The Removed(42)

“Wyatt has something special,” a supervisor named Hank told me. He put an inhaler in his mouth and sucked in. “I put out fires all day, every day,” he said. “Some of these juveniles are runaways and criminals. Some get kicked out of long-term placement for getting high or stealing from staff. Others get picked up by the police and brought in. It’s a rare day when there isn’t a fire to be put out.”

I had seen kids come in and out of the shelter for twenty years. The court placed them in the custody of social services, and they sat in the shelter and waited to be placed in group homes. Then they might run away from the group homes and return to the streets, and the whole cycle would start over again. When I worked at the shelter, it was my job to meet with the kids when they were first brought in. After they changed out of their street clothes and showered and put all their money and jewelry in baggies, after they carried their bedsheets and pillows down the hall past the medical supply room to their rooms, I would sit with them as they told me everything that happened on the streets. They opened up to me—it was a gift. I rarely had to do much, maybe smile and tell them I would try to help them. Part of my job was listening to them, these kids who had seen enough in six months to provide a lifetime of nightmares.

One of the older boys came over to Hank and said he needed his medicine. Hank called for a staff member to come over.

“Paolo needs his asthma meds,” he said, then showed the boy his inhaler. “I have mine right here, so I feel for you, son. Hang in there, it’ll get better.” After Paolo walked off, Hank told me that Paolo was sixteen and had lived in seven different foster homes since he was twelve.

“I remember working with a lot of kids exactly like him,” I said.

“Paolo’s dad is one of those low-grade knuckleheads who wears flannel shirts and drives a 1993 Firebird and chews Red Man. Paolo’s a good kid, though.”

“Maybe I helped a few over the years. I hope so, anyway.”

We watched Wyatt give high fives to some of the smaller kids. Then he came over, and I asked him what the title of his story meant.

“I thought you knew Cherokee,” he said.

“Only a little. But I didn’t catch the title when you said it.”

“Doe stah dah nuh dey,” he said. “It means ‘My brother.’”

*

On the drive home, the town felt quiet and isolated. The road took us past empty and decayed buildings, carrying us east toward the bridge leading to our house. A few welding trucks were parked in the otherwise barren lot of an old roadside motel. “Way out in the distance,” I told Wyatt, “way out there among the trees and hills, Woody Guthrie once walked on a dusty road, mumbling lyrics to a folk song with his guitar strapped to his back.”

“We sang ‘This Land Is Your Land’ every day for three years at Sequoyah,” he said.

We rode in silence for a while.

“I think you’re a good mom,” he said.

I put on my sunglasses and cried then, quietly, but I don’t think he knew. When we arrived back home, he went into his room to do homework while I went into the kitchen and took out a pan to make supper. I stepped out onto the back deck, expecting to find Ernest, but he wasn’t there. I called for him, but he didn’t answer. Now I felt terrified—what had I done? Left an Alzheimer’s patient alone to wander off? I checked the house, hurrying from room to room and calling his name, but he was nowhere. Wyatt came out of his room and asked me what was the matter.

“Ernest isn’t here,” I said.

His eyes widened, and he looked distraught. “Did you check outside? Maybe he’s out there. I’ll help you look.”

While Wyatt rushed out, I got my cell from my purse and called Sonja, but she didn’t answer, so I left a message: “Sonja, it’s Mom. I think Papa has wandered off. If you get this soon call me.” Then I rushed out the door and called out for him again.

The moment I stepped outside, I felt a surge of pain in my chest, which I recognized as fear. I felt dizzy, short of breath, as I hurried around the side of the house.

And there he was, by the garden.

“Ernest,” I said, holding my chest. I was still short of breath. “I thought you’d wandered off.”

I approached him and took his hand. “My God,” I said.

He was looking at me in a way he hadn’t looked at me in a long time. He took my other hand in his. “Maria,” he said. “I can remember things I’ve had trouble remembering, like the combination to the safe in our closet. Thirty-six, eleven, twenty-two.” He took his keys out of his pocket and started going through them one at a time, telling me what each was for.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “You remember each key,” I said.

“Just like that. Dr. Patel said he wears a Titleist cap when he plays golf. Last week at the Cherokee National Holiday, I watched a girl from Sallisaw win Miss Teen Cherokee. Her name is Aiyana, and she wore the same dress her grandmother once wore. Her favorite subjects in school are science and history, remember?”

“What’s happening?” I said.

He started laughing, and I put my head against his chest and let him hold me.

Maybe this was a season for miracles to occur, I thought. Maybe the earth was healing itself of trembling and drought, maybe the bees weren’t dying, and the swarms of locusts jumbling tunelessly around were feeding all the rodents and reptiles and crawling creatures. As the sun came out from behind a cloud and Ernest asked if we could call Dr. Patel, I kept thinking we were due for a season of healing ourselves. “I want to tell him I’m feeling damn great,” he said.