The sibs sort of hung back a little bit at first. They were escorted into what was once some sort of library off the living room of the big, "repurposed" house.
It actually felt pretty comfortable, not "institutional." But the anger, fear and sadness of all the kids who'd been corralled there had seeped into everything over the years. It seeped into me, too.
So I went right over and knelt down in front of the kids almost like I was asking forgiveness, I guess. But mostly waiting for them to show me how they felt before I grabbed hold of anybody. I owed them that much.
We could hear people walking Mima through all kinds of final "instructions" in chirpy voices nothing like the ones we'd heard before that day. You would've thought we were at some sort of kiddie resort, the way they greeted and fawned over us when we got there.
Cody gave me the side eye over that. He knew something weird was up.
But Carli finally grabbed hold of me and then Kelli joined in and told me, "It wasn't that bad," like she was more worried about me than herself.
And then Cody said, "What'd they say? At that thing you all went to?"
In his "hard guy" voice. I wasn't home free yet.
"We're taking you home," I told him.
And he smirked and said, "Where's home now?"
"Don't talk to him like that," Mima said, hugging a big folder full of "dos and don'ts." "Cause on account of him, home can be wherever the hell you want it to be. If you act like you got some sense."
I didn't want to go into all that with them yet. I wanted to get them as far away from that place as we could, as fast as we could.
So I stood and hoisted Carli up onto my hip and said, "You ready to rock?"
And Carli gave a big, loud, "Yaaaaaay!" Sassy. Strong. The way I hoped she'd always be.
Cody sulked his way along behind us and I let him. I had my own attitude adjustments to deal with.
First off, I knew my whole life had opened up in some strange way that I couldn't comprehend. Having all that money was like having a real superpower. Because of all you could do with it, right? Only it scared me, to be honest. It made people act funny.
Would it do weird things to me, too?
I remember I was sort of in a daze at the little extended family gathering at Gerri's house, afterwards. I mostly sat there with the kids next to me on one of the patio couches and listened to everybody else yammering.
They were all so happy that they didn't really notice. They deserved to be. They'd come through for us big time. I was still struggling to believe that, too.
And then Abra's phone rang. And when she smirked, Aaron looked over at her from the bar he'd commandeered and said, "The moment of truth..."
And she said, "He can't handle the truth—Matt?"
And put him on speaker so we could hear: "What the hell's happening right now? I'm on three phones—he just quit?!"
"You're calling me about this?"
"Look...okay, yeah, I hear you, but I need to know what's going on. The big man's calling some kind of emergency briefing in a minute—I gotta know--"
"Plan kinda backfired, huh?"
"That kid has no idea what he's walking away from!"
"Walking away from you, mostly. I mean, you left him twisting in the wind, man. Trying to cover your own ass."
"I needed him to feel it. To face the reality of it."
"Oh, so you always knew how it would go?"
"I always knew there'd be a way to go. Might not have been the way we wanted to go, not at first—"
"Did you offer that kid something? The one who slipped him that shit?"
"You have to be kidding me! He's batshit that Toby kid!"
"So you told him you could do something, right? Find him some kind of work if he played along?"
"Wow."
"Did you?"
"No!"
"You did something."
"You want me to fall on my sword? Okay! The CPS thing—when our lawyers started calling, the case workers got the idea that he might run. That, I'll cop to. We made 'em suspicious, they got the court order..."
"Did you want them to be suspicious? Somewhere deep down in that hard little heart of yours? To make it an even bigger deal when you rode in like the cavalry—"
"He didn't understand. You were there, you know what was going on here—they're shitting bricks, Abra! They can't lose this guy! And alla agencies are gonna eat us alive, okay? You're in touch, right? You can—"
"Why am I even talking to you?" she said, hitting the little phone icon with a smirk.
"He really is fucked, though," Aaron said.
"He was fucked before this," Ben said. "He's been screwing up a lot lately. Screwing other people at the agency, sniffin' around trying to woo away their clients. Lost a coupla big accounts playing mind games like that. I had no idea what a schmuck he'd become. For that, I'm truly sorry, kiddo."
"I just want to talk to Elliott," I said. "Is that even possible yet?"
Carol smiled over at me, swishing her Bloody Mary around in a glass.
"She was awake this morning. A little goofy, but awake. We'll call her from the train. They're moving her to therapy today."
"She's gonna be there a while, huh?" Ben asked.
"Well, it's hard to say. It'll take some time, though, yeah. That left side..."
I was about to ask for more when Sochi came out with two big pitchers of Jamaica and set them on one of the umbrella tables. She'd kept busy from the moment we got there. In fact, she'd sat with the kids on the way home, too. I hadn't had a chance to talk to her at all.
And when Ben said, "There's the woman of the hour—sit, for Chrissake," I said, "Over here. I never even got to thank you or anything."
She flushed a little bit as she came and sat by Cody. And then she leaned back to stare into his angry eyes and said, "You are happy to be home?"
He grunted, "I guess so." And she hugged him anyway.
And then Ben said, "I got somethin'll put a smile on that sour puss!"
"Here we go," Aaron said. Only he was laughing. That little moment at the meeting had flipped some kind of switch in his brain, I think.
And Ben said, "Well, they've been through hell, these ones! So I thought, why not?!"
And Carol rolled her eyes and said, "He's got private Pullman cars! From this guy he knows. Lloyd something--owns banks here in Arizona. He renovates old train cars—crazy about trains."
"We got this one--it's historic," Ben said. "Presidents rode in this thing. Cost a friggin' fortune back in the day. Wood paneled—ridiculous. They'll hook 'em up to the Sunset Limited here in Tucson. Amtrak still does that shit can you believe it?"
"And we're gonna see Mickey when we get there in the morning," Carol told the kids. "Breakfast at Disneyland, before the park opens. They do that, still, too. Whaddaya think?"
That woke Cody up. He looked up at me all wide-eyed and said, "What's goin' on now?"
And I loved that he laughed when I said, "I'm not even sure." Like a switch had flipped in his brain, too. And we were friends again.
"Wire story," Abra said. "Damn, they're fast."
She sent the link to everybody. And Gerri whooped and said, "I like the big, bold headline on that one. 'Exonerated.'"
"Like anybody in today's America's gonna know what that means," Ben smirked.
"Good story, though," Abra said. "Lays it all out."
"Matt's a dead man," Aaron said. "I mean, a lotta heads are gonna roll—you reading this?"
"That was the point," Ben said. "It was criminal what they did to this kid."
"You guys brought those reporters?" I asked.
"We suggested we might have a better angle," Abra said.
"She suggested," Ben said. "Her, we're keeping."
Yoli came laughing in from the game room, pumping fists, and said, "I'm kicking her ass right now! The pinball queen! What's that face, son?"
I rubbed my temples and said, "I'm so confused..."
So she came over and kissed me and said, "You da man, cuz! And we're gonna throw the biggest skate party this city ever saw when y'all get back. Good?"
Espy came in and hugged me real hard. And said, "This is your breakthrough, buddy! Like the holy rollers say. This and that girl right there, that's some Holy Ghost magic comin' to you."
And then she winked at Sochi and said, "Child was huffin' and puffin' like a little steam engine when she called. 'They take them! They take them!' Man, she was pissed!"
"But it was them," Sochi said. "Who call everybody. I only ask who to call."
"Bullshit! You said we needed a big old crowd over there and who could we call."
"Are we really going to Disneyland?" Cody asked. That was all he wanted to be sure of.
And Mima said, "Always did want to see that place someday. I'm gonna get me some o' those ears." Just as into it as he was, bless her. She'd barely ever been downtown, let along to Cali.
And one piece of the money puzzle fell into place for me at that very moment. It was for them, the money. People I loved. People in need—all the places that'd done us a solid back when, I could start with them. Made me even dizzier, thinking of all the good we might be able to do...
So I looked over at Sochi and Cody. She was listening to him talk about the rides he'd heard other kids talk about. Which ones he wanted to ride first.
And I thought about these Pullman cars. And how we used to go sit in the old rusty, raggedy boxcars in the railroad yard out near Marana. After we made sure there were no psycho train bums in them. Some of them were cool, but some of them were definitely messed up.
My knife thing? I started learning after a "brief encounter" with a teen train bum with "homicidal ideation." Which blew up all over me one day on the street when I was about 10. He bragged about his "tendencies." Told me he'd slit more than a few throats while he was holding a knife to mine. I believed it, too.
I thought about that again when I was lounging in one of those cushy cars that night. They gave me the lead one to myself. I think because the other one had a big old club space where everybody could sit at tables and eat and play games and goof around.
The lounge in mine was more like a library or something. And the whole car was all wood paneled like he said. Carved wood. And it had built in niches, cabinets--chandeliers and shit, even.
I finally talked to Elliott in one of the big bedrooms. Not in one of those little fold down beds. In a big old four poster. This huge master suite off to itself at the far end, no less.
But just seeing her face brought me back down to Earth. I mean, she looked so tired. And her left side was definitely frozen. So only the right side of her face moved when she talked or smiled.
I could feel her really watching to see how it would affect me, too. So I hit her with, "What would you have done if I had told you when my birthday was? Jeez..."
And she laughed and said, "Surprise!"
"Yeah, no shit!"
"Well, you gave me a prom, I gave you a present. We're even."
"Not. And you really wrote that? That day, at the shrine thing?"
She laughed and said, "I was like a little teenage girl again when I first met you, my darling. Those days when we would write our married names at the bottoms of notes to our girlfriends. Mrs. Elliott King, Ellie King, EK hearts SK..."
"You're loving this aren't you?"
"My dear, you really are the man of my dreams! Of course I'm a bit chagrined I met you too late in life, but then I'm still getting a chance to pass on all those worldly goods to someone I actually love. And like the son I never had, you can take care of me in my dotage. You and that incredible little woman who apparently stole the show today—do you ever stop and think about how you met that girl? What a miracle that was?"
"Same way I met you. Same beach, anyway."
"I didn't believe in miracles until I met you. I wrote that note almost...to say that. Thinking I'd be proved wrong, of course. That you'd turn out to be just...some cute kid I had a little fun with one summer. But some part of me knew you were about to change my life in some much more profound way. I handled that knowledge rather badly. Took it as...a final fling, not the life altering thing it turned out to be."
I laughed and said, "God, you're making my head hurt even worse..."
"Apologies! There's a cure for that somewhere on that train. Where is she?"
"You know, it's weird. She's been a little bit...I don't know...distant, since the meeting. Overwhelmed, probably."
"I think she's always been afraid to hurt me. She's from a culture that sees love and marriage and everything else differently than we do. So as long as you and I were doing whatever we were doing..."
"Yeah, I know. And I mean...I feel that way, too, Elliott. Cause—"
"Oh, my dear, that's very sweet, but I am completely out of commission. They're carting me off to rehab hoping I'll regain at least a modicum of control. My left side is dead and the right is weak. They're happy that I'm still speaking, but there are times when I don't make much sense. I've got all these damaged bits in my brain from the little strokes and things and I'm numb down where it counts. And of course...well...the plumbing leaks, so to speak. So..."
I closed my eyes and said, "Wow..."
And she said, "Wow, indeed. So...c'est fini, our little liaison amoureuse. Though I will love you forever and ever, amen."
I started to cry. I mean, big old sobs—ugly crying, man. I had to put my arms over my face.
And she got all panicky like she thought I was having a breakdown or something, but I finally managed to blubber out something like, "I just hate that you're having such a hard time..."
"Oh, go play now," she told me. "I don't want you crying. And I don't want you worrying. They've found most of the answers they need and they're going to put Humpty Dumpty back together again as best they can. I will outlive some of the people on that train with you, my dear. So stop sobbing and take those children to Disneyland! I'm ringing off now!"
"No, wait! I want—shit!"
She had rung off. And I almost called her back but someone rang the little door chime thing. And when I said, "Yo," Sochi said, "Me."
And I smiled and in Spanish I said, "Your ears must've been itching. Come in here."
She peeked in and said, "They want you."
"I want you, though. I just talked to Elliott."
She did this little...I can't describe it, but she sort of averted her eyes in this odd way...
So I said, "She's fine, Sochi. She's going to rehab for a bit, but—"
"No, stop please," she said.
"What's going on with you? Seriously."
She said, "Nothing," and turned to leave.
And when I leapt off that bed to go after her and she startled like she was afraid I was going to hit her or something, I almost started sobbing again.
I mean, WTF, right?