It was time. I had to push us through this memorial. “It’s normal at funerals to tell stories about the person who died. To remember them. If you want to say anything about Peter, you can.”
There was a long pause. One of the stones shifted with a sharp click, and we all jumped.
“All right, I’ll go first,” I said. “Um, Peter had a lot of energy. He was a curious boy, and he loved to try new things.”
I sounded like a school report. All wrong. My thoughts were too slippery. I steepled my hands over my face as though I might catch them. And then I saw Peter’s face clearly in my mind: the moment when Joni brought him back after he’d run away from the broken shovel, his willing smile, the direct look in his round eyes. Like my Nat.
“Peter was brave. I used to think he played the fool to get attention, but I underestimated him. When he tested Charlie’s mad inventions—like that skateboard with only one wheel, do you remember that?—he did it to help. He was glad to be your friend, Charlie. And who could ask for more than that? And he climbed that big tree on the first day because he sensed something was wrong—he had good instincts. He was looking for his mother—” This fact only occurred to me as it came out of my mouth so that I almost choked on it. “And again, when he sat all night by the gate, he wanted to protect us. Peter knew his own strengths. Which is more than most adults can say. He was a brave boy—”
My voice pulled too tight to speak. Thoughts and feelings slipped away, and I gripped myself to hold on. We had to get through this; I was the only one who could navigate us through. Charlie squeezed my hand, but he still didn’t say anything, and there was another long silence.
Billy stepped forward and pulled from his pocket a shiny blue packet. He held it between two hands, his eyes moving between the packet and the tree. His mouth bent up with confusion, and he started to cry. I eased his fingers apart. Inside was a crushed Oreo still in the wrapper.
“Do you want to give this to Peter?” I asked.
“Sharing is caring,” he said, but closed his fingers over his last biscuit. A moral dilemma too onerous for three-year-old shoulders. I bent down and kissed the tears off his cheeks. His skin was flawless. I hissed a fierce wish inside my head—my first prayer since all this happened: Let Billy forget. He is surely young enough. Let him forget the fear, the hunger, the screams of other children. If one of us can come out of this unscathed, let it be him. Let it stop, and let him forget.
When I released him, he wiped his runny nose on my shoulder and held the biscuit up to me. I leaned into the tree and dropped it through the branches. Billy took a wobbly breath and smiled with relief—he’d found the strength to do the right thing. He stepped back into the line.
“I didn’t like it when Peter scared my rabbit,” said Maggie.
I waited to see if there was more, but apparently there wasn’t. She was truly her mother’s daughter.
The Lost Boy delved into his pocket and held out a single Lego brick.
“Thank you. Peter loved Lego, did you know that?”
The Lost Boy nodded. I placed the brick in the tree. We waited in line again. Buzzards drifted overhead.
“Charlie? Anything to say?”
Charlie stood ramrod straight, fists clenched by his sides. He shook his head.
“Sure?”
He closed his eyes, and tears surged down his face. I dropped to my knees in front of him and held his tight body. His tears ran down my neck and formed a rivulet along my spine. They seemed to carry all his words in perfect eloquence. I kept my palm flat on his back as though I could soothe his pounding heart through the skin. Charlie would never forget. Of that I was certain. He was older, and this experience was too intense. And a thought dropped into my mind like a brick: What if this is our life now? Any hope of forgetting presupposes change, that the horror will stop. We go back to normal, and this becomes some traumatic event that we survived, like a plane crash. But maybe this is it. Charlie and I clung together in the wet grass. Eventually, our heartbeats slowed, and Charlie’s muscles softened. He folded into me, and I gathered up his long limbs in my arms.
“Say good-bye,” I whispered as we walked away.
“Good-bye, Peter,” he said. “You’re my best friend.”
As we pulled into the camp, I heard screaming from the tents. I raced up the slope to find Joni tearing down the yurt, bellowing like a pierced bull. Standing nearby, with one hand spread over her mouth, was Lola.
Maggie and Billy flung themselves around their cousin’s legs. Charlie followed, more subdued. I put my arms around Lola, as best I could with all the kids in the way, and crushed her slender shoulders into a hug. When I released her, ready to ask a dozen questions, she got in first.
“Mom’s incensed.”
Joni wrenched the canvas from the poles, and a loud rip came from one of the seams.
“So I see. Can I assume, then, that you weren’t kidnapped and held against your will?”
“I met a boy.”
I put my hand over my face to hide a snort of laughter.
“A whole group of boys, actually. After Billy disappeared, when you went off by yourself, we drove around for a long time. I found a bike by the side of the road, and Mom let me cycle up to the Bury Ditches, to check if Billy was there, while she brought the young ones back for dinner.”
Joni hadn’t mentioned that she let Lola go out alone.
“I met some little kids behind the hill, and they took me to the Hoar Wood. And that’s where I met Jack.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. He’s looking after those boys all alone. Trying to.”
“You were gone for two days, Lola. Three nights.”
“I know. I’m sorry, it’s just that—”
“Your mum’s been crazy with worry. We all have.”
“I’m sorry, I am. But the first night I was kind of mad with her. With both of you. You told me to fuck off!”
“Lola, I was—”
“I get it. You were scared about Billy. Just listen, please.”
I folded my arms across my chest.
“So right after the first night, I meant to come back, but then when we woke up in the morning—”
“We woke up?”
“It’s not what you think. We didn’t—look, when we all woke up, some of the boys had run off, and Jack asked me to stay with the younger ones while he found them. And then we saw these helicopters, and Jack said we needed to get under cover. So I helped him move everyone to another camp. And then it just got crazy with all the little kids. God, just feeding them and keeping them out of harm’s way. Surely you of all people understand how it gets. Time just goes.” She snapped her fingers in the air. The way Lola stood, hands on hips, flicking her hair away from her face with the back of a hand, she reminded me of every mum I’d ever met at the school drop-off. Harried. Exhausted. Furious at the day for having so few hours in it.
“I do understand. But you could have sent someone with a message.”
“The new camp is quite far—”