The Last Child

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Social Services came for Johnny the next day. He held his mother’s hand as two case officers stood by the car’s open door. Heat rolled off the parking lot. Cars flew by on the four-lane. “You’re hurting my fingers,” Johnny whispered.

His mother loosened her grip and spoke to Hunt. “Is there no other way?”

Hunt was equally subdued. “With all that’s happened. The violence. The media. They have no choice.” He stooped and looked Johnny in the eye. “It’s just for a while. I’ll speak on your mother’s behalf. We’ll make this right.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

Johnny looked at the car and one of the ladies offered a smile. He gave his mother a hug. “I’ll be okay,” he said. “It’ll be like doing time.”

He got in the car. And that’s how it was for the next month. Like doing time. The family they gave him to was kind but detached. They treated him like a hard word might break him, yet conspired to act as if nothing unusual had happened. They were unfailingly polite; but he caught them at night, watching the news reports, reading the papers. They’d shake their heads and ask each other: “What does something like that do to a boy?” Johnny thought they probably slept with their door locked. He thought of the looks they would give if, just once, late at night, he rattled the knob.

The court ordered Johnny to see a psychologist, and so he did, but the guy was an idiot. Johnny told him what he needed to hear. He described made-up dreams of domestic boredom and claimed to sleep through the night. He swore that he no longer believed in the power of things unseen, not totems or magic or dark birds that steal the souls of the dead. He had no desire to shoot anyone, no desire to harm himself or others. He expressed honest emotion about the deaths of his father and sister. That was grief, pure gut-wrenching loss. He loved his mother. That, too, was truth. Johnny watched the shrink nod and make notes. Then he didn’t have to go anymore.

Just like that.

They let Johnny see his mother once a week for supervised visitation. They’d go to the park, sit in the shade. Each week, she brought Jack’s letters. He wrote at least one a day, sometimes more. He never discussed how bad it was in the place they’d sent him. Never about his hours, his days. Jack talked most of regret and shame and of how Johnny was the only good thing in his life. He talked of things they’d done together, plans they’d made for the future. And he begged to be forgiven. That’s how he ended all of his letters.

Johnny, please.

Tell me we’re friends.

Johnny read every letter, but never responded. They filled a shoe box under the bed at his foster house.

“You should write him back,” his mother told him once.

“After what happened? After what he did?”

“He’s your best friend. His father broke his arm. Think about that.”

Johnny shook his head. “There were a million times he could have told me. A million ways.”

“He’s young, Johnny. You’re both so very young.”

Johnny stared at the court-appointed monitor while the idea rolled in his mind. “Did you forgive Detective Hunt’s son?”

She followed Johnny’s gaze. The monitor sat at a nearby picnic table. She was hot in a blue suit too heavy for the season. “Hunt’s son?” she asked, voice distant. “He seems very young, too.”

“Are you seeing Detective Hunt?”

“Your father’s funeral is tomorrow, Johnny. How could I be seeing anyone?”

“It would be okay, I think.”

His mother squeezed his arm and stood. “It’s time.” The court monitor was approaching. “You have the suit?” she asked. “The tie?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like them?”

“Yes.”

They had a few seconds left. The next time they were together, it would be to bury the ones they loved most. The monitor stopped a few feet away. She gestured at her watch, and her face reflected something like regret.

Johnny’s mother turned away, eyes bright. “I’ll pick you up early.”

Johnny took her hand and squeezed. “I’ll be ready.”

The funeral was a double service. Father and daughter, side by side. Hunt called in favors and had the cemetery cordoned off to protect the family from the idle curious, the press. The priest was not the same fat, red-faced priest that Johnny remembered in such poor light. This was a young man, thin and serious, a blade of a priest in white, flashing robes. He spoke of choice and the power of God’s love.

Power.

He made the word sing, so that Johnny nodded when he said it.

The power of God’s love.

Johnny nodded but kept his eyes on the coffins and on the high blue sky.

The high, empty sky.

Three weeks after the funeral, Katherine stood in the yard of a well-maintained two-bedroom house. It had a covered front porch, two bathrooms, and the largest, greenest yard she could find. The kitchen was newly remodeled. Down the street was the house that Johnny had lived in all of his life, minus the last year or so. She’d hoped to buy that one, but the life insurance from her late husband had to last until she figured what to do with her life. How to make a living for her and her son.

She stared down the street, then let it go. This place had a tree house, a creek that ran through the backyard.

It would be enough.

When Hunt came out of the house, his shirt was wet with sweat. A tuft of fiberglass insulation sprouted from the back of his head. He turned and looked back at the house. “It’s solid,” he said. “It’s nice.”

“You think Johnny will like it?”

“I think so. Yes.”

Katherine dipped her head. “Johnny comes home tomorrow. We’ll need some time, you know. Just the two of us. Time to find some kind of rhythm.”

“Of course.”

“But in a month or so, I thought maybe you might come over for dinner.”

“That would be nice, too.”

Katherine nodded, nervous and scared and uncertain. She turned and looked at the house. “It really is okay, isn’t it?”

Hunt kept his eyes on her face. “It’s perfect.”