“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.”