The Removed(52)

I coughed into my hands, waiting, but he kept staring at me. I moved closer to him. I held up my hand, and he looked at it. I waved, and he waved back.

“Hello,” I whispered.

I saw his mouth move, but no sound came.

“Ray-Ray,” I whispered again, and he kept forming his mouth as if trying to speak. I couldn’t hear anything. I reached to touch his arm, but when my hand touched the image, it burned badly, and I quickly withdrew it. I held my hand, grunting in pain. Ray-Ray was an image, nothing more. A hologram. A hallucination, a mirage.

Finally, he spoke: “Brother,” he said softly.

My heart was racing. What did it mean? Did he recognize me? Was his spirit somehow present in the projection, or was it programmed?

His eyes looked upward, and he evidently fell into sleep mode. He sat frozen, not moving. I climbed the ladder and pushed every button I could reach, anything to get a reaction. Then I saw the image of Ray-Ray looking up at me as he slowly dissolved into nothingness.





Maria


SEPTEMBER 5

A COOL MORNING IN FALL and perfect weather for an outing, our first in a long while. It was a teacher conference day, and there was no school. Wyatt told us he had never seen exotic fish or sharks, so we decided to take him to Jenks, near Tulsa, to the big aquarium. While I drove, Ernest engaged in a long conversation with Wyatt about old-time music and various dances: the Charleston, the fox-trot, the waltz. Wyatt pulled out one of his meticulously organized notebooks and read from an alphabetized list of his favorite old standards: “All of Me,” “Have You Met Miss Jones,” “In a Sentimental Mood,” and so on, along with a list of musicians by genre. They talked jazz—Coltrane, Gillespie, Wyatt naming off little-known anecdotes he had read in various online sources. Ernest listened, delighted. “The boy is a walking encyclopedia,” Ernest said to me. “He has class. Not many kids have such good taste these days.”

I looked at Wyatt in the rearview mirror and saw him staring out the window at the rolling prairie outside. Ernest was as happy as I had seen him in a long time.

At the Jenks Aquarium, Wyatt scanned the map, wanting to see all the exhibits, every one of them: Sea Turtle Island, the South Pacific Reef, the Ecozone. We entered the Extreme Fishes exhibit, a large, dimly lit room encircled by enormous tanks filled with exotic fish. The room had a magical quietness about it the moment we walked in, as if we were underwater, deep in the ocean. I saw a rainbow of light as the fish darted back and forth behind the glass. Ernest went over to the tank and touched the glass. A blue fish drifted over and stared at him. They were looking at each other, Ernest and the fish. He tapped a finger on the glass, but the fish wasn’t frightened.

“This fish is giving me the stink eye,” he said, winking at Wyatt.

“Must be a female,” I said.

“She’s jealous of a fish,” Ernest told Wyatt.

For a moment I felt envious. Oh, to be so happy. How did this work again? I was in control of my own emotions, my own needs, and everything felt stable again. I recognized what made me happy or sad. Seeing Ernest like this made me feel elated.

Another family had entered the room, and I noticed that Wyatt had made friends with a baby in a stroller. The baby’s siblings, an older brother and sister, were with their father, looking excitedly into the glass at a yellow fish. The baby was wearing a pink outfit and a bow in her hair. Wyatt was making her laugh. I heard him make little baby sounds. The mother smiled politely, then strolled away to join the rest of her family. I walked over to Wyatt.

“What about the fish?” I asked him.

“They’re fantastic. But babies? Babies are my jam.”

He joined Ernest at the glass, and we continued to walk down alongside it, looking at the vast underwater world. My phone rang, and I stepped away to answer. It was Bernice from Indian Child Welfare.

“How’s everything going with Wyatt?” she asked. “Is he behaving himself?”

“He’s an angel,” I said. “Can we keep him?”

“Well, the hearing is tomorrow. It looks like he’ll end up going to stay with grandparents.”

“That didn’t take long,” I said.

“Sometimes it doesn’t. The school said he’s doing well, as I expected. He really is a doll, but his grandparents are here in town, and they want to take him. The hearing is at ten in the morning.”

I watched Wyatt lean in to Ernest. From behind, they looked like grandfather and grandson. “I don’t want him to go,” I breathed into the phone. “We want him to stay with us. Is that even possible?”

“Oh, Maria,” Bernice said. “Are you serious? Is everything okay?”

They were leaning into the glass with both hands, staring at the fish, and standing there watching them, my heart broke thinking this could be their last day together.

“Maria?” Bernice kept saying.

The drive home was silent, and I didn’t want to bring up the hearing to Ernest and Wyatt. As I drove, I tried to imagine Wyatt’s reaction to the news that he would be leaving us. Would he be sad, or would he be relieved? How would Ernest take it? I didn’t want to think about it. When we arrived home, Sonja was in the kitchen, stirring blackberries in a saucepan. She turned and looked at Wyatt and said hello, smiling.

Wyatt removed an invisible hat and bowed, which made Ernest laugh loudly.