Stay (27 page)

Hjørdis’s house in Oslo is filled in the afternoons with sunlight. In the evenings and during winter, she burns a score of candles to soften and lift the dark that flattens even the best artificial light. Her living room feels alive; it seems to dance. By contrast the Carpenters’ front room, with its thick brown curtains, umber wool rug, and heavy furniture, felt stiff and formal, but Hjørdis would have understood immediately the ritual aspects of the gathering: to the right of the fireplace, Jud sat in a wing-backed chair turned slightly to face the upholstered sofa, where I sat in a carefully nonconfrontational pose, briefcase tucked out of sight. Adeline’s chair faced Jud’s across the fire, turned to give him all her support.

Jud wore his Sunday best for a second day in a row. I don’t know what Adeline had told him about me and my reasons for wanting to give them money every month, but he treated me as though I were the nineteenth-century son of his employer, come to ask for the hand of his daughter in marriage. He was not in a position to say no, but the forms must be observed.

He cleared his throat. “Miz Thomas,” then stopped. I could feel Adeline willing him on. “Be obliged if you would listen.” I nodded. He took a handwritten document from his inside breast pocket and stood, and began to read, as though it were a church lesson: seven hundred and fifty dollars a month, payable to J. Carpenter, in advance, on the first of every month; a day school to be agreed upon, Luz to attend, extra items such as uniforms and school equipment to be paid for by me; Luz to be kept clean, well fed and clothed, and happy, ‘loved as best we’re able, as if she were family.’ Luz’s legal documents to be kept by my lawyer, and a letter received from said lawyer confirming that fact. Luz to remain with the Carpenters while she was a minor. If my payments were more than thirty days late, the Carpenters were to receive the legal documents, and the agreement was rendered void. If they broke the agreement, they would surrender Luz.

He sat down, still holding the paper in both hands. In my briefcase I had a sheaf of crisp photocopies and printouts, and Bette’s impregnable legal draft. None mentioned love or family or happiness.

“May I see the paper?” I said.

He stood, handed it to me, sat.

There were several blank spaces I was obviously meant to complete, and a place to sign at the bottom. Under name, “Aud Thomas” had already been filled in. It was a feminine hand, Adeline’s, though she was acting as if she had nothing to do with the proceedings, resolutely refusing to catch my eye when I looked at her. There was nothing about visitation rights, or lack of them.

“I agree with all these terms,” I said. He took a pen from his pocket, handed it to me. It was an old transparent Bic ballpoint. “However, before I sign, I’d like to discuss one more matter.” Adeline shifted but said nothing. Jud gestured for me to continue. “Your reassurance that I’m keeping my side of the bargain will come every month, with the money, but we haven’t talked about my reassurance. Mr. Karp received written reports, but I would prefer a more personal arrangement. I’d like to talk to Luz myself every now and again, in person or by phone.”

Adeline stared at her tightly clasped hands.

“You can’t take her from this house,” Jud said.

“Certainly not from the neighborhood,” I said. Not until she was older.

After a long pause, he nodded. His word is his bond, Adeline had said. I nodded back. I filled in the name of my lawyer, along with her address and phone number, signed, and returned the paper to him.

He put his signature under mine. He hesitated a moment, then stood and offered me his hand. I stood, too, and we shook. He seemed momentarily confused as his hard, dry palm encountered mine.

I sat, opened the briefcase, and took out the papers. I separated Bette’s draft, put it back in the case, and tapped the rest into a tidy pile. “These are copies of Luz’s documentation. Birth certificate, adoption, passport, and so on. You’ll need them to register her at school.” I laid them next to me on the sofa.

“There’s also the matter of the first payment. In future months, of course, the funds can be wired directly to your account—though I will need the number of that account.” Adeline was trying to communicate something to Jud with her expression. “I have enough cash with me to cover the first payment, but as your cash flow has been interrupted recently you might well prefer to begin with a larger sum, say, three months’ worth. I could get that to you by tomorrow morning.” Hopefully he would prefer nice crisp greenbacks to a personal check, which, with all its personal information, was out of the question.

He cleared his throat. “Appears acceptable.” More frantic expression from Adeline. “The three-month sum. One month’s money now.” Adeline relaxed. “Rest tomorrow.”

I stood, he followed suit, and I counted out seven hundred-dollar bills, two twenties, and a ten—slowly, so he could watch, and not have to appear untrusting by counting it afterwards. I handed him the stack. He seemed unsure what to do with it. Adeline rose and crossed to his side.

“The coffee will be ready about now. Should I take that to the accounts, then fetch it here for you while you finish up with Miz Thomas?” Jud handed her the money gratefully. She scooped the photocopies from the sofa. “Now you two sit. I’ll be but a moment.”

So we had to sit. Jud laid his hands on his knees, nodded at me, as solemnly as if we were sitting on pews.

The silence was complete. No ticking of a clock on the mantel. “Mrs. Carpenter tells me the crop wasn’t too good this year,” I said.

“Been worse.”

“Yes,” I said. “Still, I’m sorry for it. Perhaps next year will be better.”

“Up to the good Lord.”

“As is everything.” I longed for the scent of rain-wet North Carolina dirt, of leaves slowly mulching beneath sturdy trunks. Or perhaps it would be snowing up there already. “But as my father used to say, God helps those who help themselves. And I think—“

Adeline came in with the coffee: not mugs this time but white china cups and matching saucers, decorated with tiny red roses, and a silver-plate set of pot, creamer, and sugar bowl. The teaspoons did not match. She poured, handed out the cups carefully. Once everyone was settled again, I went on.

“Mrs. Carpenter, I was just about to say to your husband that I think Luz is going to need your help. Yesterday was a very hard day. For you and Mr. Carpenter, yes, and Button, but especially for Luz.”

“Yes,” Adeline said, “but she does seem to have come through it nicely. She’s a hardy little thing.”

“She is,” I said. Jud turned his sticky eyes to mine. “But I think in a little while—maybe a few days, maybe as long as a few weeks or even months—she won’t be so fine.”

“Nightmares,” he said. “Had them when she first come.”

“Miz Thomas, there aren’t so many childish fears that a good hugging and a bit of prayer can’t fix.”

“Her fears aren’t so childish. A lot happened yesterday that she won’t have had time to tell you about yet.” I looked from her to Jud. “When she’s afraid, let her tell you what she’s afraid of. And don’t tell her it can’t happen because some of the things that will be in her nightmares
have
happened.” I would probably star in a few of those nightmares.

“They won’t happen again,” Jud said with certainty.

Adeline shook her head vehemently. “Not while there’s breath in our bodies.”

“No.” I sipped my coffee. “It might help, when she’s scared, to tell her that she’s very brave. She was very brave—very resourceful. There aren’t many children her age who would try to defend themselves against an adult.”

“Brother Jerry,” Jud said, nodding.

“Luz mentioned a Brother Jerry yesterday,” I said. “Apparently he told her that god works in mysterious ways.”

“Brother Jerry was in the army or the marines or some such—” Adeline began.

“Navy SEAL,” Jud said. “Doesn’t much hold with the notion of turning the other cheek. Mite troubling to begin with.”

After a startled pause, Adeline continued. “As my husband says, the elders didn’t share Brother Jerry’s point of view at first, but then after a lot of soul-searching, it was decided that Brother Jerry might have a point. Man, after all, only has two cheeks, and once you’ve turned both of them, it might be reasonable to fight back. So since September, the church has been sponsoring a self-defense class for the children. They seem to like it. I went to the old back field to watch once, lots of healthy yelling and kicking. Brother Jerry does nothing but good for those youngsters.”

“When he doesn’t try to teach scripture,” Jud said.

“Brother Jerry seems to believe that ‘Do unto others…’ means do unto others before they can do unto you,” Adeline explained. “More coffee?”

Early morning frost smells different in Arkansas: like cold straw. With Adeline’s permission, I invited the children to eat breakfast with me in the trailer before I left.

They arrived, brushed and scrubbed to within an inch of their lives. Luz seemed different. Not exactly hostile, but wary. When they were seated, I put the kedgeree on the table. She sniffed at her plate suspiciously.

“What is it?”

“Breakfast.” She stared at me, I stared back. “It’s kedgeree. Smoked fish and rice all mixed together,” and boiled egg and nutmeg, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Fish,” she said. Button was already tucking into his. She shook her head.

“Try it.”

She put a tiny amount on her fork and ate it. “It doesn’t taste like fish.”

It certainly didn’t taste like fish sticks. “That’s because it’s smoked. Try some more.” She did, a bigger portion this time. Button munched happily. Luz took another forkful.

When I put three mugs of Irish breakfast tea on the table, Luz looked but was too proud to ask. I let her suffer. It’s important to learn that if you want information you have to ask for it. I turned back to the bowl on the kitchen counter. I had made a fruit salad, but I could see how that would be received. I filled a plate for myself and sat down.

This time she couldn’t resist. “What’s all that?”

“This is papaya, this is litchi.” She watched each spoonful, from my plate to my mouth and back. “Do you want some?” She shook her head. “There’s also apple, and orange, and banana.”

“Banana!” said Button.

“Would you like some banana?”

“Banana!”

Luz smiled at him indulgently. “He likes banana.”

I got up again and chopped some banana into chunks and slid the plate in front of Button.

“Have you ever seen papaya before?”

She shook her head.

“You could look it up in your encyclopedia. But that wouldn’t tell you how it tastes.” I got up again and filled a small glass plate with fruit salad, which I put next to her bowl. “Just in case you want to try a bit.”

Button took a piece of banana in one hand and squashed it with the other, slowly, almost experimentally, and when it was mashed to pulp, he examined it with great deliberation and then licked it off. “Banana,” he decided, and calmly put another piece in his mouth. He chewed and nodded. “Banana.”

“Yes,” I said. “It tastes the same no matter what shape it is.” Luz gave me that birdlike look from one eye, then the other. I sipped my tea and applied myself to the fruit salad.

When everyone had eaten as much as they were going to, I stood to clear the table. Luz automatically picked up some dishes. “Thank you. I’ll do the rest.”

“Thank you for the breakfast it was very nice,” she said in one breath. “Please may we be excused?”

“No. I have a present for you, and for Button.”

“A present?” More wary than excited.

I had no idea what she was thinking. “Yes.” She perched on a recliner while I got the presents. The TV blared and chopped from one station to another: Button had found the remote again.

I’d bought four of the boxes in Little Rock yesterday morning; one, wrapped in heavy silver paper, I’d had shipped from San Francisco via Delta DASH at a cost that would have made Adeline pass out. One large box, two medium, and two small.

“This big one for Button first,” I said.

Luz and I watched while he ripped his open and pulled forth a scale model of a fire engine, with working ladder, un-spoolable hose, and flashing light. “This,” I said, pointing to the tiny manual pump, “will actually suck up water and squirt it out here.” He seemed not to hear me, but I was beginning to suspect that Button heard and understood a lot more than I had at first thought. He touched everything methodically, and found that all the firefighters came off, too. It would keep him happy for a while.

I passed her a medium box. “This one’s for you.”

Although she opened the wrapping carefully along the seams, her chest was beginning to rise and fall more quickly. She lifted the lid. It was a cell phone and charger. “Oh,” she said, in the same tone she’d said “Fish.”

“This is a serious present, Luz.”

“It’s a phone. A funny phone.”

“Yes. But there’s something else in the box.”

She lifted out the phone and charger, and when she saw what lay beneath, her eyes positively glistened. A beautiful calfskin pouch, in natural brown, and a belt to go with it.

“It’s to hold the phone. You slide the belt through those slits at the back, and put the phone…” But she was already threading everything together, sliding the belt around the waist of her corduroys, closing and snapping open the pouch with an almost voluptuous satisfaction. “Don’t forget the phone.”

I showed her how to slide the battery in until it clicked, how to put the phone in the charger. She listened with half an ear while running her fingers back and forth on the smooth belt and kicking idly at the recliner.

“Pay attention. I want you to carry it with you everywhere.” I handed it to her.

“Even when I go swimming?”

“Not in the water, no. But everywhere else. Put it in the pouch.”

She slid it in, appeared to be delighted with the fit.

“And there’s a present that goes with it.” I gave her one of the small boxes.

She opened it and lifted out a thick metal bangle. She weighed it expertly on her palm and frowned at its heft. “Is it silver?”

“No. Look on the inside.”

“There’s some numbers.”

“They are secret numbers, just for you and me. Not even for Aba.” I would just have to hope. “That's my cell phone number.” I pulled my phone from my pocket and nipped it open, turned it on, and showed her. “I carry it everywhere.” Or I would from now on. It beeped: three missed calls and one voice message. All from Dornan. Her wary look was back. Dornan could wait. “I want you to keep that bangle on your wrist, and the phone at your belt or in your pocket, and I want you to call me anytime you need me.”

“So you won’t get lonely,” she said.

“Yes. Yes, that's right.” I recovered myself. “You can call me in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning, anytime, I won’t get— I’d like it.”

She was watching Button with his toy.

“Luz?”

“Is that why you want to be my
tia
, so you won’t be lonely?”

“Tia?”

“Aba says you’re going to be my auntie.”

“I— Ah, well—”

“Are you Button’s
tia
, too?” She still wasn’t looking at me. “I’ve never had an auntie before.”

And then I understood: she was afraid. For her, gaining a relative had always led to terrible change.

“I have an aunt,” I said. “Her name is Hjørdis. She talks to me on the phone and sometimes buys me presents. That’s what aunts do.”

“She didn’t take you away, even when she was lonely?”

“Never.” I took her chin in my hand, turned her head so she was looking at me. “Luz, I’m going home today but you’ll stay here. A few things will be different—you’ll go to school, a nice school where you’ll make friends—but every day you’ll come home to Aba and Mr. Carpenter and Button. No one is ever going to take you away. I might talk to you on the phone sometimes, when… when I wish there was someone to kiss me better, and you can call me. If you don’t know what a word means, or if you get lost, or you think something Aba or Mr. Carpenter wants you to do is wrong, call that number. I’ll always answer and I’ll always listen. That’s what aunts do. Do you understand?”

She nodded, eyes enormous.

“Now I want you to take out the phone and learn how to use it.”

She put the bangle on the carpet and took the phone out of its pouch. It was as big as her nine-year-old hand.

“Open it up. That little button there, the round one, turns it on, you have to press that first. Then you dial the number.” She nodded. “Do it now. Dial my number.”

She read the number from the bangle, dialed it. “It’s not ringing.”

“When you dial the number, you have to press Send, the green one.” My phone shrilled. I flipped it open, put it to my ear. Luz lifted hers.

She blushed, hesitated. “Aud,” she said.

“Anytime,” I said into the phone, then closed it up. “You end the call by pressing that button, the red one.”

She pushed the button solemnly, put the phone back in its soft leather pouch, and picked up the bangle again. The fear seemed to be gone. “There’s two numbers.”

“The other one is my lawyer. If ever I don’t answer, if my phone breaks or something”—if I’m lying dead in a park with my throat cut—“you can call her and leave a message. She’s very nice. Keep the bangle safe, wear that all the time, even in the pool if you want. It’s white gold.”

Her expression didn’t change but she slid the bangle onto her left wrist and admired it for a while.

I pushed the phone box over to her. “There’s an instruction book in there. It’s a bit hard to figure out, but eventually you’ll be able to program those numbers into the phone for speed dial.”

She mouthed speed dial to herself and looked determined. I filed that response away for future use. While she experimented with the pouch, sliding it back and forth until she found the most comfortable position, I opened the other small box.

“And this one’s for you, Button.”

“Button.” Luz tapped him on the hand until he looked up from his mostly dismantled fire engine. “Another present.”

I fastened the stainless steel ID bracelet around his right wrist. He looked at it, took it off, put it back on again, then went back to his engine.

“That has his name and address and phone number on it,” I said, and Luz nodded. She had her eyes on the last box, the silver one. “And this is a special present. I hope you like it.”

It was heavy for a nine-year-old, but she didn’t ask for help so I didn’t offer it. After a bit of a struggle—she refused to tear the paper—she had it unwrapped. She folded the paper with great care: putting off disappointment as long as possible. Eventually she contemplated the hinged wooden box.

“There’s a latch at the side,” I said.

She looked at me, looked at the box. I nodded. She lifted the lid. It opened like a book. Nested on green velvet were seven volumes bound in brown leather, each stamped in gold on the spine with the name C. S. Lewis and the title.

“For when you have to take the others back to the library,” I said. She was hardly breathing. “Take one out.”

“Which one?”

“Your favorite.”

“But I haven’t read them all.”

“Then my favorite,
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
.”

She lifted it reverently. Traced the lettering on the cover, turned it over. Opened it. Rubbed the maroon silk bookmark between her fingers, touched the gold-edged pages.

“There are illustrations,” I said.

She turned a few pages, studied the first picture. Turned another page and, two minutes later, another. She was reading.

I opened my phone quietly, dialed, and listened to Dornan’s message. “Aud? What’s happening? You said you’d call. Turn your bloody phone on! Call me.” He sounded angry and anxious, but not as though anything bad had happened. I closed the phone.

Luz read on, head bent. Her scalp gleamed at the part, very white, very vulnerable. So young. So much she didn’t know.

“Luz.” She looked up. The open inquiry in her toffee-colored eyes stopped me cold.

I cleared my throat. “When you’ve read them all, I want you to call me, tell me what you think. Which one’s your favorite. Will you do that?”

She nodded. Her eyes nicked back to the page for a moment. I leaned down so she had to focus on me. “Do you promise?”

“I promise.”