Escape
Two years later
“Matt, wake up.” Hope shook my shoulder, but I was already awake. Wide awake. I had awoken as soon as she had stirred and left the bed. Years of training will do that to you. Training I wished would work its way out of my system—especially at three o’clock on a Sunday morning when I had been intending to sleep in.
I could feel the anxiety in Hope’s voice when she spoke. “He’s gone,” she said.
I groaned and sat up. “The locks?”
“Still locked.”
“The alarm?”
“Still armed.”
“And you’re sure he’s not anywhere in the house?”
“I checked everywhere. He’s not here.” I could see now that she held Jin, asleep, in her arms, the baby’s head hidden in the curls of Hope’s hair. The sight of them silhouetted in the light in the hallway took my breath away. My two women. My two angels. Why did Peng have to be so difficult?
When I first met Hope, I thought her mountains of hair were a sign of pretentiousness or insecurity. But I found out she worked in a specialized medical unit designed for kids with cancer, that she was a survivor of the disease herself, and that she used her hair as a beacon of light for children who were in a very dark place. But even Hope seemed to have difficulty getting through to Peng.
“I thought you said the new locks could not be defeated,” Hope said.
“That’s what the installer told me. Apparently the installer hasn’t met Peng.”
“Apparently not.” Hope began to bounce Jin faster. Her voice was tight as she spoke. “What do you think he does when he leaves at this time of night? Do you think he’s doing something . . . bad?”
I pulled on my pants, T-shirt, and socks. “With his ability to get around locks, maybe he’s robbing a bank,” I said. “At least we could recoup some of our adoption expenses.”
“Matt.” The tone in Hope’s voice told me that now was not an appropriate time for me to act like me. “There are gangs on the streets. Drug dealers. Bad people. You don’t think he’s involved in something, do you?”
I thought before responding. “I’ve never seen any sign of drugs. And when I find him, he’s not hanging out with gangbangers or junkies. He’s not hanging out with anybody. He’s always alone. He’s always at a bus stop or Trax station. It’s almost like he wants me to find him. But whether he’s involved in something bad . . . well, your guess is as good as mine.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be good at reading people?” Hope was glaring at me now, and I wasn’t too comfortable being on the receiving end of her wrath.
“I am very good at reading people,” I said, pulling on my sneakers. “For example, I can see that you would really like to hit me right now.”
Hope let out a large breath and stopped bouncing Jin. “I don’t want to hit you. I’m just afraid. I’m afraid we are going to lose him. I’m afraid we are losing him. This is such a critical age. If he goes off the rails now, he may never come back.”
“I’m not sure he’s really ever been here,” I said, pulling on my shirt. I put my hand on Hope’s shoulder as I thought about Peng and the faraway look he often had in his eyes.
“Maybe we should be tougher on him,” Hope said, bouncing Jin again and breaking contact with me. “Other parents ground their kids when they disobey. Maybe we are being too lenient.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But other parents don’t have a kid that could break out of Fort Knox. Besides, he spends most of his time alone in his room anyway. Grounding him to his room might feel like a reward.”
“We could take away his electronics.”
I laughed. “He would probably just make more. I’ve never seen anyone who can look at a piece of machinery or electronics like he does and automatically know how it works. Maybe he’s just another Einstein. Maybe he just needs the night air to incubate his genius.”
“He’s our son. We have to do something. We’re his parents. We can’t just let him dictate the terms. He needs structure. He needs discipline.” She bit at her lower lip. She was looking at the wall, but her words were directed at me. “He needs a father,” she said.
I stood, grabbed my jacket, and walked past her out the door. I should have just left without saying anything. I should have walked out the door and let the steam roll out of my ears. But I was never very good at keeping my mouth shut. “I know what he needs,” I said, disarming the house alarm and unlocking the several locks that were supposed to be undefeatable. “But I’m not sure I’m the one who can give it to him. I didn’t grow up with the greatest of role models. My father was an addict who killed himself before I was born, so I’m flying a little blind here. Excuse me if I’m not very good at this.” Before Hope could respond, I walked out the door and into the night.
* * *
It took me a little longer than usual to find him. Hope had trained me to pray before going out to look, and it really did seem to speed up the process. But I didn’t really feel like praying this morning. I felt like running away myself.
The first time he’d gone missing, we’d panicked and called the police. They’d eventually found Peng at a bus stop a few miles from our home. This turned out to be a pattern. When Peng disappeared, which happened about once a month, he always seemed to end up near some form of public transportation: bus stop, bus station, Trax station, train station, and once the airport. He never left the Salt Lake Valley, and he wouldn’t try to run when I found him. He would just sit there like he was waiting to be picked up from school.
This time he was on a bench at the Thirteenth South Trax station, the one next to the ballpark. The trains didn’t start running until about five fifty, so I didn’t think he was going anywhere. He had a hoodie pulled up over his head and was listening to his headphones.
I took a deep breath, walked over to him, and sat on the bench beside him. He knew I was there, but he didn’t acknowledge me. The frustration in my gut as I’d stormed out the door flared up again. I reached up, pulled off his hood, and yanked an earbud out of one ear.
“Couldn’t you do this when there is a ballgame going on?” I said, trying to gain control and drain the irritation from my voice.
He shrugged and looked at the ground. This was Peng’s way of communicating.
“You know Hope can’t sleep when you run out like this. She’s home bouncing Jin up and down like a hot potato. She thinks that maybe you’ve joined a gang or become a drug addict.”
I saw a glint of protest in Peng’s eyes, but instead of denying it, he calmed himself and shrugged again.
I thought about what Hope had said about being stricter with him, about introducing consequences. I tried to imagine what a good father would do in this situation. I had no clue.
“If this continues, there are going to be consequences,” I said. “No electronics for a month.” The words sounded strange to me as I heard them come out of my mouth. They must have sounded strange to Peng too because he looked at me as if studying a puzzle.
He finally shrugged again and said, “Okay.”
For some reason, his quick acquiescence didn’t make me feel victorious. In fact, I felt like I’d taken a step back. “Look,” I said. “I don’t want to punish you. I’d rather just understand what’s going on here. Why do you run off in the middle of the night? It makes Hope sick with worry, and it turns me into a father from a bad sitcom. We’re trying to do the right thing here, but you’re not making it easy. You need to talk to us. We’re your . . . parents.”
The last word didn’t exactly roll off my tongue, and I could see that Peng could sense my awkwardness. He looked down at his shoes as if there was some hidden truth intertwined between the laces. I thought of Mr. Seng’s final words at the orphanage and wondered if Peng thought of Hope and me as his guardians or as his guards. I thought about the locks I’d had installed on the doors with the express purpose of keeping Peng from leaving and wondered if they reminded him of the locks on the orphanage.
“You’re a great kid most of the time. You’re a good student. You don’t cause problems in school or church. You even keep your room clean—which is kind of weird for a fifteen-year-old. If it wasn’t for you running away in the middle of the night, I’d say you were darn near perfect. But this is a lot more serious than leaving the toilet seat up. There are dangerous people out at this time of the night. You could get seriously hurt. It’s our duty to protect you, and we’re doing the best job we can, but you’ve got to help us out a little bit.”
Peng didn’t answer and didn’t raise his head. There were demons in his past. Demons I could probably help him with if he would talk about them. But he wasn’t talking, and the truth was I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.
Mistress Wu and Mister Seng had been eager to get rid of Peng, but there was more to it than that. I remembered the look in their eyes when Peng had entered the room. They were afraid of him. After we left the orphanage, I made sure that some of my contacts went back to investigate their dubious dealings. It turned out they were involved in all sorts of illegal activities, and they were eventually shut down. Why would a pair of hardened human traffickers be afraid of a young boy? It was a question I’d been trying to avoid.
As I thought about it, I noticed Peng fumbling with something in his hands. It was something I recognized. Something of mine that he should not have had in his possession. “Peng,” I said, slowing my breathing and forcing a calmness I didn’t feel. “Where did you get my watch?”
He moved the shiny silver casing back and forth in his hands, studying it. “It looks like an old watch,” he said. “Something from the 1940s. But it’s not. There’s a GPS inside.”
“GPS watches aren’t unusual,” I said, worried about where this conversation was going. “And a lot of them are being made to look old style.”
“I know,” Peng said. “But this one’s different. The gears and parts are all mechanical—like a real swiss watch. The GPS chip is hidden underneath the gears and camouflaged. I tried to find similar models on the Internet, but there’s nothing like it out there. Other vintage watches look analog on the outside, but inside everything’s digital. Not this one. I think if you hold down these two buttons, it might turn on a tracking beacon.”
“Don’t do that,” I said quickly. The last thing I needed was Demetrius and Chico showing up with the cavalry. The hackles on the back of my neck stood up, and I suddenly felt like someone was watching me from the shadows. I looked around, but I couldn’t see anybody. Probably just a case of déjà vu.
“Peng, that watch was locked in the safe in my den. Nobody knows the combination to that safe except me. Hope doesn’t even know what it is.”
“I’m good with locks,” Peng said, still looking at the watch.
“Peng,” I said, dread beginning to fill my stomach. “There was something else inside that safe that could be very dangerous.”
“You mean the gun? I didn’t touch it. I don’t really like guns. I made sure the safe was locked so nobody would get into it.”
I felt a long, slow breath of air escape my lungs. I didn’t like having a gun in the house, but with my former occupation, I’d been convinced it might be a good idea. I was glad I’d ditched most of the other remnants of my prior life as a covert antiterrorist agent. It would be hard to explain a folder full of passports with my picture under several different names. “Peng,” I asked. “How do you know what’s inside my watch?”
“I looked,” he said, handing it to me and finally meeting my eyes. “Don’t worry. I put it back together.” There was a question in his gaze that seemed to say, Why would an assistant college professor have a watch with a hidden GPS tracker? Why would he have a gun locked in a safe?
All of a sudden, I felt like I was back undercover—playing a role, hiding my identity, constantly in danger of being discovered, constantly in danger of losing my life. Once again I felt like someone was watching from the darkness. I subtly scanned the area around the Trax station again but still saw no signs of life.
I took the watch from Peng and put it into my pocket. “You shouldn’t have taken it apart. It’s a delicate piece of equipment. You could have broken it.”
Peng looked back down at his shoes again, probably realizing I wasn’t going to open up to him anymore than he was to me. “I didn’t break it,” he said. “I’m good with things. I know how to take them apart and put them back together.”
I stared at him for several seconds. I was at a complete loss as to what to do. It felt like parts of my life were coming apart, but unlike Peng, I had no idea how to put them back together. Finally, I put my hand on his shoulder. He flinched a little, but I left it there. I had to try to be a father. It was what Hope expected me to do. “We need to get home. You’ve got a big day coming up, and Zack, Mimi, Shi-Shi, and Permelia are all coming to church with us. We’re going to barbecue after in celebration of you and Shi-Shi. They’re all very proud of both of you.”
Peng looked confused for a moment, and then his head jerked up and his eyes went wide. This was a look I had never seen before from Peng—a look of pure terror.
I stood quickly and turned around, scanning the empty parking lot. I thought I saw a flicker of movement in the distance, beyond the lights in the shadows, but it was probably nothing. I looked back at Peng. A remnant of the terror still remained in his eyes, but he was not looking at the parking lot. He was looking at me, studying me like he had studied the watch, delving into my innermost secrets. Probably wondering why my hand had gone to the back of my belt as if I were reaching for a weapon. I took a deep breath and sat back down.
Peng’s shoulders slumped like I had just placed a gold medal around his neck that weighed about fifty tons. I now understood the look in his eyes. It didn’t have anything to do with the parking lot or somebody watching us. It had to do with the weight of responsibility. He was being called to be the teachers quorum president. I didn’t think it was something he wanted to do.
I understood how he felt.
“What if I can’t do it?” Peng asked.
I thought for a moment about life and church and family. About responsibilities being placed around my neck that I really didn’t ask for. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” I finally said. “Tonight you were able to bypass an unbreakable security system, maneuver your way through several unpickable lock mechanisms, take apart a delicate piece of electronics, put it back together, and somehow arrive on the other end of town with no public transportation running. Being the leader of your teachers quorum should be a piece of cake.”
Peng met my gaze, but I could tell what I’d said hadn’t diminished his concerns. Not in the least.
“I’m good with things,” he said again. “Not with people.”
I shivered and looked around for movement one more time. Someone or something was watching us. I could feel it. Peng was good with things. I was good at sensing danger. I didn’t know if it was a transient or a stray coyote. But there was something out there watching us.
“Let’s go home,” I said. “This place isn’t safe.”