Before the Fall(23)

Scott turns and looks out the window. They are meant to be discharged today, Scott and the boy, expelled from the looped loudspeaker of hospital life, BP checked every half hour, temperature taken, meals delivered. The boy’s aunt and uncle arrived last night, red-eyed and somber. The aunt is Maggie’s younger sister, Eleanor. She sleeps now in a hard-backed chair beside the boy’s bed. Eleanor is in her early thirties and pretty, a massage therapist from Croton-on-Hudson, Westchester. Her husband, the boy’s uncle, is a writer, squirrelly about eye contact, the kind of knucklehead who grows a beard in summer. Scott doesn’t have a good feeling about him.

It has been thirty-two hours since the crash, a heartbeat and a lifetime. Scott has yet to bathe, his skin still salty from the sea. His left arm is in a sling. He has no ID, no pants. And yet, despite this, his idea is still to head into the city later as planned. There are meetings on the books. Career connections to be made. Scott’s friend Magnus has offered to drive out to Montauk and get him. Lying there, Scott thinks it will be good to see him, a friendly face. They are not close really, he and Magnus, nothing like brothers, more like drinking buddies, but Magnus is both unflappable and relentlessly positive, which is why Scott thought to call him last night. It was essential that he avoid talking to anyone who might cry. Keep things casual. That was his goal. In fact, after he’d finished telling Magnus—who didn’t own a TV—what had happened, Magnus said weird, and then suggested they should grab a beer.

Looking over, Scott sees that the boy is awake now, staring at him unblinking.

“Hey, buddy,” says Scott quietly, so as not to wake the aunt. “You sleep okay?”

The boy nods.

“Want me to put on some cartoons?”

Another nod. Scott finds the remote, turns channels until he finds something animated.

“Sponge Bob?” Scott asks.

The boy nods again. He hasn’t spoken a word since yesterday afternoon. In the first few hours after they reached shore it was possible to get a few words out of him, how he was feeling, if he needed anything. But then, like a wound swelling shut, he stopped speaking. And now he is mute.

Scott spies a box of powdery rubber exam gloves on the table. As the boy watches, he pulls one out.

“Uh-oh,” he says, then quietly fakes the big buildup to a sneeze. With the achoo he hangs the glove from his left nostril. The boy smiles.

The aunt wakes, stretches. She is a beautiful woman with a blunt bang haircut, like a person who makes up for driving an expensive car by never washing it. Scott watches her face as she regains full consciousness, as she realizes where she is and what has happened. For a moment he sees her threaten to collapse under the weight of it, but then she sees the boy and forces a smile.

“Hey,” she says, smoothing the hair back from his face.

She looks up at the TV, and then at Scott.

“Morning,” he says.

She brushes her own hair off her face, checks to make sure her clothes are on properly.

“Sorry,” she says. “I guess I fell asleep.”

It doesn’t feel like a comment that deserves a response, so Scott just nods. Eleanor looks around.

“Have you seen…Doug? My husband?”

“I think he went to get some coffee,” Scott tells her.

“Good,” she says, looking relieved. “That’s good.”

“You two been married a long time?” Scott asks her.

“No. Just, uh, seventy-one days.”

“But who’s counting,” says Scott.

Eleanor flushes.

“He’s a sweet guy,” she says. “I think he’s just a little overwhelmed right now.”

Scott glances at the boy, who has stopped watching the TV and is studying Scott and his aunt. The idea that Doug is overwhelmed given what they’ve been through is mystifying.

“Did the boy’s father have any family?” Scott asks. “Your brother-in-law?”

“David?” she says. “No. I mean, his parents are dead, and he’s, I mean I guess he was an only child.”

“What about your parents?”

“My, uh, mom is still around. She lives in Portland. I think she’s flying in today.”

Scott nods.

“And you guys live in Woodstock?”

“Croton,” she says. “It’s about forty minutes outside the city.”

Scott thinks about this, a small house in a wooded glen, easy chairs on a porch. It could be good for the boy. Then again, it could be disastrous, the isolation of the woods, the glowering drunken writer, like Jack Nicholson in the winter mountains.

“Has he ever been there?” Scott asks, nodding toward the boy.

She purses her lips.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “but why are you asking me all these questions?”

“Well,” says Scott, “I guess I’m just curious as to what’s going to happen to him now. I’m invested, you could say.”

Eleanor nods. She looks scared, not of Scott, but of life, what her life is about to become.

“We’ll be fine,” she says, rubbing the boy’s head. “Right?”

He doesn’t answer, his eyes focused on Scott. There is a challenge in them, a plea. Scott blinks first, then turns and looks out the window. Doug comes in. He’s holding a cup of coffee and wearing a misbuttoned cardigan over a checked lumberjack shirt. Seeing him, Eleanor looks relieved.