’t want you to think I condone this . . .”
“I don’t want you to think that I do.”
“Some things are more important . . .”
That’s just a legal thing, surely.
Frank said, “Wait, Claudia. Cops use that line of logic all the time, and they call it a higher law, when they want to justify doing something wrong.”
“Do you think Ian is better off with you?”
“Absolutely. I don’t think there’s anywhere else Ian could be on earth. And if I did the so-called right thing, and took them back . . .”
“You know what would happen. A foster family. And then maybe an adoption, a changed name. They would be unhappy for a long time,” Claudia said. “Missing us.”
“You’re right,” Frank said. He stood and let the winter sun gild his arms and hands. The case clock in the hall clucked patiently.
Slowly then, he said, “Claudia, I don’t know how it all comes out. We’ve done everything like an avalanche. We became a family almost before we became a couple. And sure, ‘family’ is another word that people use to cover up a multitude of sins. They say, ‘He’s family,’ like those patients of yours who had been through so much together.” Frank put his hands under Claudia’s elbows and pulled her up to face him. “And as for love? We ignore the facts. Like the sun. We know that the sun is just a dying star, Claudia, a ball of gas. We know it for a fact. We know the sun can be dangerous. But we think of the sun as something generous and magical, that lets us have baseball and sweet corn and turns trees after an ice storm into these wizard’s wands of pure glass. We feel like it’s a privilege just to wake up to the sight of the sun. So maybe that’s how it is with love. We ignore what we know. We know everybody feels it. People use the word ‘love’ to push people around. Love can make people cruel. Love can make people weak. Love doesn’t always stay the same. And sometimes it goes dark, like a star that gets extinguished and just leaves the memory of its light. But how I feel, it’s a privilege just to wake up and remember how lucky I am. If you left me right now, the memory of this . . . well, light, I would still be way luckier than I deserve. The facts are, it’s too soon, and it’s too much of a risk, and it’s too complicated, and it could even be dangerous. It’s all that. And still, our love makes me alive. Maybe we don’t get a long past. Maybe we just get a future. Maybe this isn’t the first time in my life I’ve loved anyone this much. It might be. But I know for sure that it’s the last time.” Claudia let one of her hands drift across her eyes, and then looked up at Frank. “So you have to ignore the facts, Claudia. You have to say yes. Will you marry me?”
“How could I say no? That must be the largest number of sentences you’ve ever said to me.”
“It’s the largest number I’ve ever said, period. So say yes. I want to hear you say yes.”
“Yes, Frank. Yes. I can’t wait to marry you.”
• • •
They all stood at the Qantas arrivals door, behind the railing, Ian holding the poster that said, in block letters twelve inches high, COLIN.
In the end, not only Claudia but Hope had come along to New York. They’d come on the Thursday, with Frank and Claudia spending two days alone at the W, in celebration of their engagement, and Hope wandering happily around the city with Ian, up to the top of the Empire State Building, then to a matinee of The Lion King, which Ian loved mightily. The next day, Hope, nearly seventy-four, took Ian on a four-mile forced march through Central Park, stopping for hotdogs and the zoo. Only when he was tired did they go to FAO Schwarz, where they dropped four hundred dollars on toys for Colin, including a game system that Ian knew his brother would love, although, up to this point, the only video game Ian had ever played was something called a MobiGo at Henry, Oliver, and Abe’s house. Hope drew Frank’s credit card like a gun, despite understanding now that, in the part of her mind that was being steered by a four-year-old, she had no idea of the value of money.
Every few hours, Ian asked Hope, “Is Colin at the airplane yet?”
On the day of the arrival, just before they left for Kennedy, they all moved over to a couple of rooms at the Giraffe, because it was smaller and funny, and Frank wanted Colin to have a chance to put his feet on the ground for a day before they returned to Wisconsin. He needed his own feet on the ground, in honesty.
They got to the airport hours early, and took walks up and down the main terminal until everyone had gotten “the kinks” out of their legs—Hope’s euphemistic term, although no one had done much except walk for the past three days. Ian was fascinated by the electronic vending machine and Frank had taken out his card to buy a mini iPod before he realized that it wasn’t his idea. Denied a music player, Ian then scowled about die-cast airplanes and jellybeans (“He’s going to have to have all his teeth removed by the time he’s thirty,” said Claudia). Denied the jellybeans, Ian ate so many bags of potato chips that he threw up in the bathroom. Frank bought him a toothbrush, and Ian insisted on buying one for Colin as well. Claudia confessed that she felt like throwing up, too. Frank said he would also buy her a toothbrush.
Summoning up all his years of experience at imposing calm on the agitated, Frank had no more effect on any of them than an obnoxious used-car salesman.
I’m scared, said a voice.
“Don’t be scared. It’s fine,” Frank told Ian.
Ian said, “What? I’m not scared.”
Frank rocked up and down on his toes. Even his clothing felt funny, as if sewn from broken-down cardboard boxes. Every few minutes, the doors from the European flights would burst open and people would push against the barriers. People were generally too demonstrative in public. He turned to glare at some particularly boisterous groups; but they noticed him no more than they noti
ced the anemic music on its endless loop.
When he saw the big plane with its triangulated kangaroo in red, he said nothing at all. Behind him, rather more sternly than was her usual, Hope was telling Ian to stop running between the rows of seats. He’d already knocked over one girl’s huge hobo bag, scattering lipgloss, candy, and tampons, and while she assured Hope that no harm was done, her face said that she would happily have set Ian on fire.
And then the door opened and a woman perhaps ten years younger than Hope strode out of the customs area. She was unmistakably a nun, dressed in a coarse knit suit so unfashionable it had to be deliberate, holding a little boy by the hand. He was only a little boy, small for his age, unmistakably the boy from the van. Frank saw his face that morning, determined, terrified, his chin lifted against the water that rose to his armpits. Take my brother . . .
What had Frank expected, a preteen?
He had.
But Colin was just a second grader, in khakis that were too long for him, a red shirt, and a navy-blue blazer. The coat he and Hope had purchased would be big enough for both boys.
Ian stopped careening. He turned, ran a few steps toward the woman and the boy, and stopped again. He was about to duck under the railing, when Frank stepped forward to quiet him. Frank watched Colin’s face, an ineffable alloy of pity and relief. Colin came around the barrier and said quietly, “Hullo, Ian. It’s okay. It’s me.”
Ian wrapped his arms so hard around Colin’s waist he nearly knocked the good sister over. Hope got to them first, amazing Frank, as she always did, with the agility that let her crouch down and take both Colin’s hands, once Ian let him go. “I’m Hope, the grandmother,” she said. “Everything is okay.” Claudia covered her face with both hands and sat down hard, in a chair. Frank wanted to say, Mom, what happened to Frank, I hope you know what you’re getting into with this other little boy . . .
Hope stood and offered her hand to the nun, who took it a little reluctantly.
“Where is the uncle?” she said.
“I’m Frank Mercy and this is . . . my fiancée, Claudia. And you’ve met Ian.”
“Our Colin was rather upset on the airplane,” the nun said. “I’m glad we’re here now.” A group of stolid people, equally drab, was approaching in a throng.
“Sister!” one called, and the old woman’s face split in what appeared to be an unaccustomed smile.
“I’ll leave you now,” she said. “Good luck, Colin. There’s a lad.”
“Goodbye, Sister Ursula.”
“His luggage,” Claudia said. “Will it be downstairs?”
“He has no luggage. That backpack is all. He won’t let that go. He slept with it.”
“Let’s go back to the hotel,” Hope said. “You’re going to like New York. It’s the second biggest city in the world. I think.”
The two groups turned to leave each other, but Colin hesitated.
“You can,” Ian said. Colin reached up and took Hope’s free hand.
Frank stopped, his feet solider than his knees, which threatened to give out. “You were scared in the airplane, weren’t you?” he said to Colin. “And you were bored a few days ago . . . you told me, didn’t you? And you called me with your mind, and told me you weren’t dead. Didn’t you?” Colin nodded. “What do you call that?”
Colin shrugged. “Nothing. Talking without my mouth.”
“You told me . . . Why didn’t you talk to my mother and my . . . Claudia?”
As if he were twenty instead of eight, Colin jerked his chin at Claudia and Hope. “I didn’t even know they existed, did I?”
“What is this about?” Hope asked.
“We can discuss it later.”
That night, with boxes of clothes and toys opened and strewn around the room where Ian lay nearly on top of Colin on a two-foot-wide section of the queen-sized bed, Frank quietly told Claudia and Hope what Colin could do.
“What is that called? Telepathy? It doesn’t exist. The Duke experiments were equivocal . . .” said Claudia. “But yeah. Those Duke researchers, they never met Ian.”
“He’s been talking to me for weeks,” Frank said. “I thought I was hallucinating.”
“You said he didn’t have . . . this thing,” Hope pleaded. “You said he was just like any other little boy.”
“Mom, I didn’t know! And Ian’s just like every other little boy,” Frank said. “I don’t know if this is that thing or another thing, but I guess it exists or we’re all nuts.”
“It could be both,” Claudia said, and sighed.
After Hope went to bed, they opened the backpack, both leery of invading Colin’s privacy, both rationalizing that he was eight years old and needed protecting. If Frank hadn’t known from Mother Elizabeth that it was there, he would never have seen the slit that held the documents in their thick waterproof envelope. Frank didn’t disturb them. The newspaper clipping with Frank’s picture was soft as flannel now, ruptured along the folds from being opened and refolded so many times. The one Brian sent must have been another copy. There was his passport, some rocks and shells and pencil nubs of the kind boys seem to need, and a small stack of ruled papers, torn from notebooks, letters written in pencil and never finished.
Dear Mr. Mercy,
Hello from me. Blessings to you in Christ. Please come get me. I am in Australia. Weetabix puts sun in your day. I am not
Dear Frank,
This is Colin. Cora died. She went with Jesus. It can be kind to let me come
Dear Mr. Mercy,
This is Colin. Ian is my little brother. I would have courage. Do it for your loved ones. I would come where
Dear Mr. Frank Mercy,
Hello. This is Colin McTeague. How are you? I am alive. I do good things. The sisters feed me. One time I was in a van after the sunami. I pushed Ian out. Ian is my brother. He is three. I did not drawn. I hit my head. I have a scar. I broke a half of my neck. Do it for your loved ones. Jesus is a loving father. Can you be gentle. Send
“The language,” Claudia said. “It’s so odd. I know what! He was copying what people were saying around him, and what he saw in books at the convent.”
Frank nodded, barely able to answer, a picture in his mind of Colin working hard, trying to get the words just right.
Abruptly, he got up and left Claudia.
Frank had cried more in the past year than in the previous ten, but only for a moment in the morgue as he watched the attendant towel the dirty floodwater from Natalie’s sweet face. To his surprise, he felt that upside-down wedge crowd his throat now. He walked into the bathroom and shut the door, closed the lid on the toilet, and rested his chin on his hands. After a while, hiccuping, he unspooled toilet paper and blew his nose. Breathing began to hurt. He blew his nose again. Frank thought he might never stop crying.
What if he had not found Colin?
What if good-hearted Brian had never done his documentary and this young boy had not taken on the equivalent of an adult earning a master’s degree—in finding Frank?
The great, hot bale of guilt over the taking of Ian that pressed customarily on Frank rolled away, and into its place rolled one even hotter, wetter, heavier: he had saved one child at another’s expense. Pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes, he imagined a Colin ten years on—tall, muscled by work, certainly furious, perhaps feral, left to die for his own valor—standing at Frank’s door, finally to find the little brother.
A small sound tapped, apart from the ordinary whooshes and snaps of hotel atmosphere. Colin was standing in the doorway.
“Do you need to use the bathroom?”
“No.”
“Are you sick?”
“No.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m not a baby.”
“I know that,” Frank said. “I’m not a baby either. I’m just kind of sad you had to wait so long for us.”
“I talked to Ian.”
“So you knew Ian was alive, somewhere.”
“No, I
didn’t.”
“You said you talked to him.”
“I said I talked to him. He can’t talk back.”
“Oh,” said Frank. It was like a radio with only a receiver on the other end, and no transmitter. “Do you have to be close to the person?” Colin looked as though he might laugh.
“No,” he said. “I never tried to talk to anybody who was in the space station or something. I suppose I could, though.” Colin regarded his too-large socks. “I was only a little afraid.”
“You don’t have to be a baby to be really afraid. When I was a policeman, I was scared lots of times.”
“You were a policeman?”
“Yes, for a long time. Just until a few years ago.”
Mother Elizabeth said say thank you.
Colin said, “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank us, Colin. You belong here.” Frank got up and led Colin to the chair in the bedroom where Claudia lay asleep on the second large bed. “Can you hear what I say, too?”
This time he did laugh. “No!” His face sobered then, and he glanced around the room, which was done all in black and white. One wall was striped, one wall dotted, the bedsheets satiny black as crow’s wings, the coverlets white, and everywhere—on little shelves, high on the top of the curtain rods that looked down over the toy-town sparkle of Park Avenue, the great dark sea of the park beyond—were those little mime dolls, pierrots, Frank thought they were called. They were creepy. Hope’s room was done up as a French open-air market, a great deal more restful. Colin said then, “My mum could hear everybody, unless she turned it off on purpose. She took drugs because it drove her crazy.”
She died.
“How did she die?”
“She took too many drugs one night and she just fell asleep. My dad said it didn’t hurt.”
“I’m sure it didn’t,” Frank said, thinking, This . . . and the tsunami, too? Life owed this kid an apology.
“Was Ian always able to . . . Did he always get people to be nice and do what he wanted?”
Colin said, “He could make them be the way he wanted them to be. He’s mostly nice, so nice, sure. And give him stuff.”