Oath Bound - Book V of The Order of the Air (42 page)

“I understand that,” Jimmy said. He looked very young to Alma, so very thin in his first suit with long pants, his hair barbered within an inch of his life.

“Then by the power vested in me by the State of Colorado, I hereby grant this adoption.” He tapped his gavel lightly on the bench. “From here on out, you’re James Sorley. This proceeding is adjourned.”

Alma sniffed hard as everyone started to get to their feet, crowding in with congratulations. She’d wondered if Jimmy would do it, or just stay in temporary guardianship out of loyalty to his absent father. The judge was right. He didn’t have to. Mitch and Stasi wouldn’t try to make him if he didn’t want to.

Douglas was bouncing around like a deranged India rubber ball as the courtroom cleared, while Merilee hung around Stasi’s neck, occasionally burying her face against her oversized false pearls. There was a smudge of lipstick on Merilee’s face.

Jerry shook Jimmy’s hand solemnly, as though he were passing out a diploma, and suddenly Jimmy didn’t look young at all, just a whisper younger than those boys passing out of high school into the rest of life. How fast did the years fly between twelve and eighteen? What ghosts and wishes sped through the courtroom, shades of this decision flitting forward and backward in time?

Mitch looked like was going to cry, Alma thought, his jaw set against it as Jimmy turned around for a hug. No, he wasn’t a little boy, not even as much as he’d been one a year ago. The shadow of the man he would be was stronger, and now that man would be named James Sorley. Jimmy Patterson was gone. He said something Alma couldn’t hear, and Mitch hugged him tight, Jimmy’s head at Mitch’s chin. When had that happened? When Stasi crowded in behind him with Merilee, he was as tall as she was.

Jerry’s voice cut across the general hubbub. “Let’s all have lunch and celebrate.”

When Stasi was nervous she cooked. There was brunch and about six kinds of cake. Douglas had at least one piece of each. Alma thought that at that rate Douglas would be roughly as big as a barn in no time at all. It seemed that about half the town was there too, friends and well-wishers and the children’s school friends and their families. Dora more or less ran wild and then had a potty accident on the stairs that required fifteen minutes to clean up and one of Merilee’s dresses to borrow. Honestly, this was a stage of life she wouldn’t miss! Alma would be glad when Dora reliably used the bathroom.

When she came back down someone had turned on Mitch’s fancy radio and was fiddling with the dials, flipping between music and shows and news. The crowd had thinned out, mostly just close friends, and Lewis was helping Stasi clear away used plates and glasses from every piece of furniture they’d been perched on.

Jerry was tuning the radio while Mitch talked at him and Jimmy ran in and out with the Harrison boy and a baseball, which better not get thrown anywhere near either Dora or the Torpedo.

“…at the League of Nations in Geneva,” Jerry said. Alma let go of Dora, who promptly dashed outside, and walked over to them.

“Well, what did he expect?” Mitch replied. “For them to go to war?”

Alma didn’t recognize the voice of the man making a speech. “Who’s that?”

“Emperor Haile Selassie,” Jerry said. “He asked the League to intervene in Ethiopia. They said no.”

His accent was British, impeccable. “Representatives of the world, I have come to Geneva to discharge in your midst the most painful of the duties of a head of state…”

“They said no?” Alma said incredulously. “Just no?”

“Just no.” Mitch looked grim.

Jerry shook his head. “Iskinder was right. Nobody cares what happens in Ethiopia. They’re either scared of Mussolini or they think he has the right of it. That he’s the force of civilization. That’s what Evelyn Waugh and the British press have been saying.”

“It’s what the Hearst papers have been saying too,” Mitch said. “And Iskinder…” He stopped. “The Ethiopians aren’t going to stop resisting. It’s a guerilla war now. And you know Iskinder’s in the middle of it.”

Alma took a deep breath, remembering the gas attack, the horrible deaths. It was impossible that it mattered to no one, and yet it seemed like it didn’t. Not in Europe, not in America. “There’s going to be hell to pay,” Alma said.

“What reply shall I have to take back to my people?” On the radio Haile Selassie’s voice dropped a tone. “It is us today. Tomorrow it will be you.”

Alma put her arm around Jerry’s waist, Mitch on her other side, watching Lewis and Stasi laughing as they gathered up glasses. The children ran through the house in the warm summer air and Jimmy stood for a moment in the doorway, the sun not quite touching him.

“God help us all,” she said, a prayer for the ruin of Ethiopia, and for all that hovered in the future, just beyond the door.

To be continued in:

FIRE SEASON

Book Six of the Order of the Air