***
—and suddenly it was not that child at all, but her own self, her own little-girl self, wrapped in a soft blanket, with a woman, a mother, reading her a story, and outside it was snowing.
But where was the tortured boy? She looked around, out into the snow, thinking he would be cold, but he was not there—he was here with her, wrapped beside her in the blanket!
Then someone began to cry. Several people were crying. One was a young soldier, who leaned toward her, but he was pulled away, and there was a sound of shots, and she could hear him weeping, but only for an instant, because she looked down then and the little boy was there, smiling, and he was the soldier, or perhaps the son of the soldier, or the memory of the soldier. He was alive, and happy, and he held a stuffed donkey, and a dog was there, too. The boy and the dog and the donkey were her family, and no one was crying anymore, and the snarling man had gone away, and they were all together and safe. It was peaceful.
***
Her breathing slowed and became soft and regular. She smiled. Whatever had troubled her had ended. Thin Elderly and Littlest One relaxed. "She's fine," Thin Elderly said. "She's going to be fine."
"We did it!" Littlest said proudly.
"Well," Thin Elderly replied, "we helped."
He took her hand. "It's almost morning," he pointed out. "We must hurry back. The others will already be back in the Heap."
"Well, they didn't have to deal with the Horde," Littlest pointed out importantly, "the way we did."
Downstairs, they slid under the door and out into the last of the night.
Littlest looked around as they began their journey back. "Where is the Horde now?" she asked.
"Out there," Thin Elderly told her. "They are always out there."
27
Meticulously the young woman typed her son's name and created a place for him in Mrs. MacMahon's third grade class. He was a document now. He had a permanent place in her computer. John was part of a large group, since all of the Rosewood Elementary students were there, listed alphabetically and then individually, with their grades and their food allergies and their emergency numbers and their authorized pick-up-from-school people and their medical histories. John's chicken pox was there, and his ear infections, and the name of his doctor, and his broken arm—
She shuddered briefly, remembering last year's fracture; John was seven then. Duane still lived with them, and they lived in fear, she and John: what kind of mood would he be in when he came home (if he came home)? Sometimes he was Fun Daddy, laughing and as boisterous as a boy. But more and more by then, by the time John was seven, Duane was someone else, the person he had turned into, the person they didn't know, the person they feared.
They thought it was their fault. If they were nicer, or if she cooked better, or spent less money, or picked up the toys, or if they kept their hair combed a different way, then Fun Daddy would come back. So they tried. And sometimes it worked; that was what always threw her off balance, that it worked sometimes, and she could wheedle him out of his ugly mood and it would be the three of them again, laughing. But this happened less and less often. And not that night, the night he broke John's arm, the night she called the cops, the night she said "no more."
"Coming for coffee?" The school nurse leaned through the door and pointed to her watch. Break time.
She smiled and nodded. "Just typing in my boy's records. He's starting third grade. Look!" She pointed proudly to the computer screen, to the name "JOHN."
The woman came closer and bent down to look. "I didn't know you had a son. Is this his picture?" She picked up a small framed photograph from the desk and smiled at the little boy in a baseball uniform.
"Yes. He's eight."
"Was he here last year?"
She shook her head. "No. We moved over the summer."
"He your only one?"
She nodded.
"Hard," the nurse said, "with you working. What's he been doing all summer? Camp?"
"No. He's been visiting someone." She darkened the computer screen and they started down the hall toward the teachers' lounge where they all had coffee together on the midmorning break.
"A grandma? My kids go to their grandmother's."
"John doesn't have a real grandmother. They're both dead. But this woman's like a grandmother—a fake one, I guess..."
"A surrogate grandmother," the nurse said, smiling. "Lucky kid."
"Yes. And he's going to keep staying with her for a while. She'll bring him to school each day."
The guidance counselor held the door to the teachers' lounge open for them.
"I still have to get my act together. I had a whole lot of problems. I've had sort of a tough time since I got divorced."
The guidance counselor, overhearing the comment, said with a grin, "Haven't we all!"
Tears, suddenly, came to the young woman's eyes. Embarrassed, she brought her hand to her face, but it didn't help; she couldn't hold the tears back. "Oh!" she said. "I'm sorry!"
The fifth grade teacher, looking up from the table where he was going through a stack of papers, noticed her, stood, and came forward. "What's wrong?" he asked.
Stupid broad. Crying.
She cringed. Apologized. Hid her face.
One by one, though, they hugged her.
John's mother took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. "Sorry!" she said. "I don't know what came over me!" She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and reached for the coffee mug that had her name magic-markered onto it. Each time she entered this room, she felt as if she had found a home.
***
"And my mom will be there? You're sure?"
"Right there in the office, at her desk. We'll stop in to see her before we go to the classroom. Remember the office where I took you to visit last week?"
He nodded and adjusted the belt that held up his jeans. "You think my mom is pretty?" he asked.
"I do."
"She's like a movie star."
"Yes, I could see how beautiful she is. And I could see how much she loves you."
"My dad really loves her a lot. The only reason he went to California was because he got a really good job there. He's like a millionaire almost. He's going to buy us a really good car, not junky like yours. He's maybe buying a Ferrari."