The Lucky Ones

by Tiffany Reisz

  “He might be right,” Deacon said. “You know what they call the little rooms monks sleep in? Cells.”

  “God, poor Roland,” Allison said.

  “He buys his Catholic guilt in bulk at Costco,” Deacon said.

  “You know, this actually makes sense,” Allison said, pointing at him. The pieces were slowly clicking into place. “When your dad came and got me out of the group home they’d put me in, the lady who ran the place, Miss Whitney, she said something about me looking like someone. And the first time I met Roland, Dr. Capello watched us really close like he was... I don’t know. Like he was watching to make sure Roland was going to be okay with me.”

  “Dad loves fixing broken kids,” Deacon said. “When I came here, I was really upset because—” Deacon paused “—because of my cat back home.”

  “What about your cat?”

  “He was dead,” Deacon said, his voice flat. “So Dad got me Brien. Dad would do anything for us. Replace a dead cat...”

  “Replace a dead baby sister?” Allison said, shivering despite the stuffy heat of the attic.

  “A very Dad thing to do,” Deacon said. “Fixing broken kids is what he does. Or tries to do. Anyway, Dad’s going to be thrilled when he finds out you and Roland hit it off.”

  “Don’t get him excited,” Allison said. “I’m leaving soon.”

  “Sure you are,” Deacon said. “Dad’s gonna pull out all the stops to get you to stay. If it means getting Roland out of his prison cell, he’ll try anything.”

  “Do you want me to stay?” she asked. If he had lied to her, if he knew something about her fall or the phone call, then surely he wouldn’t want her to stick around. She searched his face, looking for guilt, but didn’t see any.

  “Stay?” Deacon said. “I wish you’d never left.” He seemed sincere, truly sincere, for the first time since he showed up on the deck.

  “I should have come back sooner,” she said. “Now it feels too late, you know?”

  “Never too late. Shit,” Deacon said, jumping to his feet.

  “What?” Allison looked around in confusion. Gravel crunched. A car door slammed in the distance.

  “We’re not supposed to be up here,” Deacon said, grinning like a little boy with his hand caught in the cookie jar. “Dad moved his medical files up here so technically it’s off-limits. At least, we pretend it’s off-limits until the three of us want to smoke up here.”

  “Smoke?”

  “Not cigarettes,” he said, and winked at her.

  Allison followed Deacon down the stairs and she watched him put the keys back into his father’s desk drawer, the second from the bottom. When she saw the photographs on the desk again, she remembered something.

  “Hey, who was Antonio?”

  “Who?” Deacon asked.

  “I saw his picture,” she explained. “When I was looking at all the pics of us. Antonio Russo? Does that name ring a bell? He was nine, lived here before me.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Deacon said, his brow furrowed. “Antonio. Tony, I think he went by. I think he stayed a week. Had lots of behavior problems so he had to get a new placement. Come on. I can’t wait to see Dad’s face when he sees you.”

  Deacon’s enthusiasm seemed genuine but so had his confusion when she’d mentioned Antonio Russo’s name. Had he really forgotten one of his foster brothers? Probably. She had friends in elementary school whose names she didn’t remember anymore. And that had been a long time ago. Maybe Roland remembered more about Antonio.

  Allison and Deacon walked out to the landing. Allison stopped at the top, looked down and felt her heart lift like a balloon.

  “‘The sun was shining on the sea, / Shining with all his might,’” sung a warm gentle voice from below. “‘And that was odd because it was...’”

  “‘The middle of the night,’” Allison said.

  He stood at the bottom of the stairs, smiling up at her and waiting. In his eyes she saw that same old kind and shining light she remembered from the first day she ever saw him.

  She started down the stairs, slowly at first and then faster, until she was practically skipping down to the bottom. When she reached the final step, Dr. Capello opened his arms and she stepped into his embrace. Once she was there, wrapped in his warmth, she forgot it had been thirteen years since she’d been taken from this house, thirteen years since she’d seen this man, thirteen years since she called this place home. She’d even forgot he wasn’t her father anymore, so when she found her voice to speak again, she said what she’d said a thousand times before.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  Chapter 14

  As soon as Dr. Capello was in her arms, Allison regretted the force of her greeting. His shoulders were thin and bony, sharp as stainless-steel cutlery wrapped in a paper napkin. He smelled like a hospital, like Lysol and medicine. She started to ease up on her embrace, and he whispered, “Not yet, doll face. I’ve waited a long time for this.” So she clung to him, for his sake and hers, because she’d waited a long time for this, too.

  “Missed you,” Allison whispered.

  “Missed you more,” he said.

  She pulled back from the embrace to look at him, at this man who should have been her father had the world worked out according to a child’s wishes and not adult rules and whims. He looked mostly the same as she remembered, except in negative. The hair Allison remembered as brown with streaks of gray was now gray with streaks of brown. His tan skin was now sallow and his brown beard now white as snow. Only the eyes were untouched by time. Bright brown eyes, full of mischief and full of joy, just like she remembered.

  “It’s good to have you home again,” he said.

  He patted her face and she grinned, happy as a child.

  How she had loved this dear old man...how she had missed him. She’d missed his whiskers against her cheek. She’d missed the way he patted her back when he hugged her, rough and tender. She couldn’t recall a single instant when he’d lost his temper with them, or raised his voice in anger. When he did yell it was, “Be careful, kids! Watch each other!” as they ran from the house to the water. And they were careful because they loved him and never wanted to hurt him. Oh, Deacon talked with his mouth full. Roland forgot his homework. Thora made messes. Allison hated taking baths and would cry when anyone gave her a cross look. For all that, they’d been a happy family, if a bit mismatched and ragtag, and all thanks to this one lovely man who gave the best hugs in the world.

  “Look at you,” he said, shaking his head and smiling. “You were a cute kid, but you’re a stunner now.”

  “Stop it. You’re such a dad.”

  “I swear, seeing you come down those stairs gave me an extra six months to live.”

  “Then I’ll go back up and come down again,” she said.

  “I wish that worked,” he said.

  “Surprised?”

  “You’re lucky I didn’t have a heart attack when my eldest told me you were here,” he said, shaking his head. “Never. I never dreamed... Hoped, yes, but never dreamed.”

  “I dreamed,” she said. “But never hoped.”

  He kissed her cheek again.

  “How long are you staying?” he asked.

  “I have to get on the road sometime today,” she said. “But no rush.”

  He didn’t seem to like that answer but he didn’t argue with her about it, either.

  “You been swimming yet?” he asked.

  “Swimming? The water’s freezing.”

  “Never used to stop you kids.”

  “We swam in summer. Need I remind you today is the first day of October?”

  “Hmm...how about wading, then?” he asked. “Will you go wading with me?”

  “You got back from the hospital two seconds ago,” she said, looking over his shoulder at Roland, who’d come in from the kitchen. Roland stood in the kitchen door, quietly smiling at the two of them. It was the first time she’d seen him since last night. He wore the same clothes as yesterday except he
’d changed from a yellow-and-black flannel shirt to red and black. There was so much she wanted to talk to him about but that all could wait. It would have to.

  “Is he trying to talk you into letting him go skinny-dipping?” Roland asked.

  “It’s on my bucket list,” Dr. Capello said.

  “Either get a new bucket or get a new list,” Roland said.

  “Do you really think we should go to the beach?” Allison asked him.

  “I’m tired and I’m dying, but I’m not dead yet. And you better believe I’m going to spend as much time on the beach as I can before I go. With or without you, doll,” he said.

  He said it all so casually, as if being tired were as much his issue as his dying.

  “All right,” Allison said. “If Roland approves, we’ll go wading. But just wading. You keep your clothes on.”

  “One of these nights when your backs are all turned...” he said as Roland helped him into a light jacket.

  “I’d prefer it if we had as much time with you as possible,” Roland said. “If you don’t mind.”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t mind. I’ll keep my clothes on. But only for you. And Allison. And anyone with eyes.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that,” Roland said. “Now you two go and have fun. Allison, don’t let him in past his knees.”

  Dr. Capello sighed loud as the ocean breeze.

  “How old are you now, Allison?” he asked as they walked to the deck door.

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Stay that way, kiddo. Never, ever get old.”

  Dr. Capello certainly looked older and he looked ill, but Allison couldn’t quite wrap her mind around the terrible fact that he was dying, and dying very quickly. He walked slowly, but steadily. The tide was out and the wet, bare sand was packed solid, which made for easy walking when they reached it.

  “Now this is nice, isn’t it?” Dr. Capello asked as they reached the edge of the water. That afternoon it was blustery and cool, but the sun was out and the water was a bright blue.

  “It’s perfect,” she said. “You come out here a lot?”

  “Every chance I get,” he said. “Ten years ago, I was out here on a day like today and it was so damn beautiful I said to myself, ‘Vince, you’ve done enough. You’ve done work you can be proud of. You’ve helped as many kids as you can. Time to call it quits and enjoy your family.’ I quit working that very month. Maybe I should have quit sooner.”

  “I read the article on the wall in your office. You helped a lot of kids.”

  “I tried,” he said. “I certainly tried. Failed with some. Succeeded beyond my wildest dreams with others. Did my best with the rest.”

  “No one can ask for more than that from a doctor,” she said.

  “You could,” he said. “Couldn’t you?”

  She tensed, shrugged. She hadn’t planned on having this conversation with him so soon, or ever.

  “You did your best with me,” she said.

  “I failed you, doll. You and I both know it. You would have been back here to visit years ago if I hadn’t. It’s all right. You can say it. I carry the guilt with me every day.”

  He seemed to want to clear the air between them and she admired him for not pretending everything was okay when it wasn’t. Pretending things were good when they weren’t was one of her talents. “I wanted to come,” she said.

  A gust of ocean wind blew hard into them, a taste of the chilly autumn days to come.

  “Roland said you don’t feel safe staying with us, even though he’d like you to.”

  “Would you feel safe here if you were me?”

  “Probably not,” he said. She appreciated his honesty.

  “I don’t know how it all happened. I don’t know why. But it still scares me a little,” she said. “Wish it didn’t.”

  “Let me ask you this—what do you remember about that whole situation?” he asked.

  “Not much,” Allison said. “There’s an entire week I’m missing in my mind. I remember everyone going to the park but me and Roland.” She hoped she wasn’t blushing. “After that...nothing much. Isn’t there a name for that? When you forget stuff that happened before an injury?”

  “Retrograde amnesia,” he said. “I was afraid of that. You hit your noggin so hard it scared me, and I fixed kiddo noggins for a living.”

  “I kind of remember coming to in the hospital and my aunt being there. I’d never met her before, just talked to her on the phone. I definitely remember her telling me I couldn’t come back here.”

  “I can’t say I blame your aunt.” He stuffed his thin hands deep into the pockets of his too-loose khakis. “But I shouldn’t have let her take you. Not without a fight, anyway.”

  “Can I ask why you didn’t fight for me?” she said, and then immediately regretted the question. This was an old man, a dear man, a dying man. Surely it was wrong to give him the third degree five minutes after reuniting.

  “Fear,” he said. “It’s integrity’s worst enemy. I was afraid your aunt would fight me for you. I was afraid she’d sue me. I was afraid the state might try to take the kids away from me for letting one of you get hurt so badly on my watch. Your aunt clearly cared about you. I knew you’d be safe in her hands, and I couldn’t say for sure anymore you were safe with us.”

  “So you think someone did push me?” Allison asked.

  “I think so, yes. And I even think I know who it was.”

  “Who?” Allison asked, forgetting in the moment Dr. Capello was old and ill and dying. “Why?”

  Dr. Capello grimaced.

  “Dad?”

  “It’s hard,” he said. “I took an oath.”

  Allison understood. The Hippocratic oath. Doctor-patient confidentiality.

  “Still...” he said. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter anymore. I don’t think you’re here to have a little boy arrested for a thirteen-year-old crime.”

  “No, of course not. But if you know something...”

  She waited, nearly holding her breath in her nervous excitement.

  “You remember Oliver, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “He was a very troubled little boy.”

  “Oliver,” Allison said. “I just... I mean, I believe you. You knew his situation better than I did.”

  “Try not to let it upset you,” Dr. Capello said. “He was very young, and I doubt he knew what he was doing.”

  “But why did he do it?” she asked. “Do you know? I never... I know I never did anything to hurt him.”

  “Jealousy, I imagine,” Dr. Capello said. “He worshipped the ground Roland walked on and everyone knew you were his favorite.”

  “I was?”

  “Then and now, it seems.”

  Allison glared at him. Dr. Capello raised his hand, wagged a finger.

  “I see I hit a nerve,” he said. “When I was a surgeon, I hated hitting nerves. Now that I’m retired, I hit them on purpose.”

  “Oliver,” Allison said, refusing to let him goad her into talking about Roland. “You really think he pushed me and called my aunt? Seriously?”

  “I think that boy had motive, means and opportunity. And you better believe he was capable of it. You certainly wouldn’t have been the first child he’d hurt. He had problems even I couldn’t... I tried, though. I did try everything. That’s my one comfort about that boy is that I know I did everything I could for him. Sometimes you slay a dragon. Sometimes you cut off its head and three more grow in its place.”

  “It was Oliver?”

  Dr. Capello exhaled slowly and gave the tersest of nods.

  Allison had to turn away from him to collect herself. The