Rita, in the car ahead of the Flemings, led them to the Ballard neighborhood some twenty minutes from home, in north Seattle. Kara peeked over her shoulder at Zach sitting behind Craig, who drove. The boy was searching earnestly out the window for the home of his youth, or at least the neighborhood.
"We must be close," he said for the second time. "The houses look right. I think I remember them…maybe." He seemed as impatient to see his former home as she and Craig were.
Rita passed the local high school and led them a few blocks deeper into the neighborhood.
"That's it, Dad!" Zach exclaimed suddenly, pointing to a house ahead of them, on the corner. "That one! Stop here, Dad!"
Sure enough, Rita pulled up to the front of the house and parked at the curb. Craig settled Kara's car in behind Rita's.
Zach was out of the sedan in an instant. As Craig and Kara followed, he ran to the tall wooden fence that surrounded the property and peered between the slats.
"It's up for sale," Craig noted; a sign to that effect stood planted at the corner, in the grass between the sidewalk and the curb.
"Wow, Craig," Kara commented, stepping up to him, "if you wanted to hide a child in the middle of the city, this would be the place to do it. High fence, with lots of trees and shrubs around the edges." She peeked through the fence slats in imitation of Zach as Rita joined them. "How old do you think these bushes are—the ones along the fence?"
He stood on tiptoe to look over the top of the fence and scan the yard. "Maybe ten, fifteen years?"
"Mm-hmm," Kara nodded. She had guessed about the same. "Like maybe somebody planted them ten years ago to hide the house and the yard a little more."
Craig gave her a sidelong glance and studied the yard again, nodding. "Whoever brought Zach here knew it was illegal. They didn't want the neighbors to notice anything—especially that they had something to hide."
Kara stamped her foot on the sidewalk. "But if they were trying to hide him, Craig, why in the world did they send him to public school? Why drive him all the way to Briar Point, no less? Why not just homeschool him?"
Zach looked up at her with a concerned expression. Kara suddenly felt a pang of guilt for talking about him like this right in front of him. The poor child, he had never realized what a cloistered life he had been given until he had come to her and Craig.
"I wonder the same many times," Rita spoke up, joining them at the fence. "Why he can't go outside, not ever, he will get too sick, but he is okay to go to school? At school, he will play outside! So why not at home? At school, he will catch every germ! It seem crazy to me, but I don't ask too many questions." She gave a sly grin. "But sometimes I break the rules, huh, Zach?"
Zach nodded absently as he gazed at the house.
Kara turned away from the fence to face Rita. "Did Zach get sick a lot? He told us he used to, when he was younger."
"He get sick less than my own children when they are his age," Rita said. "One time in two years I see him get sick, miss one day of school. He have a fever, he sleep on the couch, he get well. No problem. But he tell me the same, that when he is little, he get sick a lot." She laughed at the memory. "When he is only five, he is very small, and he say, 'I get sick a lot when I am little, but no more.' But look at him now—now he is ten, no more little. Big and strong now." She shook her head, smiling fondly at him.
Craig walked along the fence, examining the house itself from different angles. Reaching the corner, he strode down the other street to the end of the property and back. "I think the house is vacant," he told Kara. "There's no furniture inside, nothing outside, nothing in the back. Want to take a closer look?"
"Can we, Dad?" Zach asked, excitement in his voice.
"Come on," Craig told him.
A narrow driveway ran up next to the house and under a carport. A door led from the carport into the house, but it was locked. Two gates opened into the yard, one to the front and the other to the back. On this side of the property, too, the yard was completely fenced in. Rita walked behind Craig and Zach, her girls trailing them and looking rather bored—this place, after all, held no meaning for them. Zach, though, touched the door, touched each post of the carport, carefully took in this home that had been his a few years ago. Kara watched him.
"Over there, Zach," Rita told the boy, pointing toward the back of the carport. "That is where the neighbor dog come when you take out the garbage and you think I don't see you from the window."
He walked to the spot and stood in it, looking around, seeing memories. "Everything's smaller now," he observed. "It all shrunk."
Kara bit her lip. She ached to have been the woman who had stood in that window, watching him and letting him think he was being sneaky, playing with the dog. It was a hunger that she knew would never be satisfied. If it could not be her, Rita was a fine second choice; what an intelligent and gracious woman she seemed to be. But someone had cheated Kara out of ten years with her son. Someone who had hidden here, held him prisoner here, a pair of someones who were not his grandfather and grandmother, whatever they had told him.
Craig opened the back gate and walked into the yard beyond it, working his way toward the back of the house. Zach and the girls went with him, but Rita stayed behind. As Kara had been watching Zach, she had been watching Kara.
"I leave my children in Mexico to come here for two years," she confided softly. "Maybe I do wrong, I don't know. God know. But he give me Zachy to help me. Zachy remind me of my son, two years older, seven when I come to Seattle. Everyday, he remind me." She stepped over to Kara and stood face to face with her. "At that time, I believe Zachy have no parents. I think if there is any way to take him back to Mexico with me, I will give him a better home. But there is no way. If I…" For the first time, her confident voice failed her. She took a moment to regain her composure. "If I know you are alive, I bring him to you that same day. I do not wait."
Kara closed her eyes and nodded.
Rita stepped beside her, took her arm in her hand, and led her slowly to the back of the house after the others. "You want to know Zachy when he is younger. So you ask me about him, and I tell you everything, okay?"
A sad, grateful smile escaped Kara's defenses before she could hide it. They stepped unhurriedly across the narrow back yard, Kara eyeing the house. She peeked into a window.
"Zachy's bedroom," Rita informed her. She joined Kara at the window. "His bed is over there, by the wall. Very small, not with—" She didn't know the word. She made a squishing gesture with her hands.
"A mattress?" Kara offered.
"Yes, not with a mattress. A bed that folds. Easy to move. Maybe for if they have to leave quickly, like when the grandfather send me away and they go to a new house."
"A cot, maybe," Kara guessed. Had her son slept on a cot all these years? No wonder he had enjoyed the guest bed so much.
"He has a few clothes in the closet, but not many," Rita continued, passing along her memories. "I buy more for the right size. He has a small chair. No toys. He make toys from house things—empty bottle, a box, stack of books, anything he find. The grandfather tell me to bring him books from the, er…the library. I go when Zachy is in school. I bring him books about everything. He like to read everything. I read to him Spanish, he read to me English when he learn. I teach him Spanish, he teach me English. We are a good team."
"He still loves to read," Kara told the other woman. "He reads books and plays with the dog. And Craig plays baseball with him."
As she listened to Kara, Rita's eyes brightened with what must have been hope for Zach, for…well, Craig would say for his finally having a chance to live.
Kara spoke again. "I took him to the store. He had never been to a store before. He thought it was the most amazing place. He wanted us to buy squid." Rita didn't understand, so Kara picked up a stick and drew the outline of a squid in the flower bed.
"Calamar!" she laughed. "Did you
buy?"
"No!" Kara answered, feigning disgust. "And a couple of weeks ago, I took him to the library. He checked out fourteen books. He's already read them all. And we took him to Mount Rainier, and Portland, and to see the fireworks…" She didn't know whether to laugh at herself for rambling on like this to a near-stranger or to cry for both joy and sorrow at having a son now, ten years late.
Rita observed her with genuine sympathy—Rita, another woman who had been apart from her children, albeit knowingly and by her own choice, for a time. Did that make it better or worse? "You give him many good days," she said. "I try, but I have to be careful. We go to church on Christmas and Easter if the grandfather is not home. I take him to the park a few times for short play. When he is seven, we walk down the street and come back everyday. Not long, but he love outside more than books or tacos. One day somebody see me—maybe the grandfather, I don't know. I never see nobody watching. The company call that night, say I have to leave after I take Zach to school in the morning, say I break the rules and take him for a walk outside. I cry all night. In the morning, I give him my little radio for a present. He always like to listen to it before. I take him to school, I say goodbye. I come back here a few days later to look, but he is gone, no one live here anymore. I go to the school and watch, and a new nanny pick him up. I try to follow, but too much traffic. I have to give up. I go home to Mexico and think I will never see Zachy again…until today."
Kara watched the other woman turn back to the window, awash in memory. She had meant to give Rita a simple potted rose this morning. Now she felt that she owed her so much more.
"Rita," she asked, "did Zachy"—she had to laugh at herself, rolling her eyes—"did Zach ever… Well, when you touched him, did he ever pull away? Like it bothered him?"
"Always!" Rita confirmed at once, eyebrows raised. "I learn to touch quick, then take away my hand. He like it and not like it, both. It is like a new language for him. And he never try to touch me. Always he is happy, but no hugs, no kisses. When he is seven, sometimes he shake hands. Today at the church I see him take your arm. That is good."
"That was the first time," Kara told her, "except for once when he was scared. He pets the dog, he wrestles with the dog…"
"Yes, with the neighbor dog here, too!" Rita exclaimed. "But with people, no."
"No, not with people. He's doing better with it, though. We try not to overwhelm him with too much all at once."
They resumed their slow walk around the house. "Do Zach hide under the bed?" Rita inquired.
"Yes, sometimes. Did he do that with you, too?"
She nodded. "When I am angry, when he is scared. One time he don't want to take a bath, so he hide the soap in the toilet. I find it and I want to laugh. But I have to teach him this is bad. So I say, 'Go to your room!' Then I go to talk to him, but he is not there. He is under my bed—his bed is too small for hiding." She paused, her eyes focused on those years past. "When I first come, Zachy tell me his grandmother sometimes drink wine, get mad. He hide under the bed until she go to sleep."
Kara sighed. "Was she mean to him?"
They turned the corner at the end of the house opposite the driveway. Craig and the kids were not there, having already made their way around to the front. There was one window on this end of the house, and Kara peeked inside it as Rita spoke again.
"She is good to him, I think. I think she care about him. He is a good kid when I come; he say he miss his grandmother. He is happy very much, same as today. He talk good, he know numbers and ABCs—all English, no Spanish yet. He already start kindergarten, and he do okay. He tell me she is nice, only not when she drink wine."
"And his grandfather? Was he good to Zach, too?"
At this, Rita shook her head solemnly. "Not very good, I think. I think maybe he hurt Zachy sometimes, but Zachy won't talk about it. Grandfather make Zachy stay inside, no TV, no computer, no toys, no nothing. He make many rules that are no good for boys. He go on many trips, leave me with Zachy for weeks, maybe three or four months. He never call Zachy, he never send letters. When he is home, he stay for two or three weeks. Then he leave, I come back, and Zachy is sad for a few days. I ask Zachy why he is sad, but he don't know. I ask him, do he miss Grandfather, and he say no. I think Grandfather ignore him, and Zachy is lonely."
Kara leaned her head against the window and pounded lightly on the glass with her fist. "Why? Why would someone give birth to him and then give him to these people?" The window gave her no answers. It showed her only a small, bare bathroom. She tried to envision Zach, younger, sneaking the soap into the toilet.
"Rita!" Zach's voice sounded as he ran to them from the front of the house. "Rita, look what I found!" He beckoned her to come, and she followed him into the front yard. Kara came along in time to see him guide Rita to a flower bed against the house. "See? I remember when we planted these!"
He had found his pansies. Rita, still in her Sunday dress, knelt there before them and lifted their blossoms tenderly with one finger each in turn. "Zach, you remember? You love these flowers! I think they will only last one year, but now they make seeds and stay four years! You plant them all by yourself. Well, I help a little. You are so happy to get dirty that day."
Craig was waiting for them, playing with Rita's girls on the driveway when Rita and Kara emerged from the yard. "I wrote down the address," he told Kara as he dodged Sofia's hands grabbing at his. "I'll call the realtor tomorrow and see if I can find out who used to live here."
"Good idea," Kara nodded.
"Mom?" Zach asked, coming through the gate behind her. She turned and found him holding up a single pansy flower he had picked, maroon with a black center. He walked past Rita and handed it to her. "It will last a few days if you put it in a vase with water." He watched for her response.
She smelled the flower—its fragrance was familiar, the same as the pansies at Grover's…yet more potent somehow because her son had given it to her from the prized collection of his former life. In a small way, it was a piece of his younger self.
"It's beautiful, Zechariah," she told him. "It's the most beautiful flower I've ever seen."
*****
The Boy Who Appeared from the Rain Page 68