Everybody's Son Read online

  David nodded, unsure what to say, feeling ungainly and old. Again, he wished Delores was here. She’d know what to say to this boy, how to ease his apprehension.

  “You know why I’m here, right?” David said. “You’re . . . I . . . we’re hoping you’ll come live with us for a while. My wife was sorry she . . .”

  Anton turned toward him. “I wanna go home,” he said loudly. “To my home. To my mam.”

  David had witnessed some version of this impulse for all the years he’d been in the legal profession. People seldom acted in ways you’d expect them to. Wives returned to abusive husbands, husbands forgave their cheating spouses, and children always, always loved their parents, no matter how shitty their behavior.

  “I understand,” he said. “Of course you do. But . . . for right now, it’s not possible. So the real question is, do you want to go back with Mr. Brent? Or come home with us, where you’ll have your own bedroom and stuff?” He forced a laugh. “I should tell you, my wife’s a terrific cook.”

  He waited for a response, but there was none. Anton simply stared ahead as if, now that he’d stated his intentions, he could withdraw into himself again.

  “Anton.” David lightly touched the boy’s shoulder. “Listen. I can imagine how hard this is. And I understand how scary it must feel. But all I’m asking is that you give us a chance, okay? Let’s just—”

  “Are you the guy who did it to my mam?”

  “What? Did what?”

  “Are you the judge who locked Mam away?”

  “What? Oh. No. God, no.” The relief that he felt was palpable. And there was no way he was going to admit to his friendship with Bob Campbell, or the fact that he had run into Bob at the club just days after Juanita Vesper first appeared before him, and the older man had vented his disgust at the irresponsible, child-breeding vermin clogging his courtroom day after day. “No, no.” David shook his head. “Uh-uh. That was another judge. Not me.”

  Under his hand, he felt Anton’s shoulder relax. “Well, can you let her out?”

  David sighed. “Anton. I can’t. It’s not my case, you see.” He gave the boy a sidelong glance and decided to plunge ahead. “Also, your mommy did a bad thing. We need to make sure—”

  “She made a mistake. She said she was sorry.”

  David was about to respond when he thought the better of it. This is a young boy, he reminded himself, a scared, traumatized child about to go home with a stranger. A white male, to boot. Cut him some slack.

  “So what do you like to do, Anton? You play any sports?” he asked.

  Anton flashed him a look that he couldn’t decipher and fell silent.

  “Basketball? Baseball? Soccer?” Eyeing the unresponsive boy, David felt a desperate need to get a response. “Cricket? Lacrosse? Polo?” he continued, hating himself for his meanness.

  There was a brief silence and then Anton said, “I know what cricket is.”

  David sat up. “You do? Wow.”

  Anton nodded. “I saw a movie about it once, I think.”

  “Really? What movie?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Well, I have a friend who is English. He can teach you, if you’re interested.” David had no idea why he was saying this. God help him if Anton remembered this conversation later.

  “I hate the English.”

  “You do? Why?”

  “They bombed Earl Harbor.”

  David opened his mouth and then shut it. Anton was talking to him. That was the main thing. The history lessons would have to wait.

  “Well, then, I guess you’re not learning cricket. You have a favorite sport?”

  Anton shrugged again. “I play soccer.”

  “I bet you’re good.”

  “Pretty good,” Anton said matter-of-factly. “I’m probably the second best player at school, after Reggie.”

  “We’ll have to make sure you practice a lot this summer.” David rose from the couch, nudging Anton to his feet in the same movement. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s go get your things.”

  “I need to leave a note for Mam so that she knows where to find me.”

  “Okay.” Resisting the urge to check his watch, David walked toward the door and opened it. As he had suspected, Ernest was hovering in the hallway. “Anton needs to leave a note for his mom,” he said deliberately. “Do we have any paper and pencil? And an envelope, maybe?”

  Ernest met his eye. “Yeah, sure,” he said, and hurried away, only to return with the stationery and a pencil.

  They left the boy in the room to write his note and went into Ernest’s small office down the hallway. Ernest handed David a backpack with Anton’s belongings and went over last-minute instructions. Eyeing the meager backpack, David felt a combination of sadness and excitement. How little this boy possessed. And how much they could provide for him. He was glad it was a Friday afternoon. They would take Anton shopping for clothes and shoes tomorrow.

  After ten minutes, David raised his eyebrows at the increasingly talkative Ernest, and as if on cue, the younger man said, “Let’s go find out if he’s done.” They walked back into the blue room to find Anton licking the envelope. On it, he had written, “For Mam. Love, Anton.”

  The boy turned solemnly to face Ernest. “Can you give this to my mam when she comes for me? And can you tell her where to come get me?”

  Ernest looked even more earnest than usual. “Sure will.” He gathered Anton into a hug. “Bye, Anton. You be good, you hear?”

  “I’ll try.” Anton’s voice was small and muffled against Ernest’s waist.

  David swallowed. “Come on, kid,” he said gruffly. “Let’s get you home and settled.”

  THEY MADE DESULTORY small talk during the ride home. Mostly, Anton looked out the window and David tried to see the world through his eyes. They drove down streets with discount stores and payday loan services and pawnshops. They drove past neighborhoods with boarded-up houses, which later gave way to small middle-class ranch houses with tiny but well-tended front yards. It took forever, it seemed, to get to Arborville, where the trees stood taller and greener, the streets were wider, and million-dollar homes rose proudly atop manicured lawns as big as golf courses.

  “Wow,” Anton said as they passed a house with an enormous fountain in the front yard. “Where are we?”

  “Almost home.”

  “It looks like Disney World.”

  David smiled. Then frowned. Anton was right. Compared to where he came from, Arborville did seem like Disney World, a magical place built out of cotton candy and fairy dust. How difficult would this transition be? And what if it didn’t work out? What if Anton misbehaved, threw things around, refused to eat, or punched another kid, as he had with the Brents’? David was forty-four years old, Delores a year younger. Could they cope with a nine-year-old boy, a boy who had undergone unspeakable trauma? A boy who had no incentive to try to fit into their world, focused as he was on returning home to his mom?

  David’s heart was heavy as he turned onto his street. But just then Anton squealed. “Look,” he said. “There’s a woman who’s walking a cat.”

  David glanced out of the window. “Oh yeah,” he said absently. “That’s Ruthie. She lives on our street. She’s walked that thing since it was a kitten.”

  “Cool. I never seen that.” Anton turned in his seat to take one last look. “I love kitties. Do you have one?”

  “No. Do—did you?”

  “Nope. Mam wouldn’t let me. She has allergies.”

  A laugh exploded from David’s mouth. A crack addict, a woman who smoked poison into her lungs, couldn’t have a cat because of her allergies. What a crazy, jumbled-up world this was.

  “What? Why you laughing?” Anton asked as David pulled into the driveway.

  David shook his head, unable to explain and not wanting to upset the boy. He pulled the keys out of the ignition, went around to the other side, and helped Anton out. “Well,” he said. “This is it. This is home.”

  He watched as
the boy’s eyes grew large, saw the incomprehension on his face, followed by apprehension. “This is your house?” he said. “You live here with your wife?”

  David felt his face flush. “Yup.”

  “You guys got any kids?”

  Wrong time for this question, because David knew Delores would be out to greet them any minute. He reached over and squeezed the child’s shoulder. “Anton,” he said. “We will talk later. But come on, I want you to meet my wife.”

  He took the boy’s hand in his, aware of how cold and sweaty his palm was. He could feel Anton’s fear transmitting itself like a current of electricity through the length of his own arm. His heart ached in sympathy.

  He had maybe thirty seconds before Delores appeared. Facing the boy, David got down on one knee, as if making a marriage proposal. “Anton,” he said, “I know you’re scared. Don’t be. You will be okay. I will take care of you. I promise.”

  For the first time since they’d met earlier in the day, the boy looked directly into the man’s eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but just then, the front door opened and they heard Delores say, “Well, hi there.”

  Embarrassed to be caught in this position, David gave her a quick wave and then pretended to tie Anton’s shoelace. When he looked up, the boy was giving him a knowing look, as if he understood what David was doing. Something transpired between the boy and the man. Then David got up and the two of them walked into the house, feeling closer than they had a moment earlier, bound by the first shared lie of their life together.

  CHAPTER TWO

  David and Delores stood whispering in the kitchen, their heads bent toward each other. “Honey,” Delores said, “you gotta go back in there and stop him. He’s had three pieces of chicken, and he’s now on his second bowl of ice cream. He’s going to be sick.”

  David shook his head. “I can’t. I don’t want him to be self-conscious about anything he does. Besides, the kid needs fattening up.”

  “But hon—”

  “Nine-year-old boys eat a lot. You’ve just forgotten . . .” The words were out of his mouth before he could take them back. He bit his lower lip. “I didn’t mean . . . It was just a slip of . . .”

  For a moment, Delores’s chin wobbled, but when she looked at him, her eyes were blank. “Well, if you don’t say anything to him, I will.” She moved toward the doorway separating the kitchen from the dining room and then looked back. “And since I have to play the heavy, you have to load the dishwasher.”

  He watched in apprehension as she entered the dining room, sat down next to Anton, and pulled his dessert bowl away from him. “I think that’s enough for one evening, kiddo,” she said. “You’ve eaten enough ice cream to sink a ship.”

  David cringed at the firmness in Delores’s voice. To his surprise, the boy giggled. “My mam says the same thing.”

  “Well, she’s right.” Delores’s voice was matter-of-fact, with not a trace of the judgment or indignation that David felt every time he heard Anton mention his mother.

  “One time we went to Dairy Queen and I ate so many scoops, I got a tummyache.”

  “Well, we don’t want any tummyaches tonight. Right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Anton sounded subdued, but he cast a bashful look at Delores, and they smiled at each other.

  Unbelievable, David said to himself as he began loading the dishwasher. Delores was unbelievable. Crisis averted. Thank God.

  He strained to hear what they were chatting about in the dining room but couldn’t. When he walked back into the dining room, Delores rose. “Well, kiddo,” she said briskly, “we’ve all had a long day. I still have a headache, and you must be tired. Let’s have you brush your teeth and get into bed, yes?”

  Anton shook his head vigorously. “Uh-uh. I’m not tired. Can I watch TV?”

  Delores looked at David, but before he could respond, she said, “Not tonight. You need to rest.”

  “But I’m not tired. At home, Mam lets me watch TV any time I want.”

  For the first time since he’d brought Anton home, David saw Delores purse her lips. “We have different rules here, Anton. And we can discuss those tomorrow. But first, let’s get you changed.”

  Without warning, the boy burst into tears. “I don’t want to stay here,” he said. “I wanna go home.”

  David looked uncertainly at his wife, who flashed him a warning look. I’ll handle this, the look said. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “But that’s not an option. Now, come on, let’s go up to your room.”

  The boy flung a look of hatred at Delores. “It’s not my room. It’s not my house. You’re not my mom. I’m going home.”

  “Okay,” Delores said heavily. “Okay. You wanna go home? Fine. You can go tomorrow. We’ll drive you back to Children’s Services tomorrow morning. But tonight we all have to go to bed.”

  Her words startled Anton enough that the crying decreased in volume. “But I . . . don’t want to . . . go to Children’s Services,” he said between sobs. “I . . . miss my mom.”

  “Oh, honey, of course you do.” In one graceful movement Delores leaned toward the sobbing boy and embraced him. “And I’m sure your mommy misses you, too.”

  Anton raised his head to look at Delores. “Jon said Mam left me alone because she hates me.”

  “Oh, baby, that’s just not true. Who’s Jon?”

  “One of the kids at Mr. Brent’s house. My foster brother.”

  David had a flash of insight. “Is that the kid you punched?”

  It pleased him to no end that Anton looked embarrassed before he nodded. “I just wanted him to shut up,” he mumbled.

  “I don’t blame you,” Delores said loudly. “I’d have punched him, too.”

  It was exactly the right thing to say. Watching the look on Anton’s face, David knew that immediately. How did she do it, Delores? How did she always know how to reach deep into a person’s wounds and drain the muck that festered there?

  “Listen,” she was saying, “I want you to remember what I’m telling you now. Your mommy loves you. She always will. And your mom didn’t leave you. She just . . . got held up somewhere. You understand? You know how sometimes you don’t want to do something bad but you just do? Well, grown-ups do that, too. They make mistakes. So your mommy made a mistake. But she would never, ever not love you, Anton. I promise.”

  His wife and the boy were staring solemnly at each other, as if sharing some unspoken language, and David suddenly felt like the third wheel. He cleared his throat. “Well, okay. Hey, do you have some clothes to sleep in tonight, sport? Tomorrow we’ll go buy you some clothes, okay? Would you like that?”

  Slowly, Anton turned toward David, his amber eyes sparkling from his earlier tears. “Okay,” he said, and rose from the table.

  David waited on the bed in Anton’s room as the boy used the attached bathroom. When he came out, he was wearing a Michael Jordan T-shirt and blue shorts. “You like him?” David asked, pointing to the T-shirt.

  “I love him,” Anton breathed.

  “Me, too,” David said. “Maybe we can go see him play sometime.”

  Anton threw him a sly look, as if he had caught David in a lie. “He’s in Chicago.”

  “Sure.” David shrugged. “But he plays elsewhere, too, right? So we can maybe catch him at an away game sometime.”

  Anton’s eyes grew wide with excitement and disbelief. But then his face fell. “That nice lady said she’s taking me to Children’s Services in the morning.”

  David patted the bed. “Come sit here.” He turned slightly to face the boy. “Anton. Here’s the deal. We would like it very much if you would stay with us for a while. If you’d let us be your foster parents and let us take care of you. So what do you say, sport?”

  “What about my mam?”

  “Your mom will always be your mom. But you can spend some time with us, right? Just until your mom can . . . get back on her feet.” Even as David said this, the thought of the
boy returning to a life of poverty and addiction produced a chalky feeling in his mouth.

  But no time now to parse his feelings, because he was flooded by a sudden memory. His first day at Phillips Exeter. Away from his parents for the first time, friendless, unfamiliar with the routine of a boarding school, he couldn’t have felt more alone if he’d been marooned on the moon. And scared. Lord, he’d been scared. Everything that had previously seemed routine—whether or not to raise his hand in class, whether to tell a joke to a group of boys—now had to be thought through and analyzed. He had walked around terrified, lonely, cut off from the world, until Connor Stevens, who had already been there for a term, had befriended him, picked him up like a stray puppy and rescued him. Then everything had changed.

  “Hey,” David said. “I’ve been there. I know what you’re going through. But listen, it’ll get better, okay? We’ll have fun this summer, okay? Can you just hang in there a bit? You know, just give us a chance?”

  When Anton smiled, it lit up his face like the morning sun. David felt anew the shock of his beauty. Unbidden, the lines from Yeats’s “The Living Beauty” entered his mind:

  From beauty that is cast out of a mould

  In bronze, or that in dazzling marble appears

  He ran his fingers through the boy’s cropped hair, realizing it was the first time he’d ever touched black hair. How soft, how familiar, how organic it seemed, like wool on a lamb, this thing that they all feared so.

  He heaved himself up from the bed. At the door, he lingered. “Listen. Our room’s right next door to yours. If you’re scared or can’t fall asleep, you just call for me, okay?” He waited until Anton nodded. “Good night, Anton. Sweet dreams.”

  “’Night.”

  David closed the door behind him and decided he would go into the library and have a drink before going to bed. It had been a long, emotional day.

  It was only after he had poured himself the cognac that he realized it was the first time in five years he’d been able to enter James’s old room without thinking about his dead son. He had been angry when, three years ago, Delores had insisted on reclaiming the room, packing away James’s football trophies and his size-twelve shoes. David had argued against taking down the posters of the Clash and the Bangles and packing up James’s books, seeing no reason why he couldn’t afford himself the momentary comfort of entering his son’s room and reliving the memory of James lounging in the bed reading The Grapes of Wrath or sitting at the small wood desk beside the window. But even after Delores had stripped the room clean of its possessions, the memories lingered. After she got the walls repainted, David still knew exactly where the Abbey Road poster had hung, the precise spot from where the Rolling Stones had stuck out their tongues at him.