As Bright as Heaven(104)

Evie had asked when they wanted him. And Papa had said, “Tomorrow.”

Which is today.

Alex’s grandparents came for him at two o’clock this afternoon. Maggie and I helped him pack his things, although I said nothing to my sister the whole time. He was putting things from his bureau in a box when he picked up the picture of Mama that he’d had for the last couple years.

“Do you want this back?” he said to Maggie.

She put a hand to her mouth and started crying. It’s hard to talk when you’re crying, but she pulled her hand away a second later and managed to tell him that if he wanted to keep it awhile, he could.

“I don’t know what I should do,” Alex said numbly.

“I don’t, either,” Maggie said.

“If you want to take it, take it,” I said. “They don’t get to decide everything.”

He held the photograph for a second, looking into the eyes of the mother who’d carried him home the day Maggie found him. My mother. He put the photograph back atop his bureau. Then he reached for something behind the lamp, next to the photograph.

“What about this?” He held up the rocking horse rattle that we told him he’d been found with when we made up the story of how he came to us. “Was this mine?”

“Of course it was yours,” I said before Maggie could say something stupid like it had been Henry’s.

He looked at it for a second and placed it carefully on top of his socks and folded pajamas.

When the room was all packed up, Alex looked empty of all sensation, like his own soul was now in one of the boxes.

We heard the doorbell chime, and we all knew Alex’s grandparents had arrived. Evie came up to get us.

Maggie said she needed to say her good-byes right there in Alex’s room. We’d been advised there would be no visits for a while so that Alex could get used to being Leo Dabney. We didn’t know how long a while was going to be. No one knew. As long as it took, we’d been told. Maggie hugged him close and tight. As mad as I was at her, my anger melted a little as I witnessed Maggie’s heartache. She loved Alex like a mother loved a child. Mama had made us promise to care for Alex like he was our own, and we had done so, and yet none of us love him like Maggie does. All the love she’d had for Henry and Mama had been funneled into her devotion to Alex, the little boy she’d saved.

Maggie pulled away, told him to be good, to mind his manners, and to come visit as soon and as often as his grandparents would allow. Alex nodded wide-eyed at Maggie’s parting words. I could see he had no way to appreciate what was happening. He’d never had to say a good-bye like this one.

Papa had asked Jamie to come help take down the boxes, and they were at the doorway. They’d probably seen and heard Maggie’s farewell, as Jamie’s eyes were glistening. Maggie took one look at Jamie and then she bent and kissed Alex’s head and fled to her room.

We each took a box down the stairs, Papa and Jamie taking the bigger ones.

Rita and Maury Dabney were standing in the foyer looking like they didn’t know what to do with themselves. They are probably a bit older than Papa, with faces that are wrinkled from time and trouble, it seemed to me—not from smiling for too many years. Papa introduced Evie and me to them. Evie said, “How do you do?” I said nothing.

“And the one who found Leo?” Rita Dabney asked.

“His name is Alex,” I muttered. Only Evie seemed to hear me. She shot me a hush-up look.

“I’m afraid Maggie is taking this hard,” Papa said. “Perhaps you could meet her another time?”

Rita seemed relieved and put out that the girl who had both rescued and abducted her grandson wasn’t coming downstairs to meet her. It was like she wanted to thank Maggie and wring her neck.

The boxes were loaded into a truck the Dabneys had parked at the curb. It was an older truck, green and rusty.

Rita Dabney said, “Well, we’ll let you say your good-byes, then.”

Evie knelt to Alex’s level and wrapped her arms around him. “We’ll see you often—I just know it. And soon you’ll get to meet your sister, Ursula. She’s so looking forward to seeing you again. You’ll like her, Alex. And she loves you so much.”

“All right,” Alex mumbled. He didn’t even know what he was saying all right to. Nothing was all right. That was obvious to all of us. Except to the Dabneys, I suppose.

I had no intention of saying good-bye to Alex. I wasn’t going to call him Leo. And I wasn’t going to move Mama’s photo off his bureau. I bent down and hugged him. “I’ll be seeing you,” I said, knowing I would do whatever I must to see Alex after this. If I was of a notion to go see him, I’d just go do it. I knew how to take a train to New Jersey. I knew how to sneak around.

I let him go and stood up, feeling very proud of myself for how I was handling the situation.

Alex, who had been quietly composed all this time, turned to Papa now and burst into tears. I couldn’t watch as Papa embraced our boy and fought back his own emotions so that Alex might find the courage to go with two people he’d only met yesterday.

I looked away as the Dabneys peeled Alex out of Papa’s arms and put him in their truck while he cried and yelled, “I don’t want to go! I don’t want to go!”

Evie, wise Evie, kept her smarts about her. “We’ll see you soon! Before you know it, my darling!” she said, her voice sounding a bit shrill as she forced a happy tone into it.