“Uh-huh.”
“And she took care of you while you were there?”
“She was my nurse,” the boy said. He leaned forward and a shudder went through him like some sort of spontaneous seizure. He closed his eyes and fell back again.
“A little cold in here, isn’t it?”
“A little.”
“Let me see if I can find something to warm you up.”
Teri brought a blanket out from the linen closet. She sat next to him on the couch and wrapped the blanket around his shoulders. For the second time, she took in the sweet, honeysuckle smell of his hair. She smiled to herself, remembering how much of a fight it used to be to get Gabe to take a bath at night. He had always hated wasting time washing since he was “just going to get dirty again anyway,” as he had often gone out of his way to remind her.
“How ’bout some hot chocolate?”
The boy nodded without a word, and made no effort to hide the fact that he was growing tired again. He pulled the blanket up under his chin and snuggled into the corner of the couch. His eyes, those blue-green crystals of the soul, gradually disappeared behind their lids, and Teri found herself wondering if maybe something was seriously wrong with him.
When she returned with the hot chocolate, she tapped him on the forearm. His eyes fluttered open, and waif-like he cupped the mug in his hands, looking so much like Gabe that it frightened her for a moment.
“Thanks.” He took a sip, and then placed the mug on the coffee table, next to the damp towel. His hands quickly disappeared back beneath the blanket.
“What else can you tell me?” she asked.
He had never seen a doctor in those ten or eleven days, he said. It had always been Miss Churchill who had come to check on him, to bring him food, to get him out of bed and walking around the room. She told him his muscles would be weak for awhile, but that everyday, if he worked hard, they would get a little stronger. And when they were strong enough, then he would be able to come home.
“And here I am,” he said.
“Here you are,” Teri answered obligingly. He had been convincing. She had to give him that. Someone had spent a whole lot of time with him, feeding him answers, making sure he had at least an air of credibility. And he hadn’t missed a beat. It was all tied-up in a neat little package, and now all Teri had to do was decide if she was going to cut the ribbon to see if it was booby-trapped or put it aside and wait to see if it went off on its own.
“Now, I suppose, we’re going to have to figure out what we’re going to do with you, aren’t we?” she said.
“I don’t get it. What do you mean?”
“I suppose I could call someone from Child Protective Services.”
“What for?”
“Because you don’t belong here, and I don’t know where you do belong.” She plopped into the recliner across from the couch, her lungs emptying out in a rush of air. The frightening thing was that she wanted to believe him. More than anything in the world she wanted to believe him. It had been years since Gabe had disappeared and there hadn’t been a night, not a single, lonely night, when she hadn’t dreamed of him showing up on the front porch just like this. Except in the dreams there had never been a doubt.
“I do, too, belong here.”
“I don’t think so,” Teri said. She stared out the window at the rain that had turned into a lazy evening mist now. It came floating out of the sky like an apology for the earlier downpour, mystical and somehow suspended in time. “I wish you did, though. God, you’ll never know how much I wish—”
Before she could finish, someone knocked at the door.
INTERMEDIATES
You live in a house that serves as your sanctuary. It is your shelter from the water when it rains, from the cold when it snows, from the wind when it tests its lungs. You sleep there against weariness, eat there against hunger. It is a reflection of who you are and how you see your place in the world. It is all these things that constitute your perception of yourself, and yet it is not you. It is only your sanctuary.
Your body is the sanctuary of your soul. It is how you perceive the world, how you feel and taste and hear. It is your window to the sunset, to the orange-full moon, to the storm in the distance. It is the receptacle of your expectations, of your experiences, of your beliefs about yourself. But it is not you. Be careful which axioms you ask it to follow.
[1]
Teri opened the front door and in keeping with the theme for the evening, she found two men, neither of whom she had ever seen before, standing on the porch. They were an odd pair. One man tall and heavy-set, wearing a blue suit, with a light-blue shirt and a dark tie that made her think of him almost immediately as one of those cheap attorneys you saw in television ads. In an accident? Injured at work? Don’t let the insurance company take advantage of you. Call and make an appointment today. There’s no fee if I can’t get you a settlement. The other man, who stood several feet in the background, rocked back and forth on his heels, edgy and ill-at-ease, a weasel watching with anticipation.
“Mrs. Knight?”
“Yes.” Though they had been living thousands of miles apart for some four years now, she had never initiated divorce proceedings against Gabe’s father. For Teri it had been her way of holding onto the past, a silent prayer that Gabe might still be found someday and they would be a family again. For Michael, well, he had never been one for confrontation.
“Teri Knight?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like you step back inside the house, please.” The cheap attorney pulled back the lapel of his suit jacket, and there, behind expensive lining, in a holster under his left arm, was a gun. “If you would, please.”
“What is this—?”
“In good time, Mrs. Knight. Please step back inside the house.”
Don’t be foolish, a voice sounded inside her.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“Please, Mrs. Knight.”
The man’s eyes narrowed and for the first time Teri noticed the scar above his left eyebrow. It was a thick, jagged gnarl of flesh that looked as if it might have been the brand of the Devil himself. Plastic surgery would have easily taken care of it, she thought. But that would have defeated the purpose, wouldn’t it? This wasn’t just a scar. It was a badge of honor for this man, a pronouncement to let everyone know— This is who I am and you better not tangle with me.
“Last time, Mrs. Knight. Step back inside the house.”
Teri stared at the man’s face a moment longer, trying to read past the cold, unforgiving expression, then her gaze set upon the gun again. Everything seemed perfectly clear to her in that instant. The fingers of her right hand brushed across the lock button on the door knob, then quietly depressed it as far as it would go.
“If you’ll just give me a—” She took a step back, as if to invite them in, then swung the door closed and made a break for the living room.
Behind her, she could hear the man’s voice suddenly rise into a scream. “Don’t do this, Mrs. Knight! Open the door!”
There was no way of knowing how long it would hold them. Maybe a couple of seconds, or maybe a little longer if the door had fully latched and it wasn’t one of those flimsy hollow core things that seemed to find their way into most of the tract homes of the ’60s. She had never thought about that before, and the thought was lost by the time she made it to the living room, where the boy was sitting up on the couch with wide eyes and a look of bewilderment on his face.