“I remember. Carol gave me,” Harper said. “For baby.”
His face darkened. “It wasn’t hers to give. It was mine. Aunt Carol told me one day I was too old for it and then she gave it to you. She told me to be a big boy about it. So I took the whole bag. I stole it. Even though you’re my friend. And it was really bad.” He swiped at his eyes with one hand. The muscles under his face trembled with the force of barely contained emotion. “After I took it, I wanted to give it back. I really did. Michael met me here in the tomb and said we couldn’t risk it. He said Father Storey had announced that the person who stole the Portable Mother would have to leave camp forever. He said stealing from a pregnant woman was the worst sin this side of murder. Mike told me I couldn’t even return it in secret, because Ben Patchett would fingerprint it. And Allie told me whoever took the locket was going to have her hands cut off. Even still I thought I could tell Father Storey what I had done. I was going to. As soon as he got back from rescuing the prisoners with the Fireman. And then—” His hands stopped moving for a bit, while he rubbed the balls of his palms into his eyes. Soon, though, his fingers began to move again. “Mike said maybe it was lucky for me Father Storey got smashed in the head. He said he was pretty sure Father Storey suspected me. He said before Father Storey got his head crunched, he warned Mike he was going to have to ask me some tough questions about the things that had been stolen, and if I didn’t answer them right, he’d probably have to send me and Allie both away, forever and ever. Mike said Father Storey would get rid of us both because it was Allie’s job to make sure I behaved. And Father Storey also said it was important that the camp knew he wouldn’t treat me different just because I was his grandson.”
“He lie. Lie bad. Father Storey never hurt you or sister. He never let anyone else hurt you.”
She could see Nick didn’t want to look at her, didn’t want to make eye contact—but it was the curse of the deaf that they could not hide their eyes if they wanted to communicate. He had to keep his gaze on her hands. He blinked at tears and dragged the back of one arm across his nose.
“I know now. But I was scared. And that’s why I stayed with you in the infirmary. So if Father Storey woke up I could tell him I was sorry and ask him to please not punish Allie for anything I did. And Mike said that was a good idea, and he’d hang around the infirmary, too, as much as he could. That way if Father Storey woke up, he could take most of the blame. Mike said he ought to accept most of the responsibility anyway because he was older.”
“Not you fault,” Harper told him with her hands. “Michael was a liar. He fooled all of us.”
Nick’s shoulders hitched convulsively. He lifted his hands and dropped them, lifted them and tried again. “I woke up once and got up to go to the bathroom and found Mike bending over Father Storey’s feet. He was surprised to see me and stood up really fast and looked scared. And he had a needle in his hand. I asked him what he was doing and he said he had come by to give himself his insulin shot and then he stopped to say a prayer over Father Storey. He was trying to kill Father Storey, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. When happen?”
“February.”
Harper thought back and nodded. “Father Storey stop having fits in February. That’s when he start getting better. After the fits stopped. You saved Father Storey’s life. You scared Mike after you caught him with needle. He didn’t try poison again.”
Nick shook his head. “I didn’t save him. Michael still killed him.”
Harper leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees. “But not before Father Storey woke and tell you how much he loved you. You understand? You were very love. You are not no bad boy.”
Nick looked so disconsolate she had to get up and kiss his head and give him a squeeze.
When she let go of him he was at least not crying anymore. She said, “Do you think that can with meat still good?”
“It was never good. But we can probably eat it.”
Harper gathered up the Spam and condensed milk in both arms. When she turned around, Nick stood before her, wearing the locket around his neck and holding the Portable Mother open wide. She nodded in approval and dropped the cans inside.
They slid themselves out into the darkness and started back the way they had come. They had not gone more than a hundred feet, though, when Harper heard the whine and roar of a big and familiar engine, a sound that made her insides clump nervously together. She grabbed Nick’s shirtsleeve and pulled him down to a crouch behind a Virgin Mary.
The orange plow rumbled past out in the street, spoiling the night with its diesel stink. It moved slowly and a searchlight mounted to the top of the cab dipped and swayed, flashing over the stone wall and into the graveyard. Ten-foot-long shadows of angels and crosses lunged across the grass toward Harper, then retreated. She let out an unsteady breath.
Still out there. Still looking. He knew what they had fled in. Maybe he knew they hadn’t gone far. A fire truck was not the world’s most discreet getaway car.
She turned to look at Nick—and was surprised to find the boy grinning broadly. He wasn’t peering toward the street, but instead was staring intently across the gravel road that bordered the back of the cemetery, watching something in the high, tangled undergrowth. Harper saw ferns twitch as something slipped away.
“What?” she asked him with her hands.
“The cat,” he told her. “I just saw the cat. It survived the winter, too.”
4
Harper was prepared to step between Allie and Nick, was ready for threats, tears, and flying furniture. But Allie did not seem even a little surprised to see the Portable Mother again, or to find Nick wearing her locket. When they reentered the office, Allie sat on the edge of the couch, rubbing her face with both hands. She looked at them with blurred eyes and asked no questions. Harper took a can of Spam out of her carpetbag and hunted in the cupboard for something to spread it on. She discovered a box of saltines and felt a twang of gratitude that approached the spiritual.
Nick planted himself in front of Allie, chin stuck out, waiting for her to say something. She did, at last, finger-spelling only: “I guess you can wear it. I thought it would make you look like a little girl, but at least you’re a cute girl.”
Harper found a cassette, the Rolling Stones’ Aftermath, and punched it in the cassette player. Mick Jagger warned his baby, baby, baby that she was out of time. Just about, Harper thought.
Harper gave Allie the shorter version of what Nick had told her in the tomb, while she spread gelatinous Spam on crackers. Allie did not interrupt or cross-examine. When Harper had finished and they were all sitting on the couch together, eating pasty meat, Allie used her fingers to say, “I can’t believe you fell for Mike’s BS about fingerprints. That’s pretty dumb even for you.”
Nick said, “I know. But by the time I started to think Michael was wrong about fingerprints, there was snow on the ground, and no one could leave camp, so there was no way for me to bring anything back without leaving footprints. Besides. You were the dummy who told me when they found the thief, Ben was going to cut off his hands in front of the whole camp.”
She nodded. “Don’t sweat it. You’re just nine. You’re supposed to be dumb. I’m seventeen. What’s my excuse?”
When had Allie turned seventeen, Harper wondered, and then it crossed her mind she had missed her own birthday, four weeks before.
“How long will the Spam hold out?” Allie asked. She slurred a little. Her upper lip was ugly, split in two halves where Jamie had slashed her mouth. Harper needed to poke around for a needle and thread.
“We’ve only got two cans so . . . not long.”