Detour

THIRTY-ONE

He was back in the comfy surroundings of home—he’d been unable to think of anywhere else to go.

Except it wasn’t comfy. There were too many reminders.

He pushed the crib across the apartment and halfway into the closet so he wouldn’t have to look at it, pink teddy bears grinning up at him on their ride across the room, as if amused by his childish attempt to hide the hopelessness of his situation.

Lisa must’ve heard it rolling across the floor, because a second later Paul heard a knock at the door. When he tiptoed over to squint through the eyehole, Lisa, Joanna’s best friend, was squinting back, her puzzled expression causing her mouth to twist nearly sideways, an endearing affectation Paul had always found vaguely sexy. Not today. Either Paul and Joanna were back—suddenly and unannounced—or someone was burglarizing their apartment.

Paul felt a little like a burglar, an intruder into his own life.

Paul waited her out.

He had the visa story all ready to go, but he was in no mood to use it. Not yet.

After Lisa had knocked once more, then shrugged and left, Paul picked up the stack of letters he’d taken from Miles’ office. If you sniffed them closely, you could still smell his blood.

He closed the blinds and turned off the phone. It would take Rachel a while to locate him. He couldn’t remember whether she knew his last name, probably not. It didn’t matter—at some point she’d look through Miles’ phone book, with the police over her shoulder, and collect all the Pauls. They’d winnow it down to him. Eventually, they’d call.

I went to talk to Miles about my adoption problems. When I left the house, he was alive. Was he depressed? A little—he mentioned something about gambling debts. I’m so sorry to hear about this.

The letters weren’t dated.

But he was able to organize them chronologically by color. From parched yellow to off-white.

The most recent was the letter he’d read that night, the letter Miles’ son had written from summer camp. It was the other letters he was interested in. The other letters that had come tumbling out of The Story of Ruth. These letters were different. These letters weren’t written by a child.

They were written about a child.

Dear Mr. Goldstein, the first one began.

I have a child in desperate need of adoption.

Most people wrote to Miles wanting to adopt a child. Needing, asking for, even begging, for a child. This letter was different—it was offering one up.

Consider this a special request, this letter continued. This has to happen immediately. There’s no time to follow the usual paperwork. That’s why I’m writing to you directly. That’s why I need your help. I have to hear from you now. Today. Tomorrow. I beg you to answer me as soon as humanly possible.

Paul went on to the second letter, then the third.

He read them slowly, carefully, sometimes going back to reread something before pushing forward through time. All the letters, of course, were written to Miles. He didn’t have the letters Miles wrote back. It was like eavesdropping on one-half of a phone conversation. You had to supply the responses yourself. You had to fill in the blanks.

The letters went on to explain who this child was. A three-year-old girl. The letter writer insisted the child needed to leave Colombia now. It explained why. Her father was after her. The girl was in terrible danger. And finally and most tellingly, the letters explained how this was all going to take place.

After he’d read the last letter, he reread them all. And he remembered how Miles had spoken in fragments and how he—Paul—had followed behind trying to collect the fragments and glue them together.

What are the odds poor little Paul’s going to put this together?

Bad, Miles, he thought now, awful, but it’s just possible the odds were getting better.

The full name of the little girl’s father never appeared. Just an initial. R. Somewhere between letters, his name must’ve been whispered in Miles’ ear, then never mentioned again.

But the letter writer was there at the bottom of every page. That’s what Paul had noticed exiting the room, blood in his nostrils—what had made him stop and look and read. The signature at the bottom of the page.

A lovely lilt to the letters, especially the G.

For Galina.