6

Day 1

JASON FELT A TUG AT HIS ARM, and he rolled over with a grunt.

“Excuse me, please.”

The voice drifted through his mind with a distant familiarity. A voice calling from his dream.

“Excuse me, please.”

Jason opened one eye and saw the small boy standing. The boy? He jerked up and looked around the room. His home in Pasadena . . . with the boy, Caleb, standing beside his bed, at nine in the morning according to the analog clock on the wall. He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

Caleb stood with his arms at his sides, dressed in the gray cotton slacks and white dress shirt Leiah had bought him in London. The brown sandals fit him well, although they didn’t really complement the outfit. He had chosen them over the black shoes Leiah had shown him. His hair lay in tangles to his shoulders.

“Good morning, Caleb. You’re up bright and early.”

“Sir?”

Yes, he did speak English, didn’t he? At least basic English. “Just a saying we use in America. Did you sleep well?”

“Sir, we must go to the church.” His choice of words certainly didn’t sound childish, but then again he hadn’t grown up with children, had he? In Ethiopia it would be proper English.

“Church? Yes, of course. You’ll have lots of time to go to church.”

“We will go now, then?”

“Now? No, heavens no.” Jason chuckled and plopped back on the pillow. “It’s nine o’clock in the morning, middle of the night Ethiopian time.”

The boy’s round aqua eyes blinked. He looked out the window and then back. “I would like very much to go to the church.”

Jason sat up. “Yes, I’m sure you would, but we can’t. I don’t even know which churches are open or when the services start. It’s been years since I’ve stepped foot inside a church, my boy.” He threw the covers aside to stand. “Now, what do you say we go get us some breakfast? Ever hear of McDonald’s?”

Caleb seemed not to have heard. He took a step back and blinked several times. “I would like very much to find the church.”

Poor child was feeling lost. The church was the only home he knew. “We will, Caleb. We will. We’ll take you to the Orthodox church on Monday.”

Caleb suddenly seemed frantic. His eyes shifted to the window, welled with tears, and then returned to Jason. He brought his hands to his chin in a praying gesture and begged. “We must go to the church! Please, sir.” The boy’s little body trembled and Jason felt the first pang of alarm. What if the boy did snap as Leiah suggested? He’d certainly never seen a ten-year-old looking like Caleb did now. “I beg you, good sir. I beg you—”

“Okay, Caleb.” He held out his hand for the boy to settle down. “Okay, we’ll take you to a church. Maybe we can find one open tonight.”

The boy stilled for a moment and then he began to pace frantically, four feet one way and four feet back. His eyes were searching the floor desperately.

Jason stood, frightened by the behavior now. “Okay, Caleb, settle down. Please settle down. We’ll get Leiah and go to the church, okay?”

The boy stopped midstride and spun to him, his eyes round with relief. He rushed forward, grabbed Jason’s right hand, and began to kiss it. “I thank you; I thank you,” he said.

Jason felt his chest constrict at the sight. Dear Caleb, I’m so sorry. He placed a hand on the boy’s head and pulled him close. He wanted to say something, but his throat was aching and he couldn’t speak.

The boy wrapped his arms around Jason’s waist and held tight. Then he broke away and pulled Jason by the hand. “We will go now?”

“Well, I do have to get dressed, boy. I can’t very well fetch our dear nurse in my underwear, can I?”

He dressed quickly and led Caleb to the guesthouse. Leiah responded on their third attempt to raise her. She stood in her blue tunic, her dark hair messy and her eyes squinting.

“The boy insists we go to church,” Jason said, smiling.

“Now?”

“Yes, trust me. Now. He doesn’t seem interested in accepting no for an answer.”

“Goodness, I haven’t been to a church in a dozen years.” She hesitated. “Well, give me a minute to throw myself together here.” She shut the door without waiting for a response.

“There you go, Caleb. Church it is.”

It occurred to Jason then that the Greek Orthodox church which ran the orphanage would probably be having their Sunday Mass soon. Church services usually started at ten or eleven, didn’t they? He had attended the Greater Life Community Church on the east side of Pasadena for three months leading up to his son’s death seven years ago. It would take an army of angels to drag him back into that sanctuary again.

Fifteen minutes later Jason piloted his white Ford Bronco down the Hollywood freeway toward the valley. According to the yellow pages, liturgy began at ten-thirty Sundays at Holy Ascension Greek Orthodox Church in Burbank—the church responsible for Caleb’s future. Their large color-splashed ad included a small picture of Father Nikolous, dressed in white-and-gold robes with a towering white headpiece that reminded Jason of pictures of the pope.

Leiah had managed to wash and dry her new clothes before turning in, and she wore them now, white turtleneck and all. Jason thought about offering her some of his clothes, but quickly decided that he could hardly do it without embarrassing her. He wasn’t sure that jeans were standard fare in Orthodox services, but hers were clean and they fit well.

Caleb sat in the rear, face pressed against the window, gawking at the mix of metal and concrete flying by. It was the first time he’d seen a Western city by daylight, Jason thought. Speeds within the monastery hadn’t exceeded walking or the occasional run. It was a slow life with enough time to hear your own breathing and consider its source. Watching a mouse scamper across the room would qualify as a highlight. Now the boy was confronted with eight lanes of lumbering trucks and flashing cars, roaring at breakneck speeds. It would be akin to stepping into a Jetsons cartoon and watching futuristic cars hover by.

Leiah sat in the front passenger seat, looking back at the boy with furrowed brow. “You ever bring a Third-World refugee to the States?” Jason asked.

“No. You?”

“No. At least we’ve established that Caleb speaks English, haven’t we, Caleb?” Jason asked, glancing in the rearview mirror.

The boy looked at the back of his head but did not respond.

Jason tapped the mirror. “Caleb?”

He looked up, saw Jason’s image, and smiled.

“Father Matthew taught you English?”

Caleb didn’t answer. Why, Jason didn’t understand, but the boy just looked out the window, presumably distracted by a huge tractor-trailer that rolled by on their left. The boy muttered something in Ge’ez and fell silent.

“He’ll be in shock for days,” Leiah said quietly.

“I don’t understand. He spoke so clearly this morning. I mean it wasn’t just broken English, but proper English, like last night.”

“So he speaks proper English. That doesn’t mean he speaks more than a few dozen words. Either way he’s like a fish out of water.”

Jason glanced at the boy’s image in the mirror. He was growing rather used to the idea of having him along. Nostalgic, even. Maybe Caleb was bringing something out in him: a sense of purpose that he’d buried with Stephen.

At first sight the large Orthodox church looked like something that belonged in an encyclopedia under the subject of religion rather than on the streets of Burbank, California. The circular drive swept by a crystal-clear pond complete with splashing fountain and large orange carp before running under a causeway in front of the entrance. The lawns were manicured and the palm trees carefully placed to give symmetry to the landscaping. Towering brickwork supported huge bright blue dormers on either side of the entrance. But it was the copper dome arching over the otherwise square structure that gave it the religious feel. These boys knew how to put their money where their hearts were.

Jason parked the Bronco in a visitor’s slot and climbed out. They were late, judging by the hundreds of cars sitting quietly in the lot. He walked around to help Caleb out, but the boy had already found his way to the asphalt and was crossing to the large dome.

“Caleb, hold up.” Jason glanced at Leiah and they hurried after the boy. “Well, he recognizes something.”

“Of course he does. The dome. I feel underdressed.”

“You’ll be fine. We’ll slip in the back and sneak out early.”

“You ever been in an Orthodox church like this?”

“No.”

“Me neither. I really feel underdressed.”

The foyer was lined with Greek pillars rising twenty feet to support a ceiling painted in gold leaf. Leiah rested her hand on the boy’s shoulder. They passed a large writing desk that reminded Jason of a concierge’s station, and the man who peered past his bifocals at their entry seemed to fit the part. A business manager perhaps. Someone had to keep the coffers full.

The door leading into the sanctuary was at least ten feet tall and made of solid oak. Jason pulled a brass handle three times the size of his hand and ushered Leiah and the boy through it. He followed them and let the door close softly behind him.

Nothing could have quite prepared him for the atmosphere that met him. The dome spanned over them in brilliant gold, divided in a dozen sections, each section framing huge paintings of robed men with eyes too large for their faces. Presumably Christ and his disciples. The rectangular walls were covered in a burgundy velvet cloth. Three huge crystal chandeliers, glittering with a hundred bright lights, hung over the sanctuary. The sight was enough to stop all three of them for a moment.

A rich scent filled Jason’s nostrils—an incense Jason didn’t recognize or possibly the smell of the candles blazing on the platform. Every detail was in perfect order; not a soul moved from their place. The congregation was seated in long pews on either side of the plush aisle at their feet. They sat like puppets, fixated on the ceremony conducted by Father Nikolous, who Jason immediately recognized from his picture. Had a stray sheep in the flock turned to take note of the slight disturbance, they would’ve seen three sadly underdressed strangers who looked as if they’d just entered the wrong facility by mistake.

Fortunately, it wasn’t the kind of atmosphere that invited the sheep to turn and stare. Unfortunately, the Father didn’t need to turn to see them. His eyes held Jason’s for a long moment before dropping back to the large book in his hands.

Jason tugged on Leiah’s arm and sidestepped into the last pew. She followed quickly, slipping in beside him.

But the boy stood staring ahead, transfixed by the sight.

Leiah reached out and gently laid her hand on his shoulder. “Caleb,” she whispered softly.

Caleb was not listening. He stepped forward and Leiah’s hand fell off his shoulder. It was a small, slow step, but it was away from them, up the aisle.

Caleb had taken three more steps forward before Jason realized that the boy actually intended on walking to the front. His heart skipped a beat, and he let his instincts take over for one terrible moment.

“Caleb!”

His harsh whisper might as well have been a yell. A dozen parishioners near the back turned and dipped their heads to offer stern stares.

But Caleb walked on, slow and frail, with his arms hanging by his sides. Leiah had buttoned his white shirt up to the last button and combed his hair so that it parted in the middle and fell neatly to his shoulders. He stared directly ahead and moved as if lost in a world beyond the one captured under this gold dome.

On the platform Father Nikolous came to the end of a stanza. One of the priests next to him began to sing in a high warbly voice and the congregation joined him like a well-practiced choir. A bowl of smoking incense hung from a chain in the priest’s right hand and swung like a pendulum at his knees, keeping surreal time with his chant.

Caleb walked on, and Jason stood, as if doing so might stop the boy. What was he going to do now? Leiah rose slowly beside him. Jason made a move to exit the pew, but Leiah held out her hand.

“Leave him,” she whispered.

Of the five hundred faithful gathered that day, roughly twenty-five had lost their focus on the liturgy and now watched the strange boy slowly gliding up the aisle. He was halfway to the front, a stray child whose head hardly reached the top of the pews, when the congregation seemed to sense wholesale that something unusual was happening in the aisle. A hush settled over the crowd, beginning at the back and spreading up the thirty or so rows, until only the most devout, seated up front, boldly continued their liturgy.

And then it was only the priest beside Father Nikolous, in a voice that echoed loudly through the auditorium. He caught himself, pried his eyes from the book in his hands, and stopped on the word and . . .

Father Nikolous frowned and stared at the boy, but he did not speak. The service at Holy Ascension Greek Orthodox Church in Burbank, California, had come to a dead stop.

All eyes were fixed on this one small child who walked up the aisle, seemingly unaware of his boldness, his large eyes fixated on the podium.

Jason moved quietly down the pew to the outer aisle and eased closer to the front, where Leiah joined him. From his vantage point he could see the boy clearly. He scanned the platform and once again met Father Nikolous’s disapproving glare. He shifted his eyes and saw then what the boy was staring at. Behind the priest stood a tall wooden cross, with the naked form of Christ hanging in death. Caleb was fixated on the one icon that could easily have been transported here from his monastery at Debra Damarro for its similarity.

The poor child was grasping for a root to his motherland and he had found it here, in this cross with the dead Christ. “He’s staring at the crucifix,” Jason whispered.

Leiah nodded. She’d seen it too.

“Should I get him?”

“No, leave him,” she said.

Caleb stopped at the platform steps and stared up at the cross. Ahead and to his right the priest’s swinging incense bowl barely moved now. Absolute silence had gripped the church.

The boy’s face suddenly wrinkled with sorrow. A wet tear slipped from his eye and left its trail down his cheek. He closed his eyes, lifted his chin, and opened his mouth in a long, sustained, quiet cry.

Jason felt as though his chest had been caught in a vise. Caleb’s hands slowly lifted and he cried quietly before the cross while the congregation looked on in stunned silence. Jason thought Father Nikolous might interrupt the scene, but he, too, was immobilized.

The boy fell quiet and seemed to become aware of the surroundings. It might have been the first time since entering that he’d removed his eyes from the cross. He looked at the Father and smiled softly. Nikolous did not return the smile.

“Mama, what’s happening?” a young voice from across the room asked aloud.

“Shhhhh!”

Jason saw a mother bend over her child on the far front pew. He looked to be about Caleb’s age, all dressed up in shorts with suspenders and a bow tie. His hair was slicked back above glazed white eyes.

The boy was blind.

It was why he’d asked the question. Mama, what’s happening? What kind of disease would turn a boy’s eyes white at the age of ten?

Caleb had turned his head to the boy. The congregation still hadn’t found themselves in the moment, and now it appeared that Caleb hadn’t either. He was walking toward the mother and her boy.

A slight murmur ran through the crowd. Caleb approached the boy and stopped within arm’s reach. The mother had a dumb look on her face, a mixture of anxiety and wonder. Her mouth opened when Caleb reached for the blind boy’s hand, but she said nothing. Caleb leaned forward and whispered in the child’s ear, then stood and took a step back.

The child looked in his mother’s direction for a moment, and then stood. The mother watched her son, frozen in the moment. Caleb smiled and gently pulled the boy along, toward the center aisle. They walked like two brothers sharing some innocent secret, oblivious to the crowd—the one child because his eyes were blinded by a white tissue, and Caleb because his might as well have been.

Caleb held the other’s hand and guided him back to the spot before the platform. Together they turned toward the front with Caleb’s guiding hand. They stood in silence, facing the cross.

Some of the parishioners shifted uncomfortably in their seats. For an awkward moment nothing moved.

A gasp suddenly filled the room. Jason thought it might be the boy’s mother, finally come to herself. But it wasn’t. It was the blind boy. And now he was crying. He was standing with his hand in Caleb’s, with his back to the audience, and his shoulders were shaking with sobs.

Cries of protest erupted from the sanctuary. Half a dozen men stood, and for a few seconds what could only be described as bedlam in such a stately place broke out.

“Quiet! Be quiet!” Father Nikolous had his hand raised to the crowd, but his eyes were fixed on the boy, who was now raising his hands with his fingers spread wide, as though grasping at the air. The congregation fell quiet.

The boy suddenly began to bob up and down, still sobbing. The bounce became a short vertical hop and the cry grew to a wail. Chills broke down Jason’s spine. Beside the boy Caleb only smiled.

Then Jason understood the boy’s words. “I can see!” he was screaming. “I can see; I can see; I can see the cross!”

The boy whirled around and faced the crowd. His eyes flashed with delight and not a spot of white covered them.

Leiah’s gasp beside him was lost in a hundred others. She instinctively grabbed Jason’s arm. The priest stared dumbfounded. The boy’s mother stumbled across the auditorium, mouth wide open.

The boy spun to Caleb and threw his arms around him, nearly knocking him over in the process. He was blubbering unintelligibly now. The congregation dissolved into pandemonium. Some shouted for order and respect; others cried out their confusion; no less than twenty stormed the front to get a closeup look at the boy, whom they called Samuel.

“Sit down! Sit down, everybody!” Father Nikolous thundered.

It took him ten minutes to return his flock to a semblance of order. The blind boy, Samuel, who could now clearly see, had calmed down, but he couldn’t stop looking around. His eyes flittered over the sanctuary’s bright colors and then over his hands and then they would settle on Caleb for a few seconds before returning to the drapes or some other brightly colored object.

Caleb sat on the front pew beside Jason and Leiah, head bowed, staring at his hands. The commotion in the church had pushed him into a withdrawal of some kind. The incense had stopped its smoldering, and the Father stood before them all with a frown plastered on his face.

It felt like a moment of gravity, one in which the Father should make a grand announcement. What that announcement would be, Jason had no clue, because he had no earthly idea what had just happened. Some would undoubtedly call it a miracle for lack of better understanding. Or perhaps some psychic phenomenon, triggered by Caleb. But in any case, the occasion of a blind boy finding his sight in the blink of an eye needed a few words of commemoration.

But Father Nikolous said nothing of the kind. He simply stood there in his white robes, looked from Samuel to Caleb, and closed the service with a “Let us pray.”

It was the end of the liturgy for the Holy Ascension Greek Orthodox Church that day.

“So you came to our church because the boy has been assigned to the orphanage?” Father Nikolous asked, looking up from the INS forms Jason had given him.

Jason sat next to Leiah, watching Caleb, who looked lost in the overstuffed chair they’d set him in. It had taken them ten minutes to dodge a host of questions, escape the auditorium, and find their way to the Father’s office at his request. The boy would not make eye contact. He was clearly shaken by the attention.

Jason nodded. “He wanted to go to church.”

“And you say his life is at risk?”

“Father Matthew seemed to think so. Not now, of course, but we were chased several hundred miles in Ethiopia. His Temporary Protective Status was granted on the grounds that he might have citizenship rights.”

“Yes, that much I can read.” He turned to the boy and frowned.

Father Nikolous did not strike Jason as the kind of man who would rise in the middle of the night to fetch a bottle of milk for a crying child. But he had the proper staff in place to run the orphanage. He was tall and wore a black mustache, which generally followed the frown on his lips. His brown eyes were cupped by large dark bags, and his nose was perhaps the largest Jason had seen—definitely not the perfect picture of Mother Teresa.

“We have taken several Orthodox refugees in from Ethiopia, although never an orphan. Orphan refugees to the United States are rare, you know.”

“He’s not an ordinary boy,” Leiah said.

“Of course not. He’s of mixed race and raised in an Ethiopian monastery.”

“It’s more than that. You saw it yourself.”

Father Nikolous dipped his head and looked at her carefully. “And what did I see, my dear?”

She didn’t answer.

“You tell us, Father,” Jason said. “What did we just see out there?”

Nikolous faced the boy. Caleb had picked up a magazine from the end table by his chair—a National Geographic with the caption “The Wonders Down Under”—and was engrossed in its contents.

“You say he speaks English?”

“Yes. At least some.”

Nikolous waited a moment, as if he expected the boy to offer an explanation on his own. “Well, what about it, young man? What happened out there?”

Jason knew the boy had heard, because his eyes strayed from the page for a brief second. But he refused to acknowledge the priest.

“Leave him alone,” Leiah said, standing suddenly. She walked over to stand beside him. “Can’t you see that he’s in shock? I don’t see how pushing him on things he himself probably doesn’t understand can help him.”

She was right, Jason thought. The loving mother.

“We’ll give him the care he needs,” Nikolous said. He picked up a pen and pulled the INS form closer.

“What are you going to do with him?” Leiah asked.

“We’re going to take him into the orphanage, my dear. Isn’t that why you brought him?”

“No. We brought him because he insisted on attending a service. But we had no intention of just signing him over to you.” She glanced at Jason for support.

“Well, well, miss. I do have a form in front of me that states otherwise. The boy has been granted Temporary Protective Status and his care assigned to World Relief by his former guardian, this Father Matthew. You see, his signature is right here.” He looked down at the paper. “Right beside this statement stamped by the immigration officer at LAX, which orders the boy into the care of the Sunnyside Orphanage, as assured by World Relief.” He looked up and grinned condescendingly. “The Sunnyside Orphanage. That would be me.”

“Yes, but you just can’t take him!”

Nikolous kept the snotty smile on his face and turned slowly to Jason. He might be right on technical grounds, but he was pushing the wrong buttons. Leiah looked at Jason, her eyes begging him to say something that would contradict the Father.

“A little less sarcasm wouldn’t hurt,” he said to Nikolous.

“He’s been in the country for less than twenty-four hours, for goodness’ sake,” Leiah said. “You can’t just take him away from us!”

“Ah, you have grown fond of him.” The priest’s lips fell flat. “Well, he’s not an object we grow fond of and toss around as if he were a ball. He’s a refugee and an orphan, and he belongs in a facility that cares for refugees and orphans. The sooner the better. You think dragging him around Los Angeles for another day will do him any favors?”

“Maybe not, but surely we don’t have to turn him over now. He could spend the day with us,” Leiah said.

The flat grin returned to the Father’s face. “You know, you are quite right.” He lowered his head, abruptly signed the form on his desk, slapped the pen down, and looked up. “And now you are quite wrong. You will kindly leave the boy in my charge.”

“Jason?”

Fingers of heat already spread over Jason’s head. The Father had no right to take such an offensive tone. He ignored Leiah and addressed Nikolous.

“You’re pushing it, pal. If anyone’s treating him like a ball, it’s you, snatching him away with the stroke of your pen. Where’s your decency?”

“Forgive me, perhaps I did speak with a touch of cynicism. But I do know orphans, and there is good reason why this boy was assigned to us.”

“Okay,” Leiah said. “Then let me ask you: please can we keep Caleb until the morning? We won’t haul him all around Los Angeles; we won’t even take him out of the house. We just want to say good-bye to him. He saved our lives and yes, we have grown fond of him. Surely a little love won’t hurt him.”

“He saved your lives?” the Father asked with a raised brow. “I was under the impression that you saved his life.”

Leiah glanced at Jason, who cut in. “Yes. We did save his life. Either way, I think Leiah’s request is reasonable. It’s the least you can do.”

Father Nikolous sighed and straightened the paperwork on his desk. “Yes, perhaps you’re right. But I’m going to deny the request.”

They both blinked at him. Leiah stared at Jason, dumbstruck.

“Now if you wouldn’t mind, I have plenty to do. I thank you for bringing him safely into the country; God will reward you. We will see to the boy from here.”

“Just like that?” Leiah asked.

The priest only looked at her with a raised brow.

“But—”

“Leiah, please,” Jason interrupted. “He’s right. He may not be going about it in the most respectful way, but he does have this right.”

“And what of the boy’s rights?”

“That’s enough!” Father Nikolous snapped. “Now you’re confusing him, and I can promise you that will do him no good. Please leave us. Now!”

Jason stood. “Come on, Leiah.” He had an inkling to take the priest by his mustache and shake some sense into him, but he shoved the notion aside. Instead he walked over to the boy and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“You take care, Caleb, you hear?” The boy lowered the magazine and looked at him with those round aqua eyes. A sadness lingered deep in them, Jason thought. What are we doing?

He knelt and pulled the boy’s head to his shoulder. “You’ll be okay,” he whispered. “I promised your father I wouldn’t allow any harm to come to you. I won’t let you down. I promise.”

When he pulled back, there were tears in the boy’s eyes.

Jason stood and Leiah immediately stooped to the boy. She held the boy tight, swallowing visibly. “I love you, Caleb,” she said in his ear. She wiped her cheeks quickly as she stood.

Leiah faced Father Nikolous with fire in her eyes. “Now you listen to me, Mr. Religion. If you hurt one hair on his body, you’d better pray to your God to strike me dead, because I will become your worst nightmare, you understand?”

Nikolous looked at her and frowned.

Jason finally took her arm. “Come on, Leiah.”

He led her to the door and turned for one last look at Caleb. The boy was staring at them, lost and innocent. But there were tears running down his face. Goodness, what have we done? Jason swallowed the lump in his throat and faced Nikolous.

“For a Father, you’re quite a jerk, you know that? Someone needs to teach you some manners.”

He pulled the door closed and walked Leiah from the office.