It hadn’t improved much. The homeless population had grown. Trash still spilled over cans and alley Dumpsters. New graffiti marked walls. Some tough-looking kids came down the sidewalk toward him. Roman took his hands from his jacket pockets and stared the leader in the eye. The group passed by without a word, two looking back at him. Roman kept going until he came to the overpass where White Boy died. He looked up at the concrete arch, letting himself think about his erstwhile friend, and made peace with the place before he walked on.
The apartment house where he’d lived with his mother looked the same. The right kind of graffiti would improve the place. The third-story window was dark. How many hours had he spent looking out and waiting for his mother to come home?
You know I love you, baby. I always come back, don’t I?
The nightclub where she worked had a new name, but was still in business. Sleazy music oozed out the front door. Steeling himself, he went inside, but got no further than a podium occupied by a middle-aged man in a cheap suit. “Twenty bucks will get you inside.” The man looked Roman over. “A hundred will get you more.” Roman didn’t take out his wallet. The smell of booze hung in the place, and one glimpse of an expressionless girl gyrating on the stage turned his stomach. A man at a table by the stage stood and tucked money in her G-string. Roman went back outside.
Gulping cold, moist coastal air, he walked away.
He spent another two hours wandering the streets, thinking about his mother. Be honest. Look to Me. Understanding bubbled to the surface. He’d loved his mother. And hated her—for what she did to make a living, for leaving that night, for breaking her promise. He’d never wanted to admit those feelings, but now he felt them like an open wound that still bled and left him raw with pain. He knew what God wanted him to do—to confess what he’d kept locked inside for so many years.
I am the Healer.
Instead of the shame Roman expected, he felt the old pain soften into understanding. His mother had been a child when she got pregnant and gave birth to him, barely an adult when she died. To his knowledge, she never had friends or family to help her. She’d been abandoned long before he came along. Whatever the circumstances, Roman knew something else. She hadn’t thrown him away. She kept him close. She loved him.
Still walking, Roman suddenly remembered the landlord in the apartment building talking with the stranger who’d grabbed him. What had he said? It all came back, as if it played out in front of him. The man had given the landlord a wad of money and then followed Bobby Ray up the stairs. You’re coming with me. Bobby Ray had fought, instinctively sensing something wrong, terribly wrong. The would-be abductor started carrying him down the stairs. Then Bobby Ray’s second-grade teacher had shown up with a police officer. The man let go of him and disappeared like a rat down a hole.
The hair on Roman’s neck prickled as he experienced an epiphany. He’d only been seven, but he’d felt the evil in the man’s intentions. Even after that narrow escape, he’d kicked and clawed to get away from the policeman, who put him in the back of a squad car. He hadn’t seen them as rescuers. They were both enemies who wanted to take him away from his mother. He’d cried and screamed curses on the teacher, who sat next to him in the squad car. He’d kicked the back of the police officer’s seat all the way to the station, where he was turned over to a social worker from CPS.
Lord, how many years have I carried all that hatred around and let it shape my life?
Sitting in an all-night café, Roman asked God what he should do next. He got an answer as the sun came up. Exhausted, but resolved, he went to the elementary school and asked for the names of the second-grade teachers who’d been there the year he was seven. He recognized the name of one and asked where he might find Morgan Talbot.
“Mr. Talbot is still here. He’s on break right now.”
God’s perfect timing. “Could I speak with him?”
The secretary made a call to the teacher’s room. A few minutes later, Mr. Talbot entered the office. Roman recognized him immediately. Talbot’s hair was now gray, not red; his shoulders stooped slightly, and he wasn’t nearly as tall as Roman remembered. He’d seemed a giant to a seven-year-old boy. Talbot’s eyes were still kind.
“You probably don’t remember a seven-year-old kid named Bobby Ray Dean.”
“I remember.” His smile was wistful. “You were the first boy I had to turn in to CPS. I’m sorry to say there have been others since.”
“I don’t imagine it gets easier.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
“Maybe it’ll help to know you saved my life that day.” Looking back now, Roman saw how God sent Talbot at the exact time Bobby Ray Dean needed rescue. “The landlord had just sold me. If you and that police officer had arrived five minutes later, I would’ve been gone and probably long dead by now.” He felt gratitude well up inside him, not just for Talbot, but for God, who sent him. He held out his hand. “I’m late in saying it, but thank you, sir.”
Mr. Talbot’s eyes moistened, and he shook hands with Roman. “I was just doing what was right.” He cleared his throat. “The officer was my cousin. He’s retired. Living in Montana now.”
“How about you? Are you retiring soon?”
“He’d better not.” The secretary spoke up from behind the counter. “He’s the best teacher we have.”
Talbot apologized and said he needed to get back to the classroom. Break would be over soon, the children lining up. He paused in the doorway. “You were very good at art, as I remember.”
“I make a living at it. Under a different name. Roman Velasco.”
“Didn’t you just do a big project in Los Angeles?” The secretary intruded again. “Something on the side of a church building. I saw it on Facebook.”
Roman addressed Talbot. “If you’re interested, you can see it online. The work wouldn’t exist if you hadn’t done what was right.”
“I’ll look you up.” He smiled. “Thanks for coming by, Bobby Ray. It’s nice to know one of my pupils is doing so well.” He went down the hall, his back a little straighter.
“He needed to hear that.” The secretary nodded. “Most students remember the upper-class teachers in high school and forget all about the ones they had in the first few years, the unsung heroes who teach the basics.”
Outside, Roman took out his phone and called Jasper Hawley. He told him he had time on his hands and would like to come up and see him, and Chet and Susan. “Unless you already have plans over the next few days.”
“I’m in Portland right now, but I’ll be back day after tomorrow. Something happen, Bobby Ray?”
“Just taking another look at my life from a new perspective.”
“It’s about time.”
Roman had other things he needed to do, and he might as well get one errand done before he headed back to the hotel for some much-needed sleep. He went to the coroner’s office on Bryant Street to find out everything he could about the circumstances of his mother’s death and where she had been buried. The clerk told him the medical examiner’s office retained dental records, tissue samples, a full body X-ray, and DNA of everyone brought into the morgue. His mother had died of an overdose of heroin. Her body had been cremated, her remains placed in storage. Roman filled out all the necessary paperwork and paid the fees to have her ashes released to him.
“It’s been over twenty-five years. It might take a few days to find her.”
Roman gave his contact information. He went to the wharf for dinner and then back to the hotel. He slept for eighteen hours without dreaming and awakened fully rested. Instead of wandering the Tenderloin, he went to Golden Gate Park and imagined how much Grace would love it. He drove to Cliff House for a late lunch. His phone vibrated. The medical examiner’s office. “It usually takes a lot longer than this, but we found your mother’s remains.”
God seemed to be moving things along.
Roman pulled into Masterson Ranch the next day. Gibbs and DiNozzo barked from the front porch. Chet came out of the barn, and Susan down the steps of the house. She got to him first and hugged him. “Nice you came back so soon.”