Peter’s face was swollen, charged with exhaustion, but he managed to answer, Dusty’s not here anymore.
LaRose turned aside in disappointment, then he pointed to the toy box shoved into a corner and said, Can I play?
Nola had no words in her. She sat heavily and watched, first dull, then in fascination, as LaRose took out one toy after the next and played hard with it, serious, garbled, original, funny, obsessively involved with each object.
From up the stairs, forgotten, Maggie watched everything. Both boys had been born in early fall. Both mothers had kept them home, feeling they were too young for school. When the boys played together, Maggie had bossed them, made them play servant if she was a king or dogs if she was queen of the beasts. Now she didn’t know what to do. Not just in playing but in her regular life. They didn’t want her back in school yet. If she cried, her mother cried louder. If she didn’t cry, her mother said she was a coldhearted little animal. So she just watched LaRose from the carpeted steps while he played with Dusty’s toys.
As Maggie watched, her stare hardened. She gripped the spindles like jail bars. Dusty was not there to defend his toys, to share them only if he wanted, to be in charge of the pink-orange dinosaur, the favored flame-black Hot Wheels, the miniature monster trucks. She wanted to storm down and throw stuff everywhere. Kick LaRose. But she was already in trouble for teacher sassing and supposed to be locked in her room.
Landreaux and Emmaline Iron were still standing in the doorway. Nobody had asked them in.
What do you want? said Peter.
He always would have asked how he could help a visitor, but only Nola caught that this rudeness was how he expressed the jolts of electric sorrow and unlikeness of how he was feeling.
What do you want?
They answered simply.
Our son will be your son now.
Landreaux put the small suitcase on the floor. Emmaline was shredding apart. She put the other bag down in the entry and looked away.
They had to tell him what they meant, Our son will be your son, and tell him again.
Peter’s jaw fell, gaping and stricken.
No, he said, I’ve never heard of such a thing.
It’s the old way, said Landreaux. He said it very quickly, got the words out yet again. There was a lot more to their decision, but he could no longer speak.
Emmaline glanced at her half sister, whom she disliked. She stuffed back any sound, glanced up and saw Maggie crouched on the stairs. The girl’s angry doll face punched at her. I have to get out of here, she thought. She stepped forward with an abrupt jerk, placed her hand on her child’s head, kissed him. LaRose patted her face, deep in play.
Later, Mom, he said, copying his older brothers.
No, said Peter again, gesturing, no. This can’t be. Take . . .
Then he looked at Nola and saw that her face had broken open. All the softness was flowing out. And the greed, too, a desperate grasping that leaned her windingly toward the child.
The Gate
ALONG TOWARD EVENING Nola made soup, laid out dinner on the table, all with great concentration. After each step in the routine, she went blank, had to call back her thoughts, find the bowls, butter, cut the bread. LaRose spooned up the soup with slow care. He buttered his own bread clumsily. He had good table manners, thought Nola. His presence was both comforting and unnerving. He was Dusty and the opposite of Dusty. Roils of confusion struck Peter. The shock, he thought. I’m still in shock. The boy drew him with his quiet self-possession, his curiosity, but when Peter felt himself responding he was pierced with a sense of disloyalty. He told himself Dusty wouldn’t care, couldn’t care. He also realized that Nola was allowing herself to be helped somehow, but whether it was that she accepted this unspeakable gift as beauty, or whether she believed the child’s absence over time would leak the lifeblood from Landreaux’s heart, he couldn’t tell.
You take him to the bathroom, Nola said.
Then . . .