A Thousand Steps

51

The next morning Matt, his father, and a hospital orderly get Julie out of the wheelchair and into the Westfalia. It takes a minute to get her arranged comfortably on the padded bench, especially with the long loose farm dress she asked Matt to bring from Dodge. Matt is all but silent, Bruce irritable.

“You two seem gloomy,” says Julie, once they’re moving. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Matt drives the back roads out toward Dodge while his father explains the failure of their mission, their many hours of hope and exertion all crashing down into nothing.

Matt tells her about the two Little Wings they’ve discovered. Found within half a mile of each other, near PCH. He tells her they could only have been folded and launched by Jazz, using the same ukulele music he gave to her as a birthday present.

He tries to bring optimism to his voice, hears none of it. Isn’t sure if he believes himself.

“I think we might have a miracle on our hands,” says Julie. “I see no reason why paper airplanes can’t show us the way.”

“It’s a long shot, Julie,” says Bruce. “We know that.”

The feral boys of Dodge City whoop like warriors and run alongside the van as it putts down Woodland. They’ve got feather headbands, plastic bows, and rubber-tipped arrows, some of which stick to the windows. Matt swerves left and sends them scattering.

They get Julie in her chair over the threshold of the little red barn and into the main room. In the middle of the room she raises a hand and Matt stops.

“I love my home,” she says. “I want us to be happy here, Matt. You, me, Jasmine, and Kyle.”

“Don’t forget me,” says Bruce.

She gives him a sad look. “I didn’t.”

Matt glances at his father’s stricken expression, then stares at the dizzying fleur-de-lis pattern of the floor. He’s sick to death of his mother and father, can’t wait to get out of here.

He stands and leans over Julie, hugging her softly, counting the seconds. Are five seconds enough to signify warmth and sincerity?

“Welcome home,” he says. “There’s halibut steaks in the freezers. I’m heading out now. I got my route back as of today, so, it’s business as usual.”

Except for Furlong, he thinks.

Julie gives Bruce a frank look. “You can hit the road, too. I could use some time to myself.”

Bruce skedaddles but Matt stays put. There’s one thing he needs to know before he gets out of here. It’s been eating at him since that day.

“Mom, when you got hurt out at the festival, did you slip and fall, or did you jump?”

When his mother looks at him, Matt sees the shame on her face.

“I thought I could fly. I’m so sorry, Matt. I’ll never get like that again. Ever.”

Matt nods. “No, don’t.”

Halfway to Third Street to drop off his father, Bruce breaks the silence.

“Come on by tonight after work. We’ll stash the van in the garage, get drive-through and have a few drinks. I wouldn’t mind some company.”

“Sure, Dad.”

“I don’t blame her for hating me.”

“She wants to believe you.”

After dropping off Bruce, he hides the Westfalia in Laurel’s garage.

Sore feet or not, he’s relieved to be back on the Heavy-Duti again, delivering newspapers, doing something he’s good at. It’s nice to be earning money. His bigger muscles mean more speed.

Furlong lurks all around him, Matt knows, but something in his failure to save Jazz has lessened his fear. Furlong can throw him into Moby Cop and the DA can charge him and the judge can toss him into kiddie prison and Dr. Mary Hamilton can throw away the key. But they can’t make him twice betray someone who has trusted him, given him work when he was almost broke, even given him a Bat Cave to hide in if he needs it. Given him discounts on day-old muffins and given work to Jazz, too. As weird and mind-blown and occasionally devious as Johnny Grail and his BEL might be, they’ve stood by him.

Matt porches Coiner’s paper over the sprinklers that he knows the old fart turns on this time every day in order to mess with him. He out-pedals the slobbering St. Bernard, Hercules, down Oak Street, lofts the Reiten paper over the oleander and fires the Shostag afternoon final straight into the open garage where Mrs. Shostag wants it.

He’s just not afraid of Hercules anymore.

Furlong either.

He finishes his route early. Leaving him three hours of daylight in which to find another paper airplane from Jasmine.

Little Wing is his chance. It’s registered in his mind’s eye. He can see it clearly and perfectly, same as he saw that behemoth halibut in the shallow water or Laurel Kalina’s expression in the Gauguin tableau or Sara Eikenberg’s doubtful brown eyes. Little Wing waits inside him, the shape of hope, waiting to be filled.

He cruises the central and eastern neighborhoods, to which Laguna’s prevailing onshore breeze would carry a paper airplane. His sharp eyes scan from trees to streets, rooftops to gutters, hedges to lawns. Sidewalks and gardens, car hoods and birdbaths.

Moby Cop trundles across the intersection of Thurston and Temple Hills so he quickly slides in behind a wall of Italian cypress trees that shelters a house from the street, lays his bike and himself down on cool grass. He watches through the front spokes, and waits.

Five minutes later he’s ready to go, when Moby Cop comes up the street from behind him. Pure Furlong, to double back like that. Matt’s heart beats against the ground as the van passes by.

He gives the cops another few minutes, then gets himself back down Temple Hills Drive to Rim Rock — watching, watching, watching for the neat pale rectangle that will be Little Wing.

Later, in the fresh new dark, he sees a white shape lilting on the street near the gutter. And something round beside it. He skids to a stop and looks down at the Sunshine Inn bag and the paper beverage cup nearby.