LaRose(11)

It was good that LaRose was with Peter, who didn’t interfere. For a while Emmaline held on to her child, smelling his hair. She looked at Peter, and when he nodded she let LaRose hang on to the cart for a ride. She walked the store with him, talking. It was like being heart-dead and then heart-alive, but she couldn’t shop forever. Peter helped her carry groceries out and then she brought LaRose to the Ravich car. LaRose got in without crying, buckled himself into the backseat. His wordless bravery choked her. As they drove away, he waved at Emmaline. He seemed to float from her on a raft of frail sticks. Or was that a dream? Every morning, she floated to consciousness on that same disintegrating raft. Many times each day, she questioned what they had done.

After seeing LaRose, she couldn’t go home. She thought that she might see her mother, but instead found that she was drawn to the church. She then thought that she might pray there, for peace. But instead she walked around back of the church. She thought that she might find Father Travis, but he wasn’t in any of the church offices or at the rectory—a simple boxy house. She started to feel uncomfortable, tracking him down this way. Then she saw him at a distance, working a little Bobcat by the lake, building a walkway. He was wearing a droopy brown stocking hat pulled down behind his ears. The hat made his ears stick out. It should have made him look ridiculous. But it was hard to make Father Travis look ridiculous. He had wind-toughened skin, lightly freckled, the classic red-blond’s sun-shy complexion. His cheekbones were planar, almost brutal, and he had a chiseled movie-star chin. Just as his looks had begun to grate on people, he’d gotten older, which made him easier to bear. Also, scars flamed down his throat. Father Travis’s eyes could be warm if he smiled, the lines around them starred pleasantly outward. His eyes could also go the other way—somber, colorless, maybe dangerous—but of course he was no longer an earthly soldier.

He shut the Cat down when he saw Emmaline and got off. She was used to seeing him in a cassock. Father Travis wore cassocks most of the time because he liked the convenience. He could put them on over T-shirts and work pants. The old people liked to see him in one, and after The Matrix the young people liked it too. But right now he wore old jeans, plaid flannel shirt, a brown canvas jacket.

Emmaline smiled at him, surprised.

He glanced around the yards, checking to see if anybody was watching. It was that—the checking—he thought later, that gave it all away. His heart was hidden from his thoughts for days, until he remembered glancing over Emmaline’s shoulder to make sure no one was watching.

They shoved their hands in their pockets and walked the fitness trail that he was making through the woods. They passed the push-up rail, the chin-up bar, before she could say anything.

I didn’t want to give LaRose to them, she said.

Why did you?

The sun glowing in green lake water on a bright day—her eyes were that color.

It seemed the only way, she said. She’s my sister, after all. I thought she would let me see him, spend time. But no. So I want him back. I just saw him. He’s going to think that I don’t love him.

Father Travis was still surprised by what they had done. He thought back to their visit just after Landreaux was released—they had wanted to tell him something. He had heard of these types of adoptions in years past, when disease or killings broke some families, left others whole. It was an old form of justice. It was a story, and stories got to him. A story was the reason he had become a priest, and a story was why he’d not yet walked off the job. In the evenings, between action movies, Father Travis parsed out the New Testament.

Mary gave her child to the world, he almost said, looking at Emmaline. It all made sense for she was wearing a sky blue parka. The hood was missing the fur band, so it capped her head in a way that reminded him of pictures of the Blessed Virgin. Her hair, parted in the middle, flowed back under the blue material in smooth wings.

You tried to do a good thing, said Father Travis. LaRose will understand that. He will come back to you.

Emmaline stopped and looked closely at him.

You sure?

I’m sure, he said, then couldn’t help himself. Neither life, nor angels, nor principalities nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, not height, nor depth, nor any other creature will separate you.

Emmaline looked at him like he was crazy.

It’s a Bible quote.

He looked down at the scraped path. Quoting Romans like a pompous ass . . .

LaRose is young, she said, her hungry eyes blurring. They forget if you’re not with them every day.

Nobody could forget you, thought Father Travis. The blurted thought unnerved him; he made himself speak sensibly.

Look, you can retrieve LaRose at any time. Just say you want him back. Peter and Nola have to listen. If not, you can go to Social Services. You are his mother.

Social Services, she said. Huh. Ever heard of rez omerta?

Father Travis abruptly laughed.

Besides, I am Social Services. The crisis school is all a social service. I’d have to get in touch with myself.

What’s wrong with that? said Father Travis.

She shook her head, looked away as she spoke.

You mean I didn’t see it coming? Didn’t know it would be this difficult? Can’t understand why this is unbearable when there is history and tradition, all that, behind what we did?

She rubbed her face with her hands as if to erase something else.