Liberty or Death (9 page)

He stared at me but didn't answer. His dirty face was smudged with tears. I pulled a napkin from my pocket and carefully wiped off the worst of the dirt. "I'm Dora, and you?"

"I was running away from home," he said.

"You chose a pretty odd way to do it."

"I didn't know about the ditch. You got anything to drink? I'm thirsty."

"I haven't, but I work over at the restaurant. Mother Theresa's. Bet we could find you something there. You like lemonade?"

"Don't got no money," he said.

"Well, I've got lots. I'll treat you. But first, we have to get you over there." Something of a problem. I had one boy, one wheelchair, and one fan to get across a rutted gravel lot. "Tell you what." I picked up my fan. "If you can hold this on your lap..."

He grinned up at me. Even red-faced and dirty, he was TV-camera perfect, right down to the missing front teeth. "You'll push the chair, right?"

"Right." I set the fan in his lap. "Hold on. It's going to be a bumpy ride."

We clattered back across the lot and I lifted him, the chair, and the fan up onto the back porch of the restaurant. I wheeled him into the kitchen and up to the table. Took the fan off his lap and set it on the floor. Then I poured a glass of lemonade, stuck in a straw, and sat down beside him, steadying the glass with my hand.

"I can do it myself," he said impatiently. "I'm not a baby."

Theresa came in with her coffeepot, set it down, and stared at the two of us. "What in tarnation's going on here? Dora? We can't be having children in the kitchen."

I got to my feet, instinctively planting myself between Theresa and the child. "I found him in a ditch. I didn't know what else to do, so I brought him here..."

Theresa put her hands on her hips and stared at the boy in exasperation. "Lyle, your momma doesn't work here anymore, so there's no sense in trying to come down here to see her. I'll call your grandmother. She must be worried sick."

"Wasn't looking for her," he said, "I know she's gone. I was to look for anyone, it would be Mindy. But I ain't. I'm running away from home."

Ignoring him, she picked up the phone and dialed a number. Waited, then said, "Mary, it's Theresa. Yes, he's here. Our new waitress just found him out in the parking lot. No, I don't see how I... we're awfully busy. Yes, well, I guess maybe the new girl can. If she comes right now. I'll ask her. All right. All right. I know. I'll send him home."

She rolled her eyes and hung up the phone. "That poor woman. As if she didn't have enough on her plate already, now her boy's been arrested for trying to make the damned government do what it's supposed to do. Person her age ought to be taking it easy." She shrugged. "As if anyone ever got to take things easy. Dora, I hate to ask you this... everyone working hard enough already... but we've got to get the boy home. How a kid in a wheelchair can still manage to be hell on wheels..." Here she stopped, as if aware of how ludicrous her remark had been.

"It's only a few blocks, then down that street past the church. Lyle can show you where." She fanned herself with her hand, though it wasn't that hot in the kitchen yet. "Damned global warming. Mary Harding. She's his grandmother, bless her poor tired soul. I doubt she's got the energy to come and get him. Go on," she pointed at the door. "Get him out of here. We've got work to do."

I really wasn't being asked, was I? But then, Theresa didn't know what she was doing, ordering me to help Jed Harding's child. Wearily, I turned back to the boy. He'd finished his lemonade and was eating a doughnut that Clyde must have given him, powdered sugar mingling with the dirt on his face. He gave me his gap-toothed grin again, seemingly unaware of Theresa's animosity. "Are you taking me home?"

"Yes!" Theresa snapped. "She's taking you back where you belong. And this time, do us all a favor and stay there. Your grandmother has enough on her mind without worrying about you." She picked up the coffeepot and disappeared through the doors.

"Don't pay her any mind," Clyde said. "She don't mean nothin' by it." He seized the chair handles in his big hands, piloted it out of the kitchen, and lifted it down the steps like it was a feather. He wheeled it around the front to the sidewalk and pointed down the street. "Just past the church, there. You see it. You go down that street, four, five houses. He'll show you."

"Thanks," I said, and Lyle and I set off down the sidewalk, the heat shimmering around us like a warm, wet cloud. It didn't take much effort but I was soaked with sweat by the time we reached the church. Lyle seemed unaffected, chattering away like a magpie as he gave me the fifty-cent tour of his town. Every house, signpost, rock, and tree had a story, and Lyle knew them all. Twice in our five-block journey, tourists stopped to ask directions. I was blank, but Lyle did his best, and both times I received compliments on how sweet my little boy was.

It reminded me of a girl I'd met in Hawaii, an A+ kid named Laura Mitchell, and how good it had felt to be mistaken for her mother. I'd never given much thought to motherhood. It had always been something I'd get around to someday. I'd been busy with other things. But like it or not, after thirty-one years, life had suddenly dubbed me a mother. Mother-to-be, anyway. It felt awkward, but sometimes it also felt good.

"My mom used to work at that place," Lyle said. "But she's gone away and I'm not never going to see her again."

"Oh, I bet you will," I said. "Mothers don't like to leave their children."

He shook his head solemnly. "I think she's dead," he said. "And dead mothers don't come back." It was an awful speech for a little child, but before I could think of anything to say, he started talking about something else.

We rolled on, Lyle's words washing over me, but I wasn't really listening. I was thinking about Andre's child, about how surprised I'd been when I told him I might be pregnant and discovered he'd already made a list of names. He'd be delighted to be here with a great kid like Lyle. I'd be delighted to have him here. And there was still no news. The state wasn't likely to satisfy a bunch of terrorists by releasing a prisoner, even if it meant getting Andre back. And just how likely was it that the militia would give him back, no matter what the state did about Jed Harding? They'd shot Gary Pelletier, hadn't they? But I couldn't let myself start thinking like this. Hope was what I had. Just about all I had. I stumbled on through a blur of tears.

 

 

 

Chapter 6

 

Some fitness queen I was. By the time we reached his house, I could barely wheel boy and chair onto the porch, even with the help of a ramp. I was parboiled by the heat and had to catch my breath before I knocked. The woman who answered the door looked like she'd been dipped in bleach. Colorless hair, colorless skin, colorless clothes. Her lips were almost bloodless. Even her blue eyes were faded. Her hand dropped from the knob as soon as the door was wide enough to admit us and it stayed at her side even when I offered my name and my own hand. Not, I thought, because she was unfriendly, but simply because it was too much effort to raise it again. Even the few shuffling backward steps she took to let us pass seemed difficult. She so entirely embodied the word "weary" that I was surprised when she managed a smile for the boy.

"Look at you, child. You're dirty as a pig. Where were you this time?" she asked. Her voice was thin and weak. "Trying to visit Mindy again? I told you she doesn't work there anymore."

Lyle stared down at his lap, all his ebullience suddenly gone. "I'm sorry I'm so much trouble, Grandma," he said. "I wasn't going to the restaurant. I didn't mean to go there." He pointed a grubby hand at me. "She took me there. I was running away..." His voice faltered and there was a muffled sob as he covered his face with his hands. From between the fingers he said, "I was trying to go see Daddy."

"Oh, Lyle..." Mary Harding sighed and gave a little shrug of her shoulders, looking at me apologetically. "I'm sorry to be dragging you into this," she said, "when it's got nothing to do with you." She glanced down at the watch that flopped loosely on her skeletal wrist. "I'm sure you've got to be getting back to the restaurant. The lunch crowd will be coming in and I know how Theresa is. She's a fair woman but she works her people hard." She looked down at the boy. "Lyle, tell the lady that you're sorry and thank her for bringing you home."

He raised his tear-stained face. "Thanks for bringing me home," he said. "Sorry if I was any trouble."

She was right. I did have to get back to work. "It wasn't any trouble," I said. "He's a nice boy." I turned to go, hating to leave her. She looked like someone needed to be caring for her, and there she was with a sobbing child to clean up, comfort, and care for. According to Suzanne, Andre, and my mother, one of the flaws in my character is that I always think I have to help people smaller and weaker than myself. It's the result of spending my childhood as "Thea the fixer," the role that my family assigned me because they couldn't get along. Unless it's because I am, quite literally, a "big girl" at five eleven, and big girls have to look after the others.

As Thea the human tow truck, I keep finding people broken down on the road of life, and stopping to see if I can help. I often have cause to regret it, but it seems I'm a slow learner. Not this time, I told myself resolutely. In my current circumstances, I had absolutely no time or energy left over for other people. Particularly when those other people were related to the cause of all my problems. If it hadn't been for Jed Harding and his damned shotgun, Andre wouldn't have been kidnapped and I wouldn't be here. I'd be on my honeymoon. Smiling the smile I don't use enough. Sleeping—actually sleeping, not just lying in a horizontal position waiting for dawn to come—in Andre's arms. These were the last people I wanted to help. I should want to kick them, hit them, or scream at them instead.

And yet. There was poor exhausted Mary Harding, fragile as an old dry leaf, and poor sad Lyle, as much a victim of this as I was, missing his daddy. It hurt to walk away, but I did.

I'd gone all of three steps when Lyle called, "Dora, do you have a car?"

And his grandmother said, "Hush, Lyle, hush."

"Because if you have a car, you could drive me to see my daddy, couldn't you?"

"No, she can't, Lyle," his grandmother said. "It's a very long way, the woman has a job, and she's a complete stranger. We don't ask favors from strangers." She moved quickly to shut the door, to drown out Lyle's pleading voice, and to keep me from seeing any more of the chaos of her life. It was the New England way—keep things to yourself, don't let people know your troubles, and don't ask for help. Chin up. Shoulders back. Pride intact. The door closed behind me with a distinct click, but all the way down the street, until I turned the corner by the church, his cries followed and made me feel wretched.

Someone in the church was playing the organ. Someone new to the job, from the sound of it, just getting a feel for how the instrument worked. For as long as I was in hearing distance, the child's cries were replaced by that stirring war song, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." The first stanza, over and over and over.

Back at the restaurant, things were getting wild, even with three of us. In addition to our regular crowd, which was plenty, we had a group of Canadian tourists whose bus had broken down, crabby and voluble, with time on their hands and a free lunch courtesy of the tour company. It was a nightmare. Freebies, far from making people happy or grateful, seem to enhance their greed. I ran until I was sure my feet were going to bleed right through my shoes. I half-expected to look down and see bloody footprints on the floor. The only good thing was that it kept me from thinking about sad little Lyle Harding. The only good thing.

Kalyn, hangdog and apologetic, left early for a doctor's appointment, and then we were two. I hated to see her go. She was wonderfully good-natured and observant. She'd pulled my ass out of the fire several times already. The fire of Theresa's wrath. If I'd had a dollar for every time she'd grabbed my shoulder and pointed angrily at something, I could have doubled my tips. I wasn't the only one running. Kalyn ran twice as fast as I did. And she could juggle. I mean, really juggle, not just balance stacks of plates. At one point, I heard laughter and turned around to find she had a whole table in stitches as she kept an apple, a hot dog, and a small stuffed lobster in the air. Even Clyde, who was one of the sweetest-tempered men I'd ever met, was getting snappish.

Just about at the point where I thought I was going to collapse, the kitchen door opened and a woman who looked like a younger, prettier version of Theresa hurried in, tied on an apron, and said, without preliminaries, "The sitter was late. What tables shall I take?"

"Take the row of booths along the wall," Theresa said.

"Righty-O," she said, and hurried into the dining room.

No one bothered to introduce me, but no one really needed to, and anyway, this was a business, not a social occasion. Clearly, this was Theresa's daughter, and equally clearly, from the way his eyes had followed her as the burgers burned, Clyde had a soft spot for her.