Counterpointe (29 page)

She was pleased the arrival of the waiter with the salads interrupted them.

When they were alone once again, she spoke firmly. “I don’t think I ever thanked you for suggesting the Parker books. They’ve been a real hit with the men. Especially Beck.”

“Beck?”

“He’s dyslexic. We’ve been working together.”

John acquiesced to talking about Beck, Vinnie, Anthony, and Tyrese as they ate their salads and main courses. While they waited for dessert, he reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a small, gaily wrapped package. “Merry Christmas, Clare.”

She folded her hands in her lap refusing to accept the gift. “I don’t have anything for you.”

“Please.” He held up a hand to stop her protest. “Don’t deny me the pleasure of giving you something, and don’t sweat it until you see what it is.” He pushed the package toward her.

Reluctantly, she opened it to find a small key, hand-worked from copper wire. She looked up, a question in her eyes.

“Kenny kept picking up the odd bits of wire from my electrical jobs. When I asked him why, he brought this in to show me. Drove a hard bargain. Had to buy him a whole roll of wire in trade.”

Clare fingered the tiny key. “Thank you. For being willing to part with it.”

“I thought you’d like the symbolism.”

He was right. She, along with everyone at Hope House, was searching for the key to the future, as well , in her case, for a key to lock away the past.

The Amazonian Christmas was as unremarkable as Thanksgiving, except for the fact Sam unearthed a can of mixed nuts and a bottle of red wine for their dinner.

“Leave it to women to be the celebrating influence,” Jolley said, holding out his cup. “Never occurred to me to bring along something to mark the occasion. You got something hidden away for New Year’s, Sam?”

“If I’d realized the village was going to be right by the boat landing, I would have brought more.”

“No matter. Thanks for sharing with us. Merry Christmas.”

Rob wondered how Clare was spending Christmas. She’d told his mother she was going home. Rob had never been to Salina, so impossible to envision her there. But no matter where Clare was, in Salina or Boston, he couldn’t be more separated from her if she’d been on Mars.

“Good morning, beautiful. How you doing?”

“Why do you do that?” Clare asked Vinnie. “Call everybody beautiful.”

“You stop seeing something beautiful in a person, time you got your eyes checked.” Vinnie chuckled before her expression turned serious. “The Father made everybody beautiful. Everybody. Father don’t make junk.”

“What about murderers? Rapists?”

Vinnie snorted. “Person forgets they’re beautiful, no telling what they’ll get up to.”

“If somebody raped me, I’d be hard-pressed to see any beauty in them.”

“Better to look for the beauty than stew in anger.” Vinnie’s face, usually so animate, went still. “No matter what they do, they’re still God’s children. But ain’t easy. I give you that. Specially that person your daddy.”

No. Vinnie couldn’t mean her father...
Oh, dear God
.

“I was fourteen, it started. Hated that man. Hated myself. Only way you get past something like that, Father’s got to help.”

“I am so sorry that happened to you.” Clare kept her tone as calm as Vinnie’s, but she laid a hand on the other woman’s arm, seeking to both comfort and be comforted.

“Ah, well, I discovered it’s true. What don’t kill you do make you stronger.” Vinnie sighed and patted Clare’s hand.

Clare was uncertain what struck her more. The matter-of-fact telling, or the knowledge that sunny Vinnie suffered such horror.

“What about you, beautiful? Maybe you know what I mean. Sometimes you got a real sad look in those eyes.”

Clare blinked and shook her head. “Everybody has a bit of trouble now and then.”

“Trouble shared is trouble halved. You ever want to talk, I’d be happy to listen.”

But Clare wasn’t yet ready to repeat words that would make her losses real—that Rob wasn’t just on a sabbatical. Deep down, she knew. He didn’t intend to come back to her. Her fault. All of it.
Even tiny, seemingly insignificant acts of kindness have consequences
. The psychologist said that, and she could have added,
as do acts of unkindness
. And they are never insignificant.

Amends. That was the only way to undo an unkindness, and a little bit of painting wasn’t nearly enough. But how did one make amends when the person you wronged was four thousand miles away and no longer speaking to you?

“The curve of a wing allows air to move faster over the top than the bottom, producing lift,” Tyrese read, the smooth flow of words proof of how far the boy had advanced in the few months he’d been coming to Hope House. With a finger holding his place, he looked up at Clare. “You ever do that? Fly.”

She had, and not just in airplanes, but she understood what Tyrese was asking. “Yes, I have. One time, I flew to Europe.”

“Was it cool?” Tyrese frequently engaged her in discussions as a way to avoid his homework, and she always let him get away with it, for a while.

“Very cool. I had a window seat so I was able to see the city as we landed.”

“That’s what I’m going to be when I grow up.” He nodded his head, emphatically. “A pilot. See everything that way.” His expression turned serious. “You think I can do it?”

With a swell of affection, Clare gave the boy’s arm a squeeze, knowing he’d shrug off a hug. “Yes, I do. You’re smart enough to learn whatever you need to know, in order to do whatever you decide to do.”

Tyrese looked pleased. “Yes, sir. Going to be a pilot.”

“Then you’ll need to know math and science.”

“No. Why I got to know that to fly a plane?”

“Well, you’ll need to understand how it works, and you’ll need to be able to calculate...oh, the weight and the fuel. Make sure you don’t have too much of the one and not enough of the other.”

“Computers do that.”

“Sometimes computers don’t work, so it’s a good thing to know how to do it yourself.”

“Okay. I see that.” He bent over the book and began once again to read out loud.

Clare smiled, thinking how good it felt, this chance to encourage a child to plan his future. Although it did remind her that her own future remained in limbo, and it was past time she did something about it.

Rob watched Sam suture a bad cut one of the women got when she slipped and fell on a sharp stone. Sam’s movements were quick and assured, and the woman ended up with a neat line of stitches from elbow to wrist that added weight to what Jolley had told him—that Sam was one of the finest trauma surgeons in
L.A.

“So why go into the wilderness where you don’t have operating facilities?”

She glanced at him, then away. “Why did you go into the wilderness where the most challenging chemistry is a color test?”

“
Touché
.”

“I’m wondering if either of us is going to answer?” she said.

“I wanted the challenge of something different.”

“Me, too.” She kept her head down, concentrating on putting away her supplies.

“Clearly, something neither of us is prepared to discuss at any length.” Rob spoke lightly.

She closed her medical case and turned to put it away.

Afterward, the fact they’d been open enough to admit they weren’t being open, led to a greater ease between them.

Rob was walking across the village compound when Tatito jumped out in front of him. Rob made a quick grab and caught the youngster under the arms and swung him around. Tatito giggled happily. When Rob set the boy down, one of the girls was standing there, lifting her arms with a solemn expression. By the time Rob set her down, five children were standing in a respectful row, waiting their turns.

“Saw you getting some exercise this afternoon,” Jolley said as they finished their evening meal.

“I fear I’ve created a monster.” Rob rolled shoulders that were beginning to stiffen from the afternoon’s game.

“It’s good for you,” Sam said. “And for them. You may need to set up a lottery, though. Do only a few swings a day.”

“The two of you could pitch in.”

“No thanks. This one’s all yours.” Jolley stood and stretched.

Mostly to limit the demands for swings, Rob started thinking of other things to show the children. He came up with one idea after he happened on a length of string in his duffel. A memory surfaced of his sister and a friend sitting with a string between their hands, passing it from one to the other in complicated patterns.

He went looking for Sam. “Did you ever do that string thing when you were a kid?”

“String thing?”

“You know.” He pulled the string out of his pocket and slipped it over his two hands.

“Oh, you’re talking about Cat’s Cradle. Here, let me show you.”

He held his hands out and Sam arranged the string. Then she dipped her fingers between his and transferred it from his hands to hers in a new pattern.

“Show me again.”

Sam went through the two steps several times before he was certain he could do it.

When he showed Tatito, the little boy had it down pat in two tries. Rob turned the string over to the boy. The other children crowded around to see what Tatito had learned. Before long, all of them were adept. Sam eventually got involved, donating dental floss and showing Tatito the next steps, which the boy then taught to the other children.

Another idea came to Rob when his pen blotched a page and he crumpled up the ruined sheet. Rather than throw it away, he smoothed it out and folded it into an airplane. He didn’t know Tatito was watching until he’d launched his creation. With shining eyes, the boy ran after it and carried it reverently back to Rob.

Rob handed a second sheet of paper to the boy, who, biting his lip in concentration, began to fold it. His first attempt was clumsy, but after Rob corrected the order of the folds and gave the boy a fresh sheet of paper, Tatito’s next attempt was every bit as good as Rob’s.

After that, not only did Tatito jump out at him, sometimes he remained in hiding and launched a stealth airplane at Rob.