Once there, she caught her breath. Her father was waiting in his car in the parking lot, but she didn’t want him to see how disturbed she was. He hadn’t been happy about her decision to visit Audra. She had had to practically beg him to take her. After she gathered herself together, she started out.
She was nearly halfway to her father’s car when she saw him. At least, she thought it was he standing just in the shadows to the right of one of the pole lights at the end of the parking lot. He was standing there, staring up at the window of what would be Audra’s hospital room.
She ran as fast as she could to the car and got in.
“What is it?” her father asked.
“Just go,” she said.
“What?”
“Drive, Daddy. Please. Just go.”
“What happened? Jesus,” he said. He started the car and backed out of the parking spot. When they turned the corner and headed down the hospital driveway, she looked back at where she thought she had seen him.
It looked just like Jonathan.
Or Solomon.
Now there was no one there.
Maybe it was only my imagination, she thought. Maybe.
It was more like a hope.
“Jonathan’s not going to school today,” Martha said. “He doesn’t feel well.”
“Oh?” Joe said. He poured some cornflakes into a bowl and watched her prepare a cup of tea and some toast, which she was obviously going to bring up to Jonathan. “What’s the problem?”
“He’s getting a cold. It’s best he stay home and rest.”
“He seemed all right last night when you came back from the mall. Maybe he shouldn’t have left again to go bowling with Billy McDermott.”
“He felt all right then, and he wasn’t out late,” Martha said. “But I’ll watch him.” She put the tea and the toast on a tray and started out of the kitchen. After she left, he ate slowly, thoughtfully. The nervousness that he felt soon aborted his appetite, and he pushed his food away. He didn’t even want to finish his coffee.
He waited awhile, but Martha didn’t come back downstairs. Before he left for work, he shouted up to her. There was no reply, so he shouted again. She came to the top of the stairway and glared down at him with her hands on her hips.
“What are you yelling about?”
“I’m leaving.”
“So?”
“I thought . . . you used to want to say good-bye.”
“Oh, Joe. I’m taking Jonathan’s temperature.”
“Oh. I’ll call you later,” he said. She didn’t reply. She turned away and went back to Jonathan’s room. Joe stood for a few moments and then left the house.
On his way to work, he permitted his imagination to have free rein. Usually he pulled away from these images and memories, but today he didn’t want to resist them. He was too angry to deny them. All that was left was to accept the cause of that anger, which was something he was never prepared to do. He thought it might drive him mad.
Suppose Jonathan had some fever, he thought. She would have him strip, and she would take cool water and sponge him down. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” he muttered under his breath. He was entering into an argument with himself. It had happened many times before, but he had never permitted himself to lose. “Mothers do these things,” he continued. “She had done it for Solomon when he was little and he was sick.”
But then he was fifteen and he was sick, and she was still doing it.
“Shut up,” he told himself.
And you had gone by the room.
“No.”
You didn’t intend to look in . . . the door was slightly open.
“I didn’t see anything unusual.”
He was on his back, and she was bringing the sponge up the inside of his legs and . . .
“NO!” He brought the car to an abrupt halt and lowered his head to the steering wheel. “It wasn’t anything; it was understandable; it could happen.”
But it happened before. You know. You knew.
He sat back, his eyes closed, and shook his head.
It’s happening now. Back at the house. Right now.
He shook his head more vigorously and brought his hands to his face. Then he lowered them slowly, finding the conclusion that he could accept.
“It’s not her; it’s him. He’s taking advantage of her. She’s still vulnerable. She’s fragile; he knows. He’s evil. He’s dangerous. I can’t permit him to stay. I’ve got to end it.”
Right now it’s happening again.
His heart was beating rapidly. He was falling into a terrible state of anxiety. He couldn’t decide whether he should continue to the office or turn around. What would he do or say if he returned home? Where should he go now? How could he end it?
Drivers in cars coming up behind him began beeping their horns. He had stopped right in the middle of the highway. One passed him, the driver shouted angrily. An approaching car forced the second car to stop behind him, the driving leaning heavily on his horn.
Joe sat forward and accelerated again. He drove on, but continued staring ahead like one in a daze. When he arrived at the office, he barely spoke to anyone. He picked up the day’s assignments, hoping that if he lost himself in his work, he would find some respite and escape from the images threatening to destroy his sanity.
But it was no good. His first job involved a Selectric III that wasn’t printing properly. It required only a simple adjustment on the typewriter to bring it up to standard, but he sat there staring down at the keys as though he hadn’t the faintest idea what to do. He nearly made things worse before he finally fixed it, and it took him twice the required time to do it.
Afterward, on his way to the next job, he tried to be logical about the problem. The objective, he told himself, is to get rid of Jonathan. The complication is Martha’s attitude. She thinks he’s a perfect child, full of potential that she is now helping to bring forth. The boy was too clever to do anything overt; consequently, it was difficult, if not impossible, for Joe to build a case against him. Anything he said to Martha now she interpreted solely as jealousy and cruelty. He had to find something concrete, something besides the computer files.
When he realized where he was heading for his next job, a possible solution occurred to him. Why did the Porters, Jonathan’s previous foster parents who lived in Middletown, lock their bedroom door at night and eventually want to get rid of Jonathan? Maybe they would tell him something he could use to convince Martha that Jonathan wasn’t all good. Of course, he could call Mrs. Posner at the agency and question her more about Jonathan’s past, but that might get back to Martha, and he suspected that the head of the agency was so intent on finding homes for these children that she would leave out negative information. She was a bureaucrat only interesting in making her job easier.
No, he thought, the best way to do this was to go visit the Porters himself; but when he stopped at a gas station and looked up the name Porter in the phone book, he found there were at least a dozen who lived in Middletown. His heart sank. Then he remembered that during one conversation about bike riding, Jonathan had mentioned a street, because, according to him, Mrs. Porter believed it was too busy a street to permit bike riding. He copied down all the addresses alongside the names, and when he reached Middletown, he went directly to the police station and found which address was closest to the street.
Congratulating himself on his logic and clear thinking, he set out for the residence of the correct Porters, Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Porter. He was encouraged by his ability to solve the problem. Surely this meant that he was up to the task, even though he was quite disturbed over the events taking place at his home. Minutes later, he arrived at the small Cape Cod–style house owned by the Porters. It was in what he considered a rather quiet, almost suburban neighborhood away from the city proper. Certainly there would be no difficulty about children riding their bikes here, he thought. This was no main thoroughfare. Jonathan had lied about it, but Joe wasn’t surprised.
If he had to, he would bring Martha to the street and prove the lie to her.
He would prove everything. This discovery, as simple and insignificant as it seemed, filled him with encouragement. The depression and anxiety that had taken hold of him this morning was in retreat. His old confidence was returning. He got out of his car quickly and crossed the sidewalk to the Porter house and pressed the door buzzer.
Moments later, the door opened, and he looked in through the screen door at a tall, middle-aged woman with apple-blossom white hair cut neatly at the base of her neck. She had a drawn, tired face with sad dark black eyes and a long, thin neck. Her collarbone was emphatically visible within the unbuttoned heavy cotton, light gray housecoat. She wore a pair of men’s brown slippers with no socks. Her lips quivered before she spoke, as though it took great effort for her to pronounce her words.
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Porter?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Joe Stern. You don’t know me, but—”
“What is it, Blossom?” a man asked from behind her. Joe saw no one in the little entranceway. Then Blossom Porter stepped to the side to turn around, and Joe saw Aaron Porter seated in a wheelchair.
Joe’s heart sank. It was obvious why these people would give up a teenage foster child. Any teenager would be too much for them. They’d probably thought they could do it and then realized they couldn’t. This was going to be a wasted trip. He felt like he should say he had made a mistake and just turn away and leave.
“I don’t know, Aaron. I’m just finding out,” Blossom said caustically. She turned back to face him. “What can we do for you, Mr. Stern?”
He shook his head, and for a moment, he didn’t speak. Aaron Porter wheeled himself closer to the door. His wife’s face lightened as her eyes developed interest.
“You’re the Porters who had a foster child, right?”
“Oh,” Blossom Porter said. She brought her left hand to the collar of her housecoat and closed it.
“Who are you?” Aaron Porter demanded.
Joe looked down at what seemed to have once been a tall, powerful man. He had a stout upper body with very heavy shoulders and a wide neck. His chest strained the buttons on his flannel shirt. He had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing dark, hairy, muscular forearms. But even in the loosely fitted denim pants, his legs looked pathetic in comparison. Joe thought he could clearly make out the man’s bony knees, and his ankles looked thin, almost underdeveloped.
However, the paraplegic had a rough, weathered face, the face of a man who worked in the outdoors. The lines in his face were deep like the facial lines of a fisherman’s face, carved by the sharpness of constant sun and wind. He had a strong jawline and bright hazel-green eyes. His dark brown hair was only speckled here and there with gray hairs, and he wore it long and brushed back rather neatly. From the waist up, Aaron Porter looked strong and handsome, a candidate for television commercials set with the ocean or the mountains in the background.
In fact, Joe thought that Mrs. Porter looked older than her husband, despite his malady. Joe wondered if that couldn’t be the result of having to care for an invalid.
“My name’s Joe Stern,” Joe repeated. “My wife, Martha, and I have taken in a foster child, too. I believe it’s the same boy you had.”
Neither of the Porters spoke for a moment. They stared at him with expectation, however. Joe struggled for the right words, now that he felt foolish for coming to this door. Aaron Porter wheeled himself back a few inches.
“Jonathan? Jonathan’s living with you now?” he asked. Mrs. Porter released her grip on her housecoat collar and pressed the palm of her hands together as though she were about to offer a prayer.
“Yes,” Joe said.
“God help you,” Aaron Porter said, and Joe’s face lit up. He had come to the right place after all.
FIFTEEN
Joe entered the Porters’ modest home and followed behind Aaron Porter as he wheeled himself into the living room. At Aaron’s request, Blossom went to fetch some apple cider.
“My brother makes it himself,” Aaron explained with some pride. “It’s just starting to have a little kick to it.”
“Thank you,” Joe said. He didn’t think it would be polite to refuse.
“Have a seat,” Aaron said and Joe went to the blue-and-white-patterned Herculon couch. Aaron turned his wheelchair so he was facing him directly, then folded his hands on his lap and sat back.
Joe took a quick inventory of the room. Although the house was small, it didn’t look to be the home of people on a restricted income. All the furniture was well maintained, the woodwork polished, the glass glistening. The knickknacks on the shelves and on the mantel above the small fireplace looked like valuable antiques and heirlooms. There was a rich-looking Persian oval rug on the floor and a rather good replication of a Remington on the wall across from him. Aaron Porter caught the look in his eye.
“That’s an authentic Remington,” he said. “Been in the family a long time.”
“Really? Beautiful.”
“I like paintings that depict real people in action. Don’t go for these staged, postured shots,” Aaron said. “What do you do, Joe?”
“I’m an IBM service technician.”
“Don’t say? Computers?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Never even turned one on, but I guess they’re like anything else—once you learn what they’re about, it’s no big deal.”
“Exactly.”
“How long has Jonathan been with you?” Aaron asked, his face tightening quickly.
“Not long. Less than a month, actually.”
“It doesn’t take long,” Aaron said cryptically. Blossom entered the room with a pitcher of cider and some glasses on a tray. She set it down on the dark pine oval table and poured three glasses.
“Thank you,” Joe said, taking a glass of cider. He sipped it quickly. “Wow, this is good.”
“Thought you’d like it,” Aaron said. “You’re ever up around Hancock, stop at Michael Porter’s Country Store.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Blossom sat in the rocker to the right and stared at him. The intensity of her gaze made him uneasy.
“So?” Aaron said. “You want to know about our experience with Jonathan, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Did the agency send you over here?” Blossom asked.
“No. They don’t know I’ve come. I tracked you down myself.”
“Thought as much,” Blossom said and smirked.
“Why is that, Mrs. Porter?”
“You can call me Blossom. Jonathan always did,” she said. “Right from the start. Shoulda known something then. There wasn’t any shyness in him.”
“Shyness?” Aaron laughed without making a sound, his upper body shaking.
“They shoulda told us more about him, too,” she said. “They just want to get rid of those kids as fast as they can.”
“What’s he doin’ to you?” Aaron said. “Or should I ask, what’s he done?”
“It’s hard to say exactly.”
“Uh huh,” Blossom said. She started to rock in the chair.
“He’s . . . like . . .”
“Like crazy, is what he is,” Aaron said. “They shouldn’t be shipping him around to innocent folks. They should be puttin’ him in an institution.”
“Why do you say that?”
Aaron looked at Blossom. She stopped rocking and sat forward.
“As you can see, Mr. Stern, my husband’s an invalid. He wasn’t always so.”
“Jonathan didn’t . . .”
“No. I have MS,” Aaron said. “Multiple Sclerosis. It started slowly about four years ago, and it’s finally reached this stage. Although, I don’t doubt that kid could put someone in a wheelchair.”
“My husband used to be the foreman at one of the bigger lumber companies here.”
“And I did a lot of construction myself on the side,” he s
aid.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. We’re living with it.”
“Thing was,” Blossom recounted, sitting back and rocking again, “we got to thinking we were doting too much on our problems. Our children are all grown and away. After Aaron got sicker, this house became very depressing for both of us.”
“So, we thought we’d get involved with someone else’s problems,” Aaron said. “Friends of ours had taken in foster children and enjoyed the experience. Blossom was willing, even anxious, to do the same thing.”
“And they sent us Jonathan,” Blossom said. She stopped rocking and sat forward. Her eyes were cold, gray. Joe sensed the intensity of her anger and the battle to maintain self-restraint. “They thought we should have an older child, one who could be somewhat independent so it would be easier for us.”
“In the beginning, I thought it was a wonderful idea. I got so I liked the kid, and I thought he liked me,” Aaron said. “We both thought we had done the right thing then, didn’t we, Blossom?”
“Yes, we did.”
“What happened to change your minds?” Joe said, impatient for the resolution.
“What happened was kind of weird and sort of hard to explain, just like your situation, I imagine,” Aaron said.
“The boy took on Aaron’s problems,” Blossom said quickly. She bit down on her lower lip and nodded as though her pronouncement had explained it all. Joe looked at Aaron, who was also nodding gently.
“I don’t understand,” Joe said. “What do you mean by Aaron’s problems?”
“One day,” Blossom related, leaning farther forward, “he got up in the morning and screamed. I ran into his room and found him on the floor.”
“What was it?”
“He claimed his legs gave out from under him. For a few moments, I thought he was just joking. I was about to bawl him out for performing a sick joke, as a matter of fact, but he didn’t laugh, and he didn’t smile. He just struggled to get to his feet. When he did, he sat back on the bed, and I swear he was white as a sheet.”
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