I looked up. He was climbing again. When he wasn’t dangling his feet over the side of a beam, he was climbing one, then sliding back down it. Over and over again.
Every time he slid, however, my heart ended up in my throat. The boy couldn’t have been more than two years old. He was just a baby, climbing and sliding and dangling from beams that stood twenty-four feet high in the center of our living room.
But this time I was prepared. I’d hauled a ladder up from the basement. The kind that elongates and props up against whatever structure one wishes to scale.
Having finished my first cup, which was really like an appetizer, I dragged the ladder out from the butler’s pantry, where I’d stashed it. It was metal and noisy no matter how quiet I tried to be. I cringed when I knocked it against a wall, waited to make sure the man of the house wasn’t going to come check on me, then pulled the two parts until it was as long as it would go. The next part was a bit trickier. I tried to balance it against one of the beams overheard, but it was still too short.
The angel, who’d been ignoring me completely, looked on with something akin to mild interest, while I did some cyphering in my head. Never a good idea. Still, the way I saw it, I could use Captain Kirk to give me those extra inches I needed to reach the beam and climb up to the boy.
I put the ladder back down, almost strained a kidney moving the captain into place, then picked up the ladder again, knocking over a lamp in the process. I cringed again, but miraculously, it didn’t break. And who better to perform a miracle than a celestial stalker-like being?
I glanced back at the angel. He was the ginger in the black leather kilt. “Did you do that?”
The only indication that he even heard me was the fact that one imperious brow arched.
Of course he didn’t. He was far too above saving a lamp for little old me.
I tossed a blanket over the captain to protect his silky fabric, then leveraged the ladder onto one of his cushions. Still not quite enough. By the time I got done, I’d piled on an end table, a wingback chair, and a set of encyclopedias to hold it all in place. It worked. The ladder reached one of the bottom metal beams. I could get to the kid at last.
Now, if my luck held, Reyes would sleep another half hour while I tried to get to know our new roomie. I ascended my creation with the vigilance of a mountain climber scaling a wall of ice, ignoring the creaks and tiny slip to one side when I was about halfway up. Another two inches and I’d have been sipping my meals through a straw for the next few weeks. And wearing one of those hideous neck braces. Those things were impossible to accessorize.
By the time I got to the top, my arms were shaking, my feet hurt from the thin rungs of the ladder, and I had to pee. I totally should have gone before I left.
I crested the beam and wrapped both arms around it, resting my face against its cool surface. The little boy watched me the whole time. He giggled and ran toward me. Ran. On a beam that couldn’t have been more than ten inches wide.
I bolted upright to catch him should he fall, but he stopped short to take me in, to assess the intruder. His smile was the sun. His blue eyes the ocean. A tiny Viking so full of life, he glowed.
He pointed to my chest, and said, “Yite,” but he was not quite within arm’s reach. I wanted to grab him and take him back down with me. He’d probably just climb the walls back to his playground, but I had to try. I had to coax him closer.
I offered him my best Sunday smile. “What’s your name?”
He pointed to his pajamas, blue with brightly colored fish on them. He poked a goldfish. “Ishy.”
“Fishy?”
He nodded and pointed to one on his chest. Then his knee. Then his elbow.
Elated we were communicating, I laughed, peeled one hand off the beam, and pointed at another one right above his heart. “That one’s pretty. Do you like fishies?”
He nodded again, then pointed back at me, all the while balancing on the beam as though he were walking in the park. As though one of us wasn’t in danger of plummeting to her death or, more likely, ending up in traction.
“Yite,” he repeated, and it finally hit me. Light. He was referring to my light.
“Yes, I’ve been told I’m quite bright.” I leaned a little closer. “Not as bright as your smile, though.”
He giggled and took another step closer, his eyes sparkling with curiosity. Just a few more inches. Not that I had a clue how I was going to get down the ladder with him. And what I was attempting could be considered child abduction if he didn’t want to come with me, but I had to try.
I straddled the beam, almost toppling over more than once, breathlessly out of my comfort zone, and peeled my other hand off the metal. Then I gave him the universal sign for hug. I lifted my arms, palms up, and coaxed him forward, hoping beyond hope he’d come close enough for me to grab.
And he did. Boy did he. But he didn’t just inch closer as I’d imagined. Nope. He graced me with a nuclear smile, then sprinted forward.
“Wait!” But he’d already run right through me. He’d already entered the other side. He’d already crossed.
8
Children see magic because they look for it.
—CHRISTOPHER MOORE
The richness of the boy’s memories stole my breath. The textures and scents and emotions. He loved flowers and lollipops and, yes, fish. And his name was Curren.
Oftentimes when I’m gifted with the images and feelings and most precious memories of a life once lived, it starts at the end and goes backwards, and I have to flip it. To put everything in order and create my own timeline of events. But Curren showed me the most important things first. Beginning with his family.
He showed me how his mother would snuggle and rock him every night and sing to him as he nursed. How she would tickle him before bedtime. How she would catch him trying to hide food in a pocket in his bib while she wasn’t looking so they could move on to the most important part of the meal: memm-memms. M&Ms. But she always knew. Somehow she always knew. And she smelled like the flowers he loved so much.
He showed me how his dad took him to the hardware store once, and he was so proud, he kept waving to his mom and his siblings, all the way to the truck. Waving and smiling and blowing kisses even after his dad had strapped him into his car seat.
Because he wanted her to know. His mother. He wanted her to know how much he loved her. He needed her to understand.
When it happened, he wasn’t so much scared as stunned. He’d crawled out of bed early one morning and decided to climb up his dresser. When it fell on him, trapping him, suffocating him, all he thought about was her. She would be in soon. He could hear her footsteps on the stairs.
He loved walks. He loved toy cars. He loved flowers. So much so that a neighbor planted a giant sunflower garden after he’d passed.
His mother had found him. He remembered her screams. Her desperate cries for help as she struggled to get the dresser off him. Her pleas as she breathed into his mouth. But he wasn’t beneath her anymore. He was beside her. Trying to calm her with his hand on her shoulder.
They took him to the hospital, and she held him for hours, unwilling to let him go. Unable to. But the warmth left him and his body started to stiffen, and she had to give him up at last. Her pain was enough to seize my lungs. I could feel it through her son, they had such a strong connection.
And I saw them through his eyes now. Curren didn’t understand what his mother was doing, but I did. She was educating the public about the dangers of dressers and other furniture. About the countless children who had died so needlessly. About how to anchor furniture. To secure it.
And she took heat for it. For her outreach. Idiots chastised her for not watching him closely enough. For being a bad mother. If I’d ever seen a good mother in my life, it was this woman. My heart broke for her, but she carried on. Still carries on to this day.
I wanted her to know how exquisitely she was loved. How much her youngest son adored her. How her fight was worthy and commendable and needed.
With an older departed, I could write a letter or an e-mail to get a message to a loved one, pretending to be them. But with a two-year-old, I didn’t know how to get a message to the parents without upsetting them unduly. They were struggling to move on with their lives. How could I undermine that?
I would check on them. Keep an eye on them. Somehow I would let them know how loved they were. How loved they still are. Because he’ll be waiting for them in his blue ishy jammies.
I collapsed onto the cool beam, one cheek resting against it, legs and arms dangling over the side. It was for the best. I knew that, but I’d wanted … I’d wanted to hold him. To rock him and sing to him and tickle him until he giggled. All the things I couldn’t do with Beep. But he was with his family now, those who’d gone on before him. They deserved him much more than I did.
But I knew one thing for certain. No parent should have to go through that. No parent should have to be ripped apart like that. I had to find Dawn Brooks. I couldn’t imagine what her parents were going through, but if I knew the Fosters, and if they really took her, she was still alive. Somewhere. I had to find her.
* * *
I heard a male voice from somewhere below me. “Are you okay, pumpkin?”
Prying my eyes open, I looked down at Uncle Bob. He was dressed in a dark gray suit and had a file in his hands. I nodded, hoping he couldn’t see the drool I’d left on the beam. Then I realized the wetness was not drool but tears. I wiped my eyes and slowly, ever so slowly, sat up.