”
Two unmarked cars drifted up Fifth Avenue. Theodore heard car doors open at the far corner. A polite low voice: “Sir, would you mind keeping your hands where I can see them? ”
Eli’s small body went still against Theodore’s side.
“They got him, sir. Two of them. They got the driver too. The driver didn’t even try to drive away.
He just put his hands up like he was waiting. ”
“Like he was waiting? ”
“Yes, sir. Like he wasn’t surprised.
”
Theodore considered that. A man not surprised to be arrested had been warned. Which meant the person who hired him thought through worst cases. The SUV smelled of clean leather and mint.
Theodore felt Eli climb in beside him, careful not to leave a mark. “You can sit back, Eli. ”
“My pants are dirty, sir. ”
“The seat does not care about your pants.
”
They drove to the church on Holly Street. Eli led Theodore around the side, down cracked pavement steps, into a cold basement. The air changed. Theodore heard small footsteps, fabric lifted.
“Got it, sir. ”
“What’s in the bag, Eli? ”
“A blanket, a book I can only read some of, a picture of my mom, a spoon, a toothbrush, some socks, and a rock. ”
“A rock?
”
“My mom gave it to me. The last time she came. She said it was from a place she went when she was happy. One side is smooth for when I’m scared.
The other is rough for when I’m angry. I rub the side I need. ”
Theodore stood very still in the cold basement. “That is a very wise mother,” he said.
“She was, sir. Before. ”
“She still is, Eli. People do not stop being who they were because they are in places they cannot leave.
”
The boy did not answer. He settled his backpack onto his shoulders. “We can go now, sir. ”
They drove to the house on Reston Lane.
A narrow brick row house behind a wrought iron gate. Theodore had bought it years ago and never lived in it. Mrs. Halloran met them at the door.
“Mr. Whitlock? And oh, oh my. ”
“Mrs.
Halloran, this is Eli. He is my guest. ”
“Hello, Eli. Are you hungry, love?
”
A pause. “Yes, ma’am. A little. ”
“Well, a little is a place to start.
”
Margaret was in the front room. Theodore heard her stand. “Theo. ”
“Margaret.
”
“Daniel has not been arrested yet. We have enough, but the moment we do, anyone he’s been working with will know. The federal team wants 48 hours to identify the rest of the network. There is almost certainly a rest of the network.
A nephew with a law degree cannot arrange what was arranged today alone. ”
“What grudge? ”
Margaret hesitated. “He has come twice in the last six months to my office asking specific questions about the trust.
I answered the first set. I declined the second. He left without arguing. I made a note.
”
“Three weeks ago Daniel met with a man named Carrick Voss. Voss arranges things. The federal team has been watching him for two years. He meets with men who later lose relatives in accidents.
Daniel met with him for 90 minutes. They paid in cash. The federal team was photographing the meeting because they were watching Voss. They didn’t know who the young man was until three hours ago.
”
Theodore sat with it. The clock on the mantel ticked. “He has been waiting for me to die,” Theodore said. “And I have been taking too long.
”
Margaret did not contradict him. “Daniel will go to prison for a long time. His mother, Helen, is still alive. I will go to her myself tomorrow morning and tell her in her own home with tea.
”
“Thank you. ”
A small sound at the doorway. “Mr. Whitlock, sir.
The young man has eaten three pieces of toast with butter, tomato soup, and two apples. He is in the bath. He asked if he could say good night to you before bed. ”
“That is very much all right.
”
Eli came down in pajamas that were a little too long. “Sir? ”
“Yes. ”
“How did you become blind?
”
Theodore took a slow breath. “I was riding a motorcycle at night. A deer came out of the trees. I swerved.
I hit a fence post. When I woke up three days later, my eyes worked but my brain had stopped speaking with them. ”
“Did the deer get hurt? ”
Theodore smiled.
“The policeman told me the deer was fine. I have always chosen to believe him. ”
The boy thought about that. “My mom is in a hospital too.
A different kind. Her brain doesn’t think right anymore. She’s not coming out. They told me when I was four.
I understood later. ”
“That is a very hard thing to understand at six. ”
“I had to. Nobody was going to understand it for me.
”
“Eli. Would it be all right if tomorrow I asked Margaret to find where your mother is and how she is? Whether you can visit her sometimes? ”
A silence.
“Nobody has asked me about her in a long time. ”
“What is her name? ”
“Maron. Maron Walsh.
”
“I will say it correctly. Margaret will say it correctly. We will find her and see what is possible. ”
The boy’s small hand moved across the cushion and rested on the back of Theodore’s wrist.
Theodore turned his palm up. The small hand settled into the larger one. They sat that way for a while. Theodore woke at six the next morning.
He slept well. Somewhere below, Mrs. Halloran moved in the kitchen. Coffee.
A bird outside. There was another sound. Breathing. Small, even, steady.
He turned his face. Eli was asleep on the floor at the foot of the bed, curled into the space between the bed frame and the wall, wrapped in a blanket he had dragged from his own room. His backpack beside him. One hand on the strap.
Theodore did not move. He understood. The boy could not sleep alone in a room with a door that closed. He had crept down the hall and chosen the floor of a stranger’s room because it was safer than a bed in a quiet room by himself.
When Mrs. Halloran came up forty minutes later with a tray, Theodore raised one finger to his lips. She set the tray down, looked at the boy, dabbed her eye, and withdrew. Eli woke at seven.
“Eli. ”
“I’m sorry, sir. I’ll go right now. I was just—”
“There is breakfast by the window.
Enough for two. Come and have some with me, please. ”
“You’re not mad. ”
“I am not mad.
You may sleep wherever in this house you can sleep best. ”
They ate. Mrs. Halloran had brought eggs and toast and fruit.
Eli ate slowly, carefully. At eight, Margaret arrived. She tapped and entered. “Daniel was arrested at 5:43 this morning.
He did not resist. Helen has been told. She does not blame you. She would like to speak with you in her own time.
”
Theodore nodded. “There is one more thing. Maron Walsh. ”
Eli went still.
“She is in a long-term care facility in Westbrook. Decent, underfunded. She is quiet, gentle, largely nonverbal. No improvement expected.
Her file lists her son, Eli Walsh. Contact was suspended at age five due to ‘placement instability. ’”
“What does that mean? ” Eli asked.
Margaret softened her voice. “It means the people who were supposed to bring you to see her stopped bringing you. Not because she did not want you to come. Because they did not arrange it.
”
The boy was quiet. “Can I see her? ”
“Yes. Today, if you would like.
”
Eli looked at Theodore. “I would like to go with you,” Theodore said, “if that is all right. ”
“Yes, sir. I would like that too.
”
The drive took an hour and twenty minutes. Eli sat beside Theodore, his backpack on his lap. Inside were the blanket, the book, the picture, the spoon, the toothbrush, the socks, and the rock with the smooth side and the rough side. He had not asked to leave any of it behind.
They did not speak much. Theodore knew which silences to leave alone. The facility was a low brick building among old trees. A woman named Carol met them at the door.
She crouched in front of Eli. “Your mother has a window seat in the sunroom at the end of the hallway. She sits there most mornings. She may not know who you are the way you would want her to, but she will feel you near her.
Is it all right if I take you to her? ”
The boy nodded. They walked down the hallway. Theodore followed with his cane, Yusuf a respectful distance behind.
The hallway smelled clean and faintly of lilac. The sunroom was warm. Theodore stopped at the doorway. He let Eli go first.
He heard the boy walk across the room. Heard him stop. Heard the small indrawn breath. “Mama.
It’s me. It’s Eli. I came. ”
A long silence.
Then a sound Theodore had not expected and would carry with him for the rest of his life. The small soft sound of a woman who had not spoken in months making a hum in her throat. A hum without words. The beginning of the song about the sparrow.
Eli began to cry. Not loudly. The way a child cries when he has held it inside for years and has finally found the one person it is safe to spend it on. Theodore stayed in the doorway.
The flowers in his arm were not for him to give. They stayed an hour. When they left, Carol promised Eli could come back every week. Theodore left a card and quiet instructions about funding that he asked Carol not to mention to the boy.
In the car going back, Eli fell asleep against Theodore’s side. His small head rested on the sleeve of Theodore’s coat. The rock had been moved from the backpack to the front pocket of his borrowed coat. The smooth side, Theodore guessed.
Today had been a smooth side day. Daniel pleaded guilty four months later in exchange for testimony against Carrick Voss. He received 22 years. Theodore visited him once.
They did not speak of what happened. Daniel cried. Theodore did not. He left without saying he forgave him because he did not yet, and he had decided a long time ago not to lie about the state of his own heart.
Eli grew up in the house on Reston. He went to a school four blocks away. He skinned his knees. He was late on his homework.
He visited his mother every Saturday for the rest of her life, which was six more years. He carried the rock in his pocket every day until he was eleven, and then he kept it in a small wooden box on the desk by his window, where it sits, as far as Theodore knows, still.