Before the Fall(55)

Where is the boy at this moment? In a farmhouse somewhere in the country? At a breakfast table surrounded by spiky green strawberry tops and calcifying oatmeal splotches? Every night before bed, Scott has the same thought. In sleep he will dream of the boy lost in an endless black ocean, dream of his Dopplered cries—nowhere and everywhere at once—as Scott splashes around, half drowning, searching but never finding. But the dream does not come. Instead there is only the deep vacuum of sleep. It occurs to him now, sipping cold coffee, that maybe these are the boy’s dreams. A projection of his anxiety, floating on the jet stream like a dog whistle only Scott can hear.

Is the bond between them real or implied, a product of guilt, an idea he has contracted like a virus? To save this child, to have him cling to you for eight exhausting hours, to carry him in your arms to the hospital—did that create new pathways in the brain? Isn’t the life saved enough? He is home now, this child the world knows as JJ, but whom Scott will always think of simply as the boy. Safe and cared for by a new family, by the aunt and her—well, let’s be honest—shifty husband. An instant millionaire hundreds of times over who will never want for anything, and him not even five. Scott saved his life, gave him a future, the chance of happiness. Isn’t that enough?

He dials information and asks for the aunt’s number in Westchester. It is nine p.m. He has sat alone in the apartment for two days straight. The operator connects him and as he listens to the phone ring he wonders what he is doing.

On the sixth ring she answers, Eleanor. He pictures her face, the rosy cheeks and sad eyes.

“Hello?”

She sounds wary, as if only bad news comes after dark.

“Hey, it’s Scott.”

But she’s already talking.

“We already made a statement. Can you please respect our privacy?”

“No, it’s Scott. The painter. From the hospital.”

Her voice softens.

“Oh, sorry. They just—they won’t leave us alone. And he’s just a boy, you know? And his mom and dad are—”

“I know. Why do you think I’m hiding out?”

A silence as she switches from the call she thought it was to the reality—a human moment with her nephew’s savior.

“I wish we could,” she says. “I mean, it’s hard enough going through this all in private, without—”

“I’m sure. Is he—”

A pause. Scott feels he can hear her thinking—how much should she trust him? How much can she say?

“JJ? He’s, you know, he’s not really talking. We took him to a psychiatrist—I mean, I did—and he said, just—give him time. So I’m not pressing.”

“That sounds—I can’t imagine what it’s like—”

“He doesn’t cry. Not that he—I mean, he’s four, so how much can he really understand? But still, I thought he’d cry.”

Scott thinks about this. What’s there to say? “He’s just processing, I guess. Something that—traumatic. I mean, for kids whatever they go through is normal, right? I mean, in their heads. They are learning what the world is, so that’s what he thinks now. That planes crash and people die and you end up in the drink. Which, maybe he’s having second thoughts about the whole thing if that’s what life on this earth is all—”

“I know,” she says. And they sit for a minute in a silence that is neither awkward nor uncomfortable. Just the sound of two people thinking.

“Doug doesn’t talk much either. Except about the money. I caught him the other day downloading spreadsheet software. But—emotionally? I think he’s freaked out by the whole thing.”

“Still?”

“Yeah, he’s—you know, he’s not good with people. He had a hard childhood too.”

“You mean, twenty-five years ago?”

He can hear her smile over the phone.

“Be nice.”

Scott likes the sound of her voice, the pace of it. There is an implication of intimacy to it, as if they have known each other a long, long time.

“Not that I’m one to talk,” he tells her. “Given my track record with women.”

“That is bait I will not take,” she says.

They talk for a while about the daily routine. She gets up with the boy while Doug sleeps—he goes to bed late, it seems. JJ likes toast for breakfast and can eat a whole container of blueberries in one sitting. They do art projects until nap time and in the afternoons he likes to look for bugs in the yard. On trash days they sit on the porch and wave at the haulers.

“A normal kid, basically,” she says.

“Do you think he really understands what happened?”

A long pause, then she says:

“Do you?”





Chapter 20




On Wednesday the funerals begin. Sarah Kipling is first, her remains buried at Mount Zion Cemetery in Queens, a graveyard in the shadow of looming pre-war smokestacks, as if there is a factory next door manufacturing bodies. Police hold the news trucks to a cordoned area on the south side of the wall. It’s a cloudy day, the air stilted, tropical. Thunderstorms are forecast for the afternoon and already you can feel the unsettled electricity in the atmosphere. The line of black cars stretches all the way to the BQE, family, friends, political figures. There will be eight more before this is through—assuming all the bodies are recovered.