Henry couldn’t remember that sight, but he remembered the waters rising after his father had left for the war. His mother had brought him and Wiloma down the hill weekly, pointing out the slow, inexorable spread of water building up behind the dam. She’d meant, Henry knew, for them to see the horror of it, but he’d been five then, six, seven, and he’d never seen the valley when it had held people and buildings. He’d seen scarred land, rubble, desolation, and the water that rose over the ugliness had seemed like a benediction. It had spread, smooth and pure and serene, until it reached the line where the trees still grew. Then it stopped. It looked like a lake. He had wanted to swim in it, but swimming was forbidden.
He shook his head, wanting to clear it. He hardly ever thought about those times or about his parents, and he wondered how much more of this his journey with Brendan would stir up. Mirella was still talking to Brendan, and he tried to focus on her but found that his vision of her trailer had gone cold. She was telling Brendan about her kids — she had three of them, he’d been right. She said, “My oldest, Angeline, she wants to be a dancer. I made her this tutu last month, for her recital …. You have kids?”
Brendan blinked at her. “Me? I’m a bachelor.”
She turned to Henry. “What about you?”
He thought of Lise and Delia and his heart skipped a beat. “Six,” he said evenly, as if the extras were insurance.
“Hell,” she said, and then laughed. “Six—why didn’t you just shoot yourself and get it over with?”
Henry rose and stood behind Brendan’s chair. “Nice meeting you. We have to go.”
“Stop by again if you’re passing through. What’s your name?”
“Jack Pomeroy,” Henry said, adopting the name of his parents’ hometown. “This is my father.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Ambrose,” Brendan said, which Henry admired. Not quite a lie, nothing so flamboyant as his own, yet good enough to keep her from knowing them. He wasn’t sure why he’d lied to her, or why Brendan had played along.
They left her touching her red curls and returned to the van, where they found Bongo standing in the driver’s seat with his face mashed against the window. Henry settled Brendan and Bongo in the back and then watched as Brendan took a napkin out of his pocket and slipped something from it to Bongo. Bongo gobbled it hastily.
“A little pie,” Brendan explained. “I saved him a bit, for a treat. He’s probably hungry.”
Henry was pretty sure the napkin had held the whole piece of pie, square piled on sticky square. He moved the box holding the things he’d taken from Kitty’s from the back of the van to the empty seat beside him, and he shifted the picture of his parents from the side to the top of the box, where he could see it. Then Brendan hiccuped and they drove off.
14
“SIT DOWN,” WALDO SAID, “TELL ME AGAIN.”
And Wiloma, after a cleansing breath, did. She explained what the administrator from St. Benedict’s had said, she explained her theories. Theory, now — the set of possibilities she’d explored over the phone with Wendy had shrunk to one when Waldo had appeared at her door. “Wendy called me at work,” he’d said. “Wendy was all upset.”
Which could mean only one thing, as far as Wiloma was concerned: Wendy was too sensible to worry without a reason, and so her own darkest fears about Henry and Brendan must be true.
Change the belief, she told herself, and you change the situation. Her Manual was explicit — error is created by wrong thought, error is wrong thought. She had never said to herself, “My uncle has cancer,” but now she said, out loud to Waldo, “Henry has kidnapped him.” The words came out like a sneeze, with a similar sense of relief, and were immediately followed by waves of guilt. She’d said it; she’d thought it. If it was true, it was partly her fault.
“I don’t know,” said Waldo. He paced across the smooth blue carpet, looking sleek and prosperous. His pants were neatly cuffed and his feet were shod in expensive walking shoes. His hair looked perfect from a distance. Only when he drew very close could she see the delicate grid of plugs across the top of his scalp. “That doesn’t sound like Brendan,” he said. “Brendan’s no pushover.”
Wiloma told him what the administrator had said the second time he called. “Someone saw them in Brendan’s room. Putting some stuff in a plastic bag. Someone else saw them leave the building together. And after the alert went out, a policeman radioed in from Irondequoit and said he’d seen a St. Benedict’s van earlier at the 7-Eleven.”
“Irondequoit?”
“That’s what he told me.”
Waldo adjusted the cuff of his shirt. “So maybe they did borrow the van. But maybe they’re just headed for the lake, or the park — I don’t know. Did you call Kitty?”
“Why would I call her?”
“Irondequoit,” Waldo said. “Maybe Brendan wanted to see her, and he asked Henry to take him over there for a visit. Brendan was always fond of her. And I don’t think he’s seen her in years.”
“Oh, please,” Wiloma said. She’d come to dislike her sister-in-law immensely since Kitty’s transformation. Acting all of a sudden as if the years she’d stayed at home raising her daughters had been hateful, worthless; as if she thought Wiloma wouldn’t remember the lazy, laughing afternoons the two of them had shared with all four children. Kitty had been terrific with Lise and Delia and with Wendy and Win as well. But now she said those years had been like being in jail. She’d given up doing “women’s work,” she said. No more cooking, cleaning, making of parties, no sending of birthday cards or presents. No visiting her husband’s aged uncle when her husband was too busy to go himself. That was what had annoyed Wiloma most: that Kitty had stopped visiting Brendan.
“Why would he go see her?” Wiloma asked. “When he could come here?”
Waldo shrugged and picked up the phone. “I’ll just check.”
Wiloma listened as Waldo casually asked Kitty if she’d seen Henry recently. Something about the apartment, he said, lying smoothly. The ceiling was leaking, he’d scheduled a carpenter, he needed to let Henry know and hadn’t been able to reach him. She had seen him? Wiloma watched the color seep from Waldo’s even tan as he responded to something Kitty was saying.
“Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh,” Waldo said. “I know …. Uh-huh. I understand.” This went on for minutes; apparently Kitty was angry. Waldo turned his back and Wiloma studied the neat curves of his legs. He looked wonderful again, his ex-football player’s body only slightly softened. He worked out, Wendy had told her. He went to the gym three times a week. He did this, Wiloma knew, for Sarah, who was only thirty-four — this, and the clothes and the funky shoes, the hair transplants, the sunlamp tan. He’d been balding and overweight when he’d belonged to Wiloma.