“Sit, please,” but James could not. He stood in the middle of the room, smelling something pungent, the music loud enough to block his thoughts.
“What do you do?” she asked.
“Do?”
“For job.”
James looked at her. “I’m unemployed,” he said.
She nodded. “Is very difficult time. Economy.”
Chuckles appeared.
“I don’t see anything,” he said.
“You, sir, you want drink?” Chuckles glanced at James.
“No thanks, lady.”
James reached into his pocket and held up the photo of Finn, Sarah, and Marcus. The girl took it in her hands and held it close to her face.
“He is very beautiful, yes.” She passed it back. “Wait here.” She disappeared through a door. James avoided looking at Chuckles, knowing the relationship couldn’t sustain too much extra meaning.
The girl reemerged, swiping her hair from her face. She held out a photo: a young girl, the hostess, only a few years ago. She sat on her knees between two boys, each on the edge of adulthood, wispy facial hair and acne. Above them stood her parents, tall and unsmiling. A Christmas tree covered in tinsel took up the background. The father’s downward smile matched his mustache. The mother had one arm on the girl’s shoulder, the other dangling uselessly at her side. They all wore cheap-looking sweaters. The photo was glossy, with fingerprints on the edges.
“This is my family,” said the girl. “My brother was hurt. You know about the war?”
James stared at that arm, that hanging arm.
“Of course,” he said. “What happened?”
“Oh, is grenade, you know. He is different now, but he is fine. It is a miracle.”
Chuckles cleared his throat.
“Is sad, yes. But my parents are still in Georgia. This is good news. And I think they will come here, and stay on this street. You can meet them.”
James imagined this, all the Georgians in his white living room, Ana passing flutes of prosecco to spill on their polyester sweaters.
“I hope I do meet them,” said James. “Thank you.” Chuckles could sense that James was unable to move now; he put a hand firmly on the center of his back, guiding him to the door.
To the girl, Chuckles said: “He’s at number ninety-four. Come by if you hear anything, please.”
She nodded, pushing her hair behind her ears.
“Yes, I will,” she said at the door. “Yes, we are neighbors. So I will look for the boy.”
The girl stood in the doorway with her arms wrapped around her torso, watching the men, one supported by the other.
They completed the street, door to door, ahead of the police, their pleas generating alarmed faces and offers of help. Neighbors put on their coats and followed them. Mothers stood on porches and watched them walk away, teary, grasping their children’s hands.
James crossed the street and continued south, banging on doors, while Chuckles stayed a few steps behind him, working his cell phone.
Finally, it was too late for trick-or-treaters, and the children vanished from the streets. Pumpkins were extinguished. At the top of James and Ana’s block, a police officer ran a piece of yellow tape between two stop signs. No cars were permitted to drive on the road, and people gathered under the streetlights, organizing into groups to descend onto the streets beyond. A few of the adults were in costume. One middle-aged man was trailing mummy bandages. Ana, staring through the picture window, her arms wrapped tight around her body, recognized the mother of that new baby. She was dressed as Pippi Long-stocking. The woman walked from car to car, peering in windows, the wire in the wig of red braids holding them in the air like smiles.
It had been nearly three hours.
James’s foot was throbbing, his stomach churning with hunger. He was far from home, so far that he couldn’t imagine Finn could have made it through the traffic alive. But he had no thought of stopping. Finn was somewhere, and he would find him.
Suddenly, Chuckles cried out. James turned. Chuckles was close behind, running, holding up his phone. His face was alight.
“Get home!” he yelled.
James broke into a run on his beaten toes. He tried to push aside the thought of the worst ending, ignoring the distant wail of an ambulance. It could not go that way, back to the morgue, back to the drawers in the bottom of a city hospital.
Then Sandra was coming toward him, jogging past the skinny Victorian houses, deking between the hovering people.
“You didn’t answer your cell phone!” she called.
“I didn’t hear it—” said James, and then he saw her face: joy. “We found him! We found him! Come home!”
He limped and dragged as fast as he could until he reached his house, the picture window framing a crowd of strangers. In the center, Ana. And Finn, his head buried in her shoulder, the panda hood slack around his neck.
James pushed through the wall of people.
“He was in Mario’s van, can you believe it? He fell asleep in there,” called Sandra to his back.
“Oh my God, I left it open. Jesus Christ …” said Chuckles somewhere in the din of voices. But James couldn’t answer. He looked at Ana, and he could not identify the expression on her face.
“Finny,” said James, moving his own body around both Ana’s and Finn’s, collecting their bodies in his arms. Somehow, in the crush of limbs, Finn shifted and came apart from Ana, attaching himself at James’s neck. James took in his scent, the warmth of him, and the two stood separately, breathlessly.
“Don’t ever do that again,” whispered James. “You scared us so much. You scared us to death.”
“Okay,” said Finn.
When James lifted his head from the boy, Ana had already moved across the room and stood talking to the police officer.
The crowd began to thin. The young couple from next door waved as they left.
“I can’t thank you—” said James, and Sandra shushed him, taking her husband’s hand. Their son, the boy in the Spider-Man costume, grabbed the final handful of candy from the blue glass bowl.
The bath was hot with lavender sweetness. James used Ana’s special bubble bath. He rubbed the washcloth over Finn’s shoulders. The boy did not feel fragile to him. This is new, thought James; he had always worried he would break him.
Ana sat on the toilet behind them, holding a white towel. James glanced at her and thought, Ah, there’s the broken body. Her thinness shocked him.
He returned to Finn and began his patter: “What’s the boat do? Does the boat go pshew?” James picked up a yogurt container, flew it through the sky.
Finn squealed. “No! That’s airplane! Boat stays in water!”
“Ah, like this?” said James, driving the yogurt container along the side of the tub. “Vroom, vroom.”
“Oh, I see,” said James. “This is a boat. Delicious!” He pretended to eat the yogurt container. Finn could barely control himself, laughter pealed out of him. James glanced at Ana. She wasn’t smiling.
“Finn show you,” said Finn. He dropped the container on the water’s surface. It floated. “See?”
The phone rang. Ana handed the towel to James and left the bathroom.
James finished the routine: the small toothbrush, the Pull-Up, the flannel pajamas covered in monkeys.
He sat on the bed and read to Finn a book about a mole looking for love. He laid the boy down, moved his hands along the sides of the body as if encasing him in a tomb. Then he leaned in, nose to nose.
“You can’t go anywhere without me, or without Ana,” said James. “Do you know that now? I was so worried.”
Finn wriggled his arms out of the quilt and reached for James’s face.