The Stolen Child(44)

Vanished. Those intervening years had shaped her into a beautiful young woman.

"Do you still play piano?" she asked. "I hear you're up in the city at col-lege. Are you studying

music?"

"Composition," I told her. "For orchestra and chamber music. I gave up performing the piano.

Couldn't ever get comfortable in front of people. You?"

"I'm nearly finished for my LPN—licensed practical nurse. But I'd like to get a master's in social

work, too. All depends."

"Depends on what?"

She looked away, toward the door. "On whether I get married or not. Depends on my boyfriend, I

guess."

"You don't sound too enthusiastic."

She leaned to me, her face inches from mine, and mouthed the words: I'm not.

"Why is that?" I whispered back.

As if a light clicked on behind her eyes, she brightened. "There's so much I want to do. Help those

in need. See the world. Fall in love."

The boyfriend came looking for her, the screen door slapping the frame behind him. Grinning at

having found her, he had an uncanny effect upon me, as if I had met him somewhere long ago, but I

could not place his face. I could not shake the feeling that we knew each other, but he was from the

opposite side of town. His appearance spooked me, as if I were seeing a ghost or a stranger drawn from

another century. Tess scrambled to her feet and nestled into his side. He stuck out a paw and waited a

beat for my handshake.

"Brian Ungerland," he said. "Sorry for your loss."

I muttered my thanks and resumed my observation of the unchanging lawn. Only Tess's voice

brought me back to the world. "Good luck with your compositions, Henry," she said. "I'll look in the

record store for you." She steered Brian toward the door. "Sorry we had to renew our friendship under

these circumstances."

As they left, I called out, "I hope you get what you want, Tess, and don't get what you don't." She

smiled at me over her shoulder.

After all the visitors had departed, my mother joined me on the porch. In the kitchen, Mary and

Elizabeth fussed over the covered dishes and the empty glasses in the sink. The final moments of the

funeral day, we watched crows gather in the treetops before evening fell. They flew in from miles away,

strutted like cassocked priests on the lawn before leaping into the branches to become invisible.

"I don't know how I'll manage, Henry." She sat in the rocker, not look-ing at me.

I sipped another rum and Coke. A dirge played in the background of my imagination.

She sighed when I did not reply. "We've enough to get by. The house is nearly ours, and your

father's savings will last awhile. I'll have to find work, though the Lord knows how."

"The twins could help."

"The girls? If I had to count on those two to help with so much as a glass of water, I would be dead

of thirst. They are nothing but trouble now, Henry." As if the notion had just occurred to her, she

quickened her rocking. "It will be enough to keep them out of ruining their reputations. Those two."

I drained the glass and fished a wrinkled cigarette from my pocket.

She looked away. "You might have to stay home for a while. Just until I can get on my feet. Do you

think you could stay?"

"I guess I could miss another week."

She walked over to me and grabbed my arms. "Henry, I need you here. Stay for a few months,

and we'll save up the money. Then you can go back and finish up. You're young. It will seem long, but it

won't be."

"Mom, it's the middle of the semester."

"I know, I know. But you'll stay with your mother?" She stared till I nodded. "That's a good boy."

I ended up staying much longer than a few months. My return home lasted for a few years, and the

interruption of my studies changed my life. My father hadn't left enough money for me to finish college,

and my mother floundered with the girls, who were still in high school. So I got a job. My friend Oscar

Love, back from a tour of duty with the navy, bought an abandoned store off Linnean Street with his

savings and a loan from the Farmers & Merchants. With help from his father and brother, he converted

the place into a bar with a stage barely big enough for a four-piece combo, and we moved the piano

from my mother's house. A couple of guys from the area were good enough to round out a band. Jimmy

Cummings played the drums, with George Knoll on bass or guitar. We called ourselves The Coverboys,

because that's all we played, and when I wasn't pretending to be Gene Pitney or Frankie Valli, I would

tend bar a few other nights of the week. The gig at Oscar's Bar got me out of the house; plus, the few

extra dollars enabled me to help out the family. My old friends would drop in, applaud my return to