Two If by Sea (11 page)

“Not there,” Frank said sharply, and Ian stopped. The animal snarled with impossibly loud and princely assurance.

Farther down, they saw a llama in a crate, and Frank knew they were nasty, spitting, stinking beasts, but he nodded when Ian sent him an asking look. What could Frank do? The hold, which had been a cacophony, like a killing floor in some Texas slaughterhouse, was now largely quiet, except for the big predators—and how great was that, their being right in there with horses and llamas? Glory Bee didn't know that the
tiger
she smelled was in a cage! The animals began making ordinary sounds, shuffling, chewing, stirring restively, but not with hysteria.

What kind of nitwit would put an orangutan on a jet to . . . he peered closer at a series of oversized, numbered labels—the Brookfield Zoological Park? But what choice was there? Those animals had no home at all anymore. He looked back. The ape wasn't alone in his crate, Frank now noticed: there was another with it, smaller, peering straight back into Frank's eyes with solemn regard. He supposed that whoever had done it knew the ape had not ever seen an Indonesian forest and preferred the ape to live.

What kind of man would take a child who wasn't his own nine thousand miles across the world?

Painfully bending his legs, Frank beckoned to Ian. The little face was pale, almost blurred with exhaustion. Whatever he's doing, it takes it out of him, Frank thought, hoisting Ian over one shoulder.

“Fucking saint,” said the groom. “What was that about?”

“He's good with animals,” said Frank. Turning to the pilot, he added, “Don't say anything. About what you saw.”

“I won't,” the pilot said, messing with his cell phone. So much for phones screwing up those delicate navigational systems. “I'd get in the soup . . .”

“For what?” Frank said sharply.

“Bringing a kid down here . . .”

Frank and Patrick exchanged glances. The pilot astonishingly, remarkably, had noticed nothing at all.

“I won't say anything. One cheesehead to another,” Frank said. He thought his heart would burst and he would die.

The pilot said, “Go, Badgers.”

•  •  •

They ate afterward, the flight attendants handing out extra chow and chocolates. The boy ate enormous amounts of food, politely. He consumed his steak, with the vegetables and bread, before the cake, as a kid should, and then ate Frank's bread rolls and cake as well. Then Ian sighed, as though seventeen-hour flights were something he did on most weekends, and, covering himself with one of the fuzzy blankets, went instantly and deeply to sleep.

Frank could not sleep anymore. In Seattle, they would have a layover, four hours. He would call his mother, and Eden, to make sure they understood when he was coming. Eden had needed to arrange the three-day quarantine for Glory Bee before they could bring her to Tenacity. The facility was somewhere north of O'Hare. Arlington Heights? Patrick would stay with the horse, putting up at a hotel—nicer, Frank bet, than any other he'd ever slept in—and then driving her up when the exam for communicable diseases was completed. Did Patrick have a driver's license? Frank had no idea. He was lucky that it was only three days: the Australian quarantine was two weeks.

Now, home approaching, he had to think.

He had to think, as he had not in this month of nonstop motion.

He had not told his mother or his sister that he was bringing home a child. Frank rationalized that, until the last days, he hadn't been sure, really sure, that he would go through with it.

He had tried to stop himself.

He had meant to plead with Charley and his wife to take the child in until someone could find him a good home.

He couldn't do it.

He was stunned that he could not.

Even after the plan was in motion, Frank intended to pull the plug. He went on convincing himself that all the things he'd asked Charley to do were only a last-ditch measure, that something would turn up before Frank ever left Brisbane. He'd even called the city's Bureau of Human Services, but when the operator asked him to wait briefly until she could locate the right person to help him, he put the phone down.

Frank had emailed photographs of the horse, and of Natalie's makeshift memorial, which would later be replaced with a family headstone, and of the devastation where their condominium once was. He had not quite decided what he would tell them, although he was sometimes sure he would say that Ian was the child of one of Natalie's dead brothers, perhaps Hugh. Hugh's wife had been married before. She might have had a child. No one could question that. Depending on when someone got around to it, if ever—Frank was counting on
if never—
Charley Wilder might certainly never practice law again, and he might go to prison.

In the best-case scenario, these acts had long shadows.

Undoubtedly, somehow, even Eden and his mother had seen the photo of Frank on the front page of the
Telegraph
. They were librarians, for God's sake. Finding out information was what they did. At least the caption hadn't used Frank's name.

During the nights at Tura Farms after he'd visited Charley Wilder, Frank lay awake, alternately torturing himself with images of Natalie in her casket and images of himself in prison. Kidnapping? There was also a false passport and a false birth certificate, all of these good for more years inside.

Before he could decide what to confide in anyone else, he had to be able to be sure he was telling himself the truth. And he didn't know what that was. When the child curled up next to him in the bedroom that had been Kate's, he put his arm around Ian and tried to reason out if what he had done was an artifact of his grief or an act above the law.

There were no acts above the law.

All police knew it. Kids went back to their parents, even if their parents were unspeakable turds, because the law said that a minor child belonged with, if not to, the custodial parent. One or two times, Frank had to follow through on some criminally stupid situation in which that parent had less self-discipline than a feral cat, in which the kid would certainly have been better off with the other parent, or adoptive parents, or no parents at all.

The next-to-last day came. Then the last day came.

Night upon night, Frank Mercy considered how, until this point, he'd based his life nearly entirely on logic and also on law. Even marrying Natalie was a choice born of incandescent love, but also logic. Frank didn't expect to meet his match, but when he did, it was time to have a family. He did not bring it up with Natalie, only hoped that she'd feel as he did. At forty, he was grown, nearly overgrown. Natalie was strong, self-reliant, a professional woman who wouldn't want to completely domesticate him. She didn't want a four-over-four with a garden. She would want to ramble, family in tow, and would thrive with Frank or without him. He was not so sure he could thrive without her. He had not counted on the completeness of his surrender.

And certainly, he hadn't counted on what he felt about the child. The child was a small stranger, and yet what Frank felt was the pilot light of the full-blown flame he had felt for Natalie, the same sense of stewardship in miniature. Since he hadn't yet grieved for Natalie, beyond a few spasms and a few sleepless nights, everything else that came after could have this result. He might be an emotional snowball, picking up debris, heft, and contour as it swept downhill. Shock and grief, followed close upon by the power of being a half-assed savior, brewed up a recipe for rebound attachments. From what little he'd learned in college psychology classes, he knew that children grieved backward, their sense of loss growing in direct proportion to the time the loved person was missing from their lives. He didn't even know about Ian's family. Sunny as he seemed, the boy was clearly afraid. As much as he sounded like that dreaded granny, Cedric was right. Ian had given Frank a purpose in life.

Quotidian concerns about Ian occupied him, forcing Natalie quicker into history. Still, he would always be that man who had loved Natalie. He would waken on holidays, especially Christmas, and on the October day they had married, and the life that he had, in those moments, would be Natalie's alone. There would never be another wife.

October 4, he realized now. They chose ten-four, so, Natalie joked, Frank, a cop, would never forget it. And as he would never forget it, he had chosen that day for Ian's birthday.

W
HO HAVE WE . . . HERE?”
Eden said, when she finally let go of Frank's neck and stood back to make sure he was really here, and really alive. “Did you escort a child for somebody?”

“I did,” Frank said. “This is Ian.”

“Hi, Ian,” Frank's sister said uncertainly. Her fiancé, Marty, grinned at Ian and waved. Ian waved back.

Because Ian didn't speak—or at least, didn't yet speak—Frank found himself sometimes forgetting to speak directly to him. He tried to be mindful of it, and so now he turned to Ian and said, “Ian, this is my sister, Eden. This is Marty. Eden and Marty are getting married.” Ian jumped behind Frank and refused to look out.

“Where's Mom?” Frank said.

“Whose kid is that?”

“Where's Mom?”

“Mom's at home, crying, and cooking everything in the world,” Eden said, her eyes going wide in a parody of surprise as Patrick lifted his silver pocket flask, had a nip, and then turned to the marked door of the bathroom behind the baggage claim. “Who's that?” Eden asked.

“He works for me,” Frank said. “I think.”

“You think?” said Eden. “You don't know?”

Patrick emerged just minutes later, smelling of wintergreen instead of horse sweat, wearing a blue chambray shirt and fresh jeans. Eden was maybe five six, like Natalie. Patrick had to look up at her. Frank saw Eden recalibrate to accommodate the fact that Patrick was a grown man of an eleven-year-old child's height and weight.

“Patrick Walsh,” he said, offering his hand. “I work for your guv. Your brother, that is.”

“Hi,” Eden said uncertainly. “Welcome to America.” She had not expected a little man and a little kid to accompany the prodigal brother—only a big horse. Turning back to Frank, she said again, “Whose kid is that?”

“Well, he's my kid,” Frank said. “I'm his . . .” Father? Jesus Christ. “Guardian. Actually, this happened suddenly. I adopted him. A family member. His parents died . . .”

All humans were family.

“You're lying,” said Eden. She'd known Frank too long. “Whose kid is that?”

“He's really mine. Now. One of the brothers' wives was married before.” Each of these essential facts was singly true. “I can't explain any more now, Edie. I'm worn out and I want to go home.”

“Why didn't Brian Donovan take him? The news guy?”

“He barely knew this kid either. And Brian's got some complicated injuries and he lost not just his wife but his entire family. It would be the way it would be for you if not only Marty died, but Mom and I, too.” Eden nodded ruefully, accepting, and Frank pressed his advantage. “I won't ever be able to explain what it was like there. Or why he ended up here with me. It was the right thing, though.”

“I didn't say it wasn't the right thing.” To Ian, Eden said, “Come out if you want any presents later.” Ian knew better than to ignore that. “Well, I'm your auntie Edie. Did you bring your horse?” The child nodded, and with a deep, shaky breath, he summoned himself to take Eden's hand. Eden blushed. “That's good. Because we brought a trailer for her to ride home in. She's a girl, right?”

Ian nodded.

“And you right in the back with the horse.”

“Don't say it. He would,” Frank said. Turning to Marty, he reached out and squeezed his future brother-in-law's shoulder. “Still in gradual school, man?”

“It's very gradual,” Marty said. “I don't want to actually be a psychiatrist. What do you think I am, nuts?”

Eden began to cry. She leaned against Frank in an attitude of yielding that was entirely unlike her compact, keen, businesslike self. “I can't tell you how hard it was for us to wait until we knew that plane was in the air.”

“You, too, Marty?” Frank said.

“I wept like a baby,” Marty answered, then added, “Frank, a joke is beyond even me. It was hard to look at those videos of that place and picture someone in your family there. Maybe we imagined it was worse than it was. But it looked like hell.”

“It didn't look worse than it was. It was like hell.”

“Frank, we're so sorry about Natalie,” Eden said. “We loved her. We would have loved her more.”

Frank could only glance away. The thought of being here without Natalie was as new as having loved her. It was not durable. He had grown used to being a husband in small increments, sometimes glancing at himself in mirrors and mouthing the words
my wife.
When the idea of himself as a husband was ordinary at last, it was over. This scene should have been happening months from now, and everyone alight over newborn Donovan Mercy in Nat's capable arms.

Frank longed to see his mother. His one fat suitcase circled the carousel, as did Patrick's comically battered leather case, and the Glenlivet Scotch duffel bag that contained the three outfits Tura had found for Ian.

“He didn't come with much . . .” said Eden.

“He's not a plastic play set,” Frank told her, sharper than he meant. “Everything he had was gone. Everything I had was gone. It was only a miracle I had my passport in my briefcase with my medical cards, and that it was in my car. I have no idea when I put it there.”

“Don't bite,” Eden said. “You know what I just noticed?”

“What?”

“No one has a winter coat. It's ten degrees out there. What did you plan on covering up with?”