The Removed(54)

I didn’t understand the impact of what I said at first. His entire demeanor fell as he looked down, nodding. It was the saddest I had seen him.

“Do you want to go live with them?” I asked.

“I guess so,” he said.

“We wish you could stay here.”

He looked at me, and I felt as though his eyes reflected the pain of my words.

“I have a story to tell you,” I said to him. “Once there was a girl named Maria who met a Cherokee boy. The boy was very poor, and he was also embarrassed of his speech because he stuttered, but the girl still thought he was quite handsome. Her mother and stepfather were afraid he wouldn’t provide a good life for her, so he set out to prove them wrong.”

“Ernest had a speech impediment?” he asked.

“I stuttered like a goddamn fool,” Ernest said.

I said, “And my life was hard when I was little. I had a stepfather who wasn’t very nice. My father had passed and my mother remarried an older man when I was a teenager. My sisters and I didn’t like him. He wasn’t nice to us, and he certainly wasn’t nice to my mother. But what I want to tell you is that I met Ernest when I thought things would never get better. I met Ernest and saw that boys could be nice, and the more I got to know him, the more I saw how caring he was.”

“Things can always get better,” Ernest said.

Wyatt smiled and thanked me for the story. “I better go to my room and pack up the records,” he said.

While he was in his room, I tried to talk to Ernest about the hearing, but he fell silent. His manner had changed, too. “Ernest,” I said, “you have to remember, this was a temporary foster placement.”

His hands were trembling. Something was wrong with him, which frightened me. I could see it in his face. The day had turned. He went into the kitchen, and I heard the water come on. A moment later the back door opened, and he walked out alone to the deck. I knew he didn’t want to talk about it. This wonderful boy, so much like Ray-Ray, had come into our lives. And tomorrow he would be leaving as unexpectedly as Ray-Ray had left us. No more impersonations. No more jokes or singing or talk of happy music from the Golden Age. Funny how quickly things change, I thought, then felt guilty for trying to let go so easily. He was still a boy. He was still a boy without a home. Maybe I should try to fight for him to stay with us, I thought.

BEFORE DINNER, Wyatt came into the living room with one final request: to give the shelter kids one last, special storytelling time. “I may never see some of them again,” he told me. “We’ll lie down in the grass behind the shelter and stare at the stars tonight. We’ll gaze up at the sky like it’s our last night alive. Sound good? One last story time?”

I could see how important it was to him, so I called Bernice, who called the shelter, and they all decided that as long as I accompanied them as chaperone, it would be fine. Wyatt was pleased to hear it. When I asked Ernest if he would like to go along, he shook his head.

“It’s Wyatt’s last night with us,” I said. “It might mean a lot to him for you to go.”

But he wouldn’t budge. He was stubborn like that. I could tell him to be more considerate of others’ feelings, but that would lead to worse things, like him losing his temper and walking out of the house, which had happened before. So I let him sit there by himself on the deck.

“Fine,” I said. “You can stay, but we’re going to the shelter for Wyatt’s story time. It’s important to him, and I want his last night with us to be special. If we stop for ice cream, I’ll bring you back a scoop of chocolate in a cone.”

“Rocky Road,” he said.

“Rocky Road.”

Wyatt was fine with Ernest staying there. In the car, on the drive to the shelter, I told him he was a wonderful storyteller and that all the shelter kids would miss him.

“It’s about fulfilling my purpose,” he said.

“And what purpose is that?” I asked.

“The purpose to be a storyteller. To help people.”

“You’ve got it all figured out, kiddo. How did you figure out so much so young?”

“I learned to trust my instinct,” he said calmly.

When we arrived at the shelter, by the time I checked in with the staff and signed everyone out on the chart, Wyatt had gathered an entire troop of residents to join him outside on this warm night, under the trees in the backyard of the shelter. They lay on their backs with their hands behind their heads, sprawled across the dark grass, yawning under the blue glow of the moonlight. There were few clouds in the sky. Once everyone fell quiet, we could all hear crickets and cicadas all around us.

I watched from nearby, texting Bernice: They’re like a pack of little wolves. It’s a quiet, starry night, perfect for storytelling.

“What are our chances of survival?” a boy named Lewis asked.

“I’d say it’s ninety-eight, ninety-nine percent,” Wyatt said.

“Not a hundred?”

“It’s never a hundred for anyone. But think about it. We’re on the outskirts of town, away from businesses, right next to the woods. There’s critters out here. The area’s open and clear, with a big sky full of stars. Look at that open sky up there, all that space and expansive darkness.”

“Those sound like decent odds,” another one spoke up. “Will it be on the ten o’clock news?”