On the trips into the house with the boy’s belongings, Nathan felt a pang of regret that Flora had not lived to see the day.
She’d teased him unmercifully for feeling it was meant to be.
? ? ?
“You can sleep in my wife’s old room,” he said to the boy. “What do you go by?”
“What?”
“What do they call you?”
“Oh. Nat.”
“Good,” Nathan said. “That will avoid some confusion. Gradually we’ll take my late wife’s things out to the garage. You can make this room entirely yours.”
In the background, Nathan could hear Maggie barking sharply from the back yard. She could hear and smell that someone new was in the house, and would likely continue to bark until given the opportunity to investigate.
Nat stood with his shoulder on the doorjamb. “You two didn’t even sleep together?”
Nathan dropped a suitcase and stood upright, his back poker-straight. He regarded the boy for a moment; the boy met his gaze unswervingly. Nathan felt the weight of importance of these early tests.
“It’s not something I’d expect you to understand,” he said. “But we loved each other in our way. Maybe it wasn’t always the best way, but it was what we could manage.”
He purposely did not look to Nat’s face for a reaction, because no reaction was welcome. He had said his piece, and it was nobody’s business to question the matter further.
Instead he went around to the back door and let his dog come into the house. It was a luxury he’d allowed himself, and Maggie, often since Flora’s death.
They walked together to Nat’s new room.
Nat looked up, seeming stunned. “Is that the dog?”
Maggie approached the boy with broad swings of her tail. She sniffed his offered hand for a moment, then gave it one good, enthusiastic lick. From the look on Nat’s face, Nathan gathered the boy was not accustomed to warm greetings.
“No, it’s not,” Nathan said, sorry to break the bad news to Nat, and also sorry, for his own sake, that it was not.
“No, Sadie is long gone. This is Maggie.”
“Oh, OK,” Nat said, and brushed the stunned look away.
Just as Nathan was leaving the room, the boy said, “That’s a coincidence. Huh? How we both have the same name.”
Nathan turned and studied the boy’s face briefly. As far as he could see, there was no hint of teasing or sarcasm. At least, none that the boy made evident. Did he really believe it was coincidental? Had no one told him otherwise?
“It’s not a coincidence. You were named after me.”
He watched the boy’s face for some reaction. But apparently Nat knew the basics of assuming a poker face. He appeared to feel nothing, register nothing at all times. Though Nathan was not inclined to believe such an unlikely display. Not from this young man. Not from anyone.
“I was? Why?”
“Because I’m the man who found you in the woods,” Nathan said, not imagining that the situation could possibly need any more explaining than that.
“Oh,” Nat said. Then, just as Nathan turned to leave again, he added, “I don’t think you did me such a big favor, you know.”
Nathan stopped. Turned. More tests, he supposed. More histrionics of the type he didn’t suffer lightly.
“Oh, don’t you?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Your life is not a big favor?”
“How do you know I even want it?”
“Every sane person wants his life.”
“Oh. So you think I’m insane?”
“No. I think you really do want it, and you’re only saying you don’t for effect.”
“What I’m saying,” he said, rising to a bit more anger now, his cheeks flushing slightly, “is that I’d like to know what good my life is to me.”
“The value of your life is your own choosing,” Nathan said.
The boy stood with his chin held high, his back against the closet door. He said nothing for a brief moment, but Nathan could feel the words bounce off him unabsorbed. “Is that even English, what you just said?”
Nathan pulled a deep breath. “Were there any words in the sentence you don’t understand?”
“Um. Let me see. The. Value. Life. Choosing. No, I guess I know them all. It’s just what it’s all supposed to add up to that I don’t understand.”
“But you do recognize it as the English language.”
“Maybe one word at a time.”
“You know it’s English.”
“English is supposed to mean something. That sentence didn’t mean anything.”
“The fact that you don’t grasp the meaning of something doesn’t mean it has none.”
“So what am I supposed to do with a sentence like that? That means nothing to me?”
“Try filing it away for possible later use.”
“All right,” Nat said. “But I’m telling you right now … that one’s going to be in there waiting for a long time.”
? ? ?
At bedtime, Nathan rapped lightly before letting himself into the boy’s room.
“What?” Nat said as Nathan pulled a chair to his bedside.
“I just came in to say goodnight.”
“Oh.”
Nathan took the photograph out of the pocket of his sweater and laid it on the edge of the boy’s bed. “That was Sadie,” he said. “She was a curly-coated retriever. She was a remarkable animal. I miss her terribly. Maggie is a good dog, too. But that doesn’t spare me from missing Sadie.”
Nat picked up the photo, studied it briefly.
Then he said, as if he had never registered the image on the old photograph, “Why do I have to go to bed so early? It’s barely eight o’clock. I can’t go to sleep this early. I’m not a child, you know.”
But he looked like one. Very much so. He was small for nearly fifteen, and looked a bit helpless and lost, smothered in Flora’s old bed sheets and flowered quilt. Nathan wondered if the boy could acknowledge his own terror. Even to himself.
“Because in the morning I’m going to wake you up very early and we’re going to go hunting.”
“Hunting?”
“Yes. Duck-hunting. With Maggie.”
“I don’t hunt.”
“Well, I’m suggesting you give it a try.”
“What time would I have to get up?”
“About four thirty.”
“No way. Forget it.”
“I’ll be in to wake you. I’d like you to try it with me this one time.”
A medium-length, sulky silence. Then the boy’s face changed. Only slightly. But perceptibly.
“Do you always go to that same place?”
He didn’t have to elaborate. He didn’t have to specify what same place. They both knew what he meant.
“Yes.”
“Could you show me the exact spot?”
“Yes.”
“OK. I’ll go with you, then. This one time.”
Nathan picked up his photograph. Patted Nat on the knee through the covers. Reached for the light switch on his way out of the room.
Nat asked, as though not anxious to see him leave, “Aren’t you even going to ask me what I did to get thrown out of the house?”
“No. I thought it best to start fresh with each other. You’ll have a birthday coming up next week. We’ll celebrate.”
“Why do you remember my birthday after all this time?”
“How can I not remember your birthday? I found you in the woods on October second, 1960. How could I forget a date like that? You were born the day before, October first. You’ll be fifteen.”
“How am I supposed to live here? I don’t even know you.” It seemed out of context with what Nathan had just told him, which Nathan supposed was why the boy said it. “I don’t even know this place. This is all completely strange to me. How am I even supposed to live here?”
Nathan sighed. “A few minutes at a time, I suppose, at first. I won’t pretend it’s not a problem for you.”
“And you?” the boy asked, even more agitated. “This is not a problem for you?”
“Not at all,” Nathan said. “I’m happy to have you here with me.”
He turned out the light on his way out of the room.