“Don’t worry. I’ll talk to him.” I paused and finally said, “Sarah asked me to—”
“I know,” she said. “She told me.”
I could tell that she wanted to say something else. Maybe she wanted to ask how the hell I was going to take care of him. Thankfully, she didn’t ask, because I didn’t have an answer.
I headed down the path, walking past thatched huts and ignoring the sympathetic stares of everyone I passed. In a clearing near the beach, some kids kicked a soccer ball back and forth seemingly oblivious to the drama unfolding.
As I approached Sarah’s hut, I saw Mohamed standing at the base of the tall palm tree in front of the deck. He was looking up at the foliage.
“William, it’s time to come down,” Mohamed said. “Be a good boy. We need to talk about the ceremony.”
I looked up and saw William’s skinny legs poking down through the palm fronds. His dirty feet clenched the trunk like a vise. The rest of him was hidden somewhere up above. I switched my attention to Mohamed.
Shaking his head, Mohamed looked at me with sorrow-filled eyes. “Aron, I am so very glad that you are here.”
That made one of us, I thought.
I nodded.
The palm fronds rustled and I looked up again. His legs were gone. In their place I found William’s dirt-encrusted, angelic face peering down at me. Even from way down here, I could make out the trails of tears on his cheeks. His eyes were red, but he wasn’t crying. He just stared at me. I held his gaze as I spoke to Mohamed.
“Why don’t you give me and the kid a little time alone so we can talk, okay?”
“But of course, my friend,” Mohamed said. “I will be in the infirmary if you need me.” He hurried off.
On the boat ride out here I had tried to think of what I would say when I saw him. But what do you say to a ten-year-old kid who lost his mother so soon after his father was brutally slain?
I recounted all of the stupid platitudes that everyone had said to me after the storm. Things like, they’re in a better place now and you’re still young enough to start again. Their words didn’t help. They stung like ocean water on a fresh cut. But the one comment that really pissed me off came from a guy who said that their death was all part of God’s plan. I felt like strangling that son of a bitch.
No… I couldn’t say anything like that to William, especially not with that look in his eyes. I knew that look. It was the same look that I had seen in my own reflection the morning that I had slit my wrists.
Rick had pulled me back from the brink that day and now I guess it was my turn to do the same for his kid. I just wished that I had something deeply profound or at least comforting to say to him, but I didn’t. So I said, “I’m going fishing. Want to go?”
William studied my face for a few seconds and then said, “I thought that fishing was too dangerous? You said that I would get hurt on the reefs”
“Yeah, well… who gives a shit what I said? Do you want to fish or not?”
He studied me for another few seconds and then shimmied down the tree. He came up beside me and we walked in silence to the beach. We didn’t speak at all. We had paddled a hundred yards off shore. William sat in the front seat of my kayak and I sat in the rear. I figured he would talk when he was ready, and an hour later he was ready.
“Won’t they be mad?” he asked.
I set my paddle across my lap, grabbed my fishing pole, and baited the hook. “Probably. Helen’s definitely going to be mad, but she’ll only be mad at me.”
Silence.
“Why?” I asked. “Do you want to go back?”
Shaking his head, he said, “No.”
I handed him the pole and said, “Here. You can use my lucky rod. Just hang on to it, okay? If it goes overboard then you go overboard. Understand?”
He twisted around, took it from me, and nodded. I watched him play the reel and get used to the feel of the pole. He lifted it above his head and cast out the line. It was a good cast. Rick must have taught him how to do that. I readied the other fishing pole and cast out on the opposite side of the kayak.
We fished like that, in silence, for more than two hours. Out of the corner of my eye, I occasionally saw people watching us from the beach. Helen came out twice. The second time she brought a set of binoculars and tried to get our attention by waving her arms. When it appeared that she had finally given up, William asked, “So what’s going to happen now?” His voice broke a little.
“I don’t know. I guess you’ll be staying with me. Your mom asked me to take care of you.”
He set the pole on his lap and said, “I don’t need anyone to take care of me. I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can, but I can’t break a promise I made to your mom,” I said. “So what do you think we should do?”
William paused, “I don’t know.”
“Me neither.” The tip of my pole jerked towards the water. I pulled back and set my line. William looked over his shoulder and watched as I reeled in a pretty good-sized squirrelfish. He picked up the net and scooped it up. After I unhooked the fish, I tossed it in to the bottom of the hull with the rest. Then I cast out again and said, “I’ll tell you what… until we can figure it out, why don’t you bunk with me for a little while?”
“I told you that I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“I didn’t say I would take care of you. You take care of yourself and I’ll take care of myself. We’ll just do it under one roof, that’s all. We’ll be roommates.”
William sat still for a few seconds and then said, “Okay. But you can’t tell me what to do.”
“Agreed, but we got to have some house rules. I don’t want my hut ending up like my college dorm room.”
He tilted his head as he looked at me with a puzzled expression.
“You know… house rules. My college roommate and I had three simple rules. Keep the room reasonably clean. Keep the noise down after lights out. And stay away if the other guy has a girlfriend over. You know, your run-of-the-mill house rules.”
I thought I saw a brief smile, but it quickly disappeared. He reached back and held out his hand.
“Deal,” he finally said.
We shook on it. “Deal,” I said.
After a few minutes, he reeled in his line and said, “Aron?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go in. It’s getting dark and… I want to say goodbye.”
I sat up in bed and looked around. William was still asleep. We’d moved his bed over to my place the day after Sarah’s funeral. It was a tight fit, but what the hell. It had only been two days and I realized that I was enjoying having him around. But he’d be leaving for Mars soon. It was for the best for both of us. At least that’s what I kept telling myself.
The curtains were closed, but I could tell by the way the sunlight was trying to find its way in that it was already late morning. I ran my hand through my hair and it came away wet… really wet. I was soaked in sweat and so were my sheets.
I lay there for a moment. My thoughts returned to that satellite image on Jin’s data mat, the one with the MDF boat docked alongside Jamal’s mother ship. Something was going on, but I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter anymore.
A couple of times over the past few days I felt like looking through Jin’s data mat. But I didn’t. I reminded myself that by Saturday I’d be back on Male. Shannon and I would vote for the list and that would be that. The Mars ship would come and William, along with the others on the list, would be whisked away, far away from the pirates. So what did it matter if I figured out what was in those messages? That little voice in my head, that’s who. It wouldn’t shut up about it.