“It’s not on you. It’s not on any of you. That man didn’t come to warn you to be quiet, he came to poison your life. Don’t let him do it, Kalisha. Don’t any of you let him do it. As a species, we’re built to do one thing above all others, and you kids did it.”
He reached out with both hands and wiped the tears from Kalisha’s cheeks.
“You survived. You used your love and your wits, and you survived. Now let’s have some cake.”
3
Friday came, and it was Nick’s turn to go.
Tim and Wendy stood with Luke, watching as Nicky and Kalisha walked down the driveway with their arms around each other. Wendy would drive him to the bus station in Brunswick, but the three up here understood that those two needed—and deserved—a little time together first. To say goodbye.
“Let’s go over it again,” Tim had said an hour earlier, after a lunch neither Nicky nor Kalisha did much with. Tim and Nicky had gone out on the back stoop while Luke and Kalisha did up the few dishes.
“No need,” Nicky said. “I got it, man. Really.”
“Just the same,” Tim said. “It’s important. Brunswick to Chicago, right?”
“Right. The bus leaves at seven-fifteen tonight.”
“Who do you talk to on the bus?”
“Nobody. Draw no attention.”
“And when you get there?”
“I call my Uncle Fred from the Navy Pier. Because that’s where the kidnappers dropped me off. Same place they dropped George and Helen off.”
“But you don’t know that.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Do you know George and Helen?”
“Never heard of them.”
“And who are the people who took you?”
“Don’t know.”
“What did they want?”
“Don’t know. It’s a mystery. They didn’t molest me, they didn’t ask me questions, I didn’t hear any other kids, I don’t know jack. When the police question me, I don’t add anything.”
“That’s right.”
“Eventually the cops give up and I go on to Nevada and live happily ever after with my aunt and uncle and Bobby.” Bobby being Nick’s brother, who had been at a sleepover on the night Nick was taken.
“And when you find out your parents are dead?”
“News to me. And don’t worry, I’ll cry. It won’t be hard. And it won’t be fake. Trust me on that. Can we be done?”
“Almost. First unball your fists a little. The ones at the ends of your arms and the ones in your head. Give happily ever after a chance.”
“Not easy, man.” Nicky’s eyes gleamed with tears. “Not fucking easy.”
“I know,” Tim said, and risked a hug.
Nick allowed it passively at first, then hugged back. Hard. Tim thought it was a start, and he thought the boy would be fine no matter how many questions the police threw at him, no matter how many times they told him it didn’t make any sense.
George Iles was the one Tim worried about when it came to adding stuff; the kid was an old-school motormouth and a born embellisher. Tim thought, however—hoped—that he had finally gotten the point across to George: what you didn’t know kept you safe. What you added could trip you up.
Now Nick and Kalisha were embracing by the mailbox at the foot of the driveway, where Mr. Smith had laid blame in his lisping voice, trying to sow guilt in children who had only wanted to stay alive.
“He really loves her,” Luke said.
Yes, Tim thought, and so do you.
But Luke wasn’t the first boy to find himself odd man out in a lovers’ triangle, and he wouldn’t be the last. And was lovers the right word? Luke was brilliant, but he was also twelve. His feelings for Kalisha would pass like a fever, although it would be useless to tell him that. He would remember, though, just as Tim remembered the girl he’d been crazy about at twelve (she had been sixteen, and light-years beyond him). Just as Kalisha would remember Nicky, the handsome one who had fought.
“She loves you, too,” Wendy said softly, and put a light squeeze on the back of Luke’s sunburned neck.
“Not the same way,” Luke said glumly, but then he smiled. “What the hell, life goes on.”
“You better get the car,” Tim said to Wendy. “That bus won’t wait.”
She got the car. Luke rode down to the mailbox with her, then stood with Kalisha. They waved as the car pulled away. Nicky’s hand came out the window and waved back. Then they were gone. In Nick’s right front pocket—the one that was hardest for some bus station sharpie to pick—was seventy dollars in cash and a phone card. In his shoe was a key.
Luke and Kalisha walked up the driveway together. Halfway there, Kalisha put her hands to her face and started to cry. Tim started to go down, then thought better of it. This was Luke’s job. And he did it, putting his arms around her. Because she was taller, she rested her head on his head, rather than on his shoulder.
Tim heard the hum, now nothing but a low whisper. They were talking, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying, and that was all right. It wasn’t for him.
4
Two weeks later, it was Kalisha’s turn to go, not to the bus station in Brunswick but the one in Greenville. She would arrive in Chicago late the following day, and call her sister in Houston from the Navy Pier. Wendy had gifted her with a small beaded purse. In it was seventy dollars and a phone card. There was a key, identical to Nicky’s, in one of her sneakers. The money and phone card could be stolen; the key, never.
She hugged Tim hard. “That’s not enough thanks for what you did, but I don’t have anything else.”
“It’s enough,” Tim said.
“I hope the world doesn’t end because of us.”
“I’m going to tell you this one last time, Sha—if someone pushes the big red button, it won’t be you.”
She smiled wanly. “When we were together at the end, we had a big red button to end all big red buttons. And it felt good to push it. That’s what haunts me. How good it felt.”
“But that’s over.”
“Yes. It’s all going away, and I’m glad. No one should have power like that, especially not kids.”
Tim thought that some of the people who could push the big red button were kids, in mind if not in body, but didn’t say so. She was facing an unknown and uncertain future, and that was scary enough.
Kalisha turned to Luke and reached into her new purse. “I’ve got something for you. I had it in my pocket when we left the Institute, and didn’t realize it. I want you to have it.”
What she gave him was a crumpled cigarette box. On the front was a cowboy twirling a lariat. Above him was the brand, ROUND-UP CANDY CIGARETTES. Below him was SMOKE JUST LIKE DADDY!
“There’s only some pieces left,” she said. “Busted up and probably stale, too, but—”
Luke began to cry. This time it was Kalisha who put her arms around him.
“Don’t, honey,” she said. “Don’t. Please. You want to break my heart?”
5
When Kalisha and Wendy were gone, Tim asked Luke if he wanted to play chess. The boy shook his head. “I think I might just go out back for awhile, and sit under that big tree. I feel empty inside. I never felt so empty.”
Tim nodded. “You’ll fill up again. Trust me.”
“I guess I’ll have to. Tim, do you think any of them will have to use those keys?”
“No.”
The keys would open a safety deposit box in a Charleston bank. What Maureen Alvorson had given Luke was inside. If anything happened to any of the kids who had now left Catawba Farm—or to Luke, Wendy, or Tim—one of them would come to Charleston and open the box. Maybe all of them would come, if any of the bond forged in the Institute remained.