December Park(175)

Epilogue


The Last of the Vanishing Children





(September 1994)





We left Harting Farms on a Sunday in September, just as the bells of St. Nonnatus tolled noon. My grandparents had left for New York days earlier, so it was just my father and me. Astride their bikes, my friends watched from the street as I climbed into the car and slammed the door. When my dad pulled out of the driveway and headed up Worth Street, they followed us.

Michael raced along on his Mongoose, sunlight gleaming off his newly polished army helmet. He had on his Blues Brothers sunglasses and was pedaling just about as fast as I had ever seen him.

Peter lifted himself off the seat of his bike, his red hair whipping back from his forehead in the wind, his green eyes blazing. He had his headphones down around his neck, and I knew he was blasting one of his mix tapes. On his face was a dazzling smile.

Scott came right up the center, his long legs pumping effortlessly, his Orioles cap turned backward. He wore a pair of black cargo shorts and his Oh Shit Shark Shirt despite the chill in the air.

Doing a fine job keeping pace, Adrian rode along with them on my bike, seemingly unsteady at first but slowly gaining confidence. Dangling from a length of shoelace around his neck was a small heart-shaped locket.

When we reached McKinsey, my dad glanced up and saw them all in the rearview mirror. He laughed, then reached over and rubbed the back of my head. I turned around in the passenger seat, watching them through the back window, my eyes brimming with tears. My dad slowed as we crossed the highway so my friends could keep up.

But they couldn’t keep up forever.

As the distance between us became greater and greater, I leaned out of the window and waved at them with both hands. Tears streamed from my eyes.

They waved back at me, and one of them—I believe it was Michael—shouted my name.

And that was how I chose to remember them, with the sunlight shimmering off Michael’s army helmet, with Scott fanning his Orioles cap high above his head, with Peter’s hair a fiery red beneath the noonday sun, and with Adrian waving at me almost timidly as the distance between us grew. I hung on to them for as long as I could until they were nothing more than ghosts against the backdrop of December Park.