What joy it will be, if the gods remember us . . .
Act 2, scene 29
Tom and Daniel were given oxygen masks, and someone put a blanket around Tom’s shoulders. The ambulance worker tried to give one to Daniel, but he shrugged it away. Over by another ambulance, Tom could see Pam. The red-haired social worker from the youth shelter was beside her with her arm around Pam’s shoulders. Tom felt he’d grown inches in the last few minutes. The ground seemed far away.
Tom asked the paramedic, nodding in Daniel’s direction, “Is he okay?”
“I think he’s all right,” the worker said to Tom. “How about you?”
“I’m okay,” Tom said.
He was better than okay. He was alive! He could breathe! He could walk—he could up and walk in any direction he chose: back to Samuel, back to the cops to report an assault by Boyfriend Bruce, back to someone who would help him get back on his feet. He could decide.
The ambulance worker was checking out a kid who had just been brought to him. “This one’s a transport,” he said to his partner. They loaded the kid into the ambulance. The kid looked about ten years old. He was wheezing like he had an old whistle lodged in this windpipe.
“That was Winter,” Daniel said. “He goes home in the summer, when his dad’s away on the rigs. In the winter, he stays with us.” His voice was drowned out as the ambulance peeled away and switched on its sirens. Tom wanted to write down what Daniel had said about Winter.
The firefighters were laying some things neatly in a row. They were too busy to see Tom and Daniel. What were the firemen doing? Tom thought he was seeing everything through gauze. Maybe he was dreaming.
Tom came closer, until he could see for sure.
Morocco. Rain. Jeffrey-Jones. Laid out side by side.
He knelt by Jeffrey-Jones. He wasn’t burned. He wasn’t bruised, not that Tom could see. He was perfect, almost smiling, like he’d smiled when he’d told Tom welcome, it’s all free.
“You know him?” someone in a uniform asked.
Tom nodded. “Jeffrey-Jones.”
“Spell it?”
Tom spelled it. He spelled it perfectly. He just knew.
Tom looked and made himself see. He made himself see that they were dead. This was something you had to remember. Real power wasn’t in forgetting. It was in remembering. He would write it down and make people see that here were good hearts. He knew he could do it, knew he could make people see with his words. He knew what words could do now. They could make people see what had been real all along. He hoped Jeffrey-Jones was home now. H–O–M–E.
Pam wailed. They laid out Janice’s body, still clutching a melted doll.
“Get these kids out of here,” a man with a clipboard ordered.
The social worker led Pam away, and Tom and Daniel were directed out of the cordoned-off area.
They walked away together without speaking. They both headed for the island.
Samuel was standing by the river when they came, his arms limp at his sides, his face crumpled as a blond raisin. He was as lean as Daniel, and Tom could see that Daniel looked like his father, and almost as old.
“Daniel,” Samuel said softly.
The old man put his hands on Daniel’s shoulders hesitantly, as if he wasn’t sure Daniel would really be there. Tom knew he’d be feeling what he felt: skin like paper, and underneath, fragile bones. Ghost bones. Skin as translucent as ghost skin. And dead eyes. There was no light in those eyes. They’d been bounced out of heaven one too many times, those eyes.
Daniel wavered, ghostlike, and Tom thought the boy would have floated away if Samuel hadn’t had his hands on his son’s shoulders.
Samuel shook. His huge hands lifted to cup Daniel’s face. His hand went all the way around Daniel’s skull. He felt his son’s face with his thumbs, the bones of his jaw, back to his shoulders. It was if he couldn’t really see him, as if he were blind and needed his hands to see him with. He bent down and dipped his hand in the water. He washed the soot from his son’s face, as if he were an infant. He washed his sores.
“No one sees the river anymore but me,” Samuel said to Daniel. His voice was a chant. “I sat by it waiting for you, learning patience. It became my river. Now I give it to you. It is always the river, but the water in it is always new. Do you see, Daniel? You will always be Daniel, but the spirit in you can be new. Come home with me.”
Daniel put his hands over his father’s. His hair flowed behind him. It seemed to Tom in that instant that the river was rushing too fast for such a slow, sad moment.
“I am sorry, son,” Samuel said. His voice was so clogged that Tom could scarcely understand him. “I am sorry. I love you.”
They embraced.
When Samuel opened his eyes, he seemed surprised to see Tom standing there still. “You can go home now, Tom Finder,” he said gently. “Go home.”