True, he had lost his parents, but he never would be truly alone as long as he had the Church, the Jesuits, and the boys of St. F.'s. He would always have a home, he'd always belong.
And that was a good feeling.
Bill put the horrors of last Sunday morning behind him by throwing himself back into the daily routine of running one of New York City's last surviving Catholic orphanages. He felt he'd already faced and survived the worst that life could offer. What else was left to go wrong? Whatever could go sour had already done so—in spades. Things would be looking up from now on.
And for a while, through much of that spring, his life did indeed seem to chart a steadily upward course.
Then the Loms crossed the threshold of St. F.'s.
SIXTEEN
It was a warm Saturday afternoon in early June. Bill was interviewing a young couple in his office. They seemed too young to be seeking to adopt a child. Mr. Lorn was twenty-seven, his wife Sara was twenty-three.
"Please call me Herb," said Mr. Lorn with a trace of the Southwest in his voice. He had a round face, thick brown hair receding from his forehead, a thick, stubby mustache, and wire-rimmed glasses. He reminded Bill of Teddy Roosevelt. He half expected him to shout "Bully!" at any moment.
"Herbert Lorn…" Bill said, musing aloud. "Why does that name sound familiar?"
"There's a British actor with the very same name," Herb said.
"That's it." Bill remembered the actor now—Peter Sellers's Inspector Clouseau had driven him mad.
"You've probably seen a number of his pictures. No relation, unfortunately."
"I see. And you want to adopt one of our boys?"
Sara nodded excitedly. "Oh, yes! We want to start a family right away and we want to begin with a boy."
She was tall, dark, and slim with short, deep brown hair, almost boyish in its cut, and luminous eyes. Her application said she was twenty-three but she looked younger. And her drawl was delightful.
Bill had gone over their applications before the interview. The couple had been married only a year; both were native Texans, both graduates of the University of Texas at Austin, although they'd graduated five years apart. Herbert worked for one of the big oil companies; he had been transferred to the New York office recently. His salary was impressive. Both were practicing Catholics. Everything looked good.
Only their ages were against them.
Normally Bill would have rejected their application with a gentle explanatory letter advising them to give more time to their decision to adopt a child. But the details of Sara's social and medical history, combined with the fact that the couple had not limited their request to an infant, prompted Bill to give them a second look.
"You say here that you're interested in a boy between the ages of one and five," Bill said.
That had surprised him. As a rule, what a young childless couples wanted most was an infant.
They both nodded. Sara said, "Definitely."
"Why not an infant?"
"We're realists, Father Ryan," Herb said. "We know the wait for a white newborn can be seven years. We simply don't want to wait that long."
"Plenty of couples do."
Sara said, "We know. But I'm willing to bet that those couples can occupy themselves with tests and procedures and hopes that they'll conceive their own child during the waiting period." She glanced away. "We don't have that hope."
Bill glanced at the application again. According to a summary of Sara's medical history, supplied by a Dr. Renquist in Houston, she had been struck by a car at age eleven and suffered a pelvic fracture with internal bleeding. During exploratory surgery they found a ruptured uterine artery and had to perform a hysterectomy to save her life. The matter-of-fact tone of the summary ignored the emotional impact of that kind of surgery on a child. Bill saw a girl growing through her teenage years as the only one in her crowd who didn't get her period. A small thing in perspective, but he knew how kids don't like to feel they're on the outside looking in—at anything; even if it involves a monthly mess and discomfort, they want to belong. But more than that was the inescapable fact that Sara would never have a child of her own. He was moved by the finality of her condition.
"Are you sure you can handle a toddler or a preschooler?"
She smiled. "I've had years of on-the-job training."
Sara's family history was a definite plus. She was the oldest of six children—and all her siblings were boys. Bill knew that in that sort of family structure, a female first child becomes the second-string mother. Which meant that although childless, Sara was already well experienced in the art of caring for children.
Bill was impressed with Sara. Over the years he had developed a sixth sense for adoption applicants. He could tell when a couple wanted a child merely to complete the family portrait, because having a child was expected of them, because everyone else had one, or because it looked good on a resume—married with children.
And then there were the others, the special ones, the women in which the nurturing drive was so strong that it went beyond an instinct and became an imperative. These women could not feel complete, would not be a whole person until they had one, two, three children under their wings.
Sara struck Bill as the latter sort of woman. He wasn't reading much off Herb—at worst he was a yuppie wanna-be—but Sara radiated the need to nurture. It warmed the room.
"Very well," he said. "I'm satisfied so far that you two have possibilities here. I think St. Francis can help you."
They beamed at each other.
"Great!" Herb said.
"We'll run a routine check on your references, of course, but in the meantime, I'll let you look at some photos of the boys we have residing at St. Francis now. Later on—"
Suddenly Danny Gordon was charging through the office. He had a rocketship in his hand and he was making rocket noises as he roared it into orbit around Bill's desk.
"Hiya, Father!" he shouted as he passed behind Bill's desk at escape velocity. "You can be the man in the moon."'
Bill ran a hand over his mouth to hide a smile.
"You'll be going on a real trip to the real moon if you don't get back to the dorm this instant, young man."
"Back to Earth!" Danny shouted.
As he careened around the desk he came face-to-face with the Loms.
"Whoa! Aliens!"
Sara turned her dark eyes his way and smiled at him. "What's your name?"
The boy skidded to a halt and stared at her for a second, then went into orbit around her chair.
"Danny," he said. "What's yours?"
"Sara." She held out her hand. "Pleased to meet you, Danny."
Danny stopped again, this time for a couple of seconds, but he wasn't still. His feet were tapping and shuffling on the floor as he glanced from Sara's hand to Bill. Bill nodded, encouraging him to do the polite thing. Finally Danny shrugged and shook her hand.
"How old are you, Danny?" she said, keeping a grip on his hand.
"Seven."
"Has anyone ever told you what a handsome boy you are?"
"Sure. Lots of times."
Sara laughed and Bill found the sound delightful, almost musical. And then he noticed something.
Danny was standing still.
Normally by now the boy would have pulled his hand free and been on his way around the room again, racing along the walls and caroming off the furniture. But he was simply standing there talking to her. Even his feet were still.
She asked him questions about rocketships, about school, about playing, and he answered her. Danny Gordon was standing in one spot and carrying on a conversation. Bill was amazed.