Borrowed Boy

by Gene Gant

  “Blake, we’ll certainly take you up on that sometime,” Mom said with a smile.

  Mr. Copeland turned to me. “Well, Dwayne, our flight leaves at one fifteen. We have to drop by FedEx to ship out your things. Then we have to return this van and get checked in at the airport no later than twelve fifteen. We should go now.”

  I closed my eyes as my heart dropped into a bottomless hole. Beside me, I could feel Cole’s body stiffen. You can do this, I told myself. Keeping my eyes shut, I turned and hugged my best friend. “See you around,” I said.

  “Don’t forget me, Zay!” Cole pleaded, hugging me back.

  I pushed away from him, smiling despite the emptiness in my chest, and looked into his eyes. “Cole, I’m being switched to a different phone plan, but I’ll keep the same phone number, and I still have your cell phone number. We’ll be talking, texting, skyping, doing Facebook, all that stuff. It’s not like I’m moving to another planet.”

  Cole choked up on a grin, his eyes glistening. Dad reached over and gave him a comforting pat on the back.

  I turned from him to Mom and Dad. Just one look at them and I thought, I can’t do this. I can’t go. My lower lip started quivering; I had to clench my teeth to stop it. Spreading both arms as wide as possible, I moved in to hug them. Their arms closed around me, and I wanted to stay in that embrace forever. I buried my face in the juncture between the sides of their bodies. “I love you guys,” I whispered, my eyes briefly closing again. “I’ll always love you.”

  “We’ll always love you, son,” Mom whispered back. She gently broke the embrace, pushing me off enough that she could lean in and kiss me on the forehead. Dad bent down, and even through his little smile, I saw the pain he was holding in, a knot between his eyebrows. He kissed me on the forehead too and then grabbed me again in an impulsive hug.

  “Stay sharp, kid,” he said when he finally let go. “You owe me a story for every single one I told you, and I intend to collect.”

  “You got it, Dad.”

  There was nothing more to say. Or rather, there was no time to say anything else. I followed the Copelands outside and along the walkway to the street. You can do it if you just don’t look back. I didn’t look back, even when we reached the van and Mr. Copeland pushed some button on the key fob that set the van’s left rear door sliding open. The three of us climbed in, the door slid shut beside me, Mr. and Mrs. Copeland closed their doors, and the engine hummed to life. I stared at the back of Mr. Copeland’s head as I slipped on my seat belt.

  The Copelands waved. The van started to move.

  Tears were building up, making my eyes burn. I had to look. I had to see them one last time.

  Dad had an arm around Mom’s shoulders. She was leaning against him. Cole stood on the steps in front of them. All three of them waved. They all had the most beautiful smiles on their faces. It was a picture I wanted to keep forever in my mind, the perfect way to remember them, and I was glad I looked.

  I waved back as the van took me away.

  Part Two: Chi-Town

  Chapter Eleven

  I HATED Chicago.

  I knew that the moment we got off the plane at what must’ve been the biggest airport in the world. I’d thought the Memphis airport was huge. You could fit five Memphis airports inside that monster Chicagoans call O’Hare. It took almost forty-five minutes just to walk from the arrival gate to the baggage claim area.

  And people. Wow, I’d never seen so many people in one place. All colors, all races, all sizes, all ages. There were enough people to make the airport a city in itself.

  I hated the long drive from the airport into the city. Downtown—Mrs. Copeland called it the Loop—was like one great forest with massive concrete trees towering thirty stories high. Downtown Memphis would barely take up two streets in the Loop, and its tallest building would look like a matchstick next to the behemoths jutting skyward in this place.

  I hated the Copelands’ home. They lived in a condominium—which, as far as I could tell, is a fancy word for a humongous apartment—on the sixth floor of a high-rise on a street called Lake Shore Drive. An apartment instead of a house is bad enough, but when you look out the windows here, instead of seeing your neighbors’ houses and little kids playing on lawns and bigger kids riding bikes and skateboards, all you see is Lake Michigan. Lots and lots of Lake Michigan. It spreads out forever, this flat, featureless, gray-blue plain, and looking at it is about as appealing as staring at a blank wall.

  Okay, I arrived preprogrammed to hate all that stuff because I didn’t want to be there. I admit that. But I kept those feelings to myself. When Mr. and Mrs. Copeland opened the door of the condo to me that first time and went, “Welcome home, Dwayne,” I put on a smile like it was Christmas. They both seemed a little nervous. I was a whole lot nervous. Mom always told me a smile can help any situation. I guess it worked, because the Copelands smiled back at me.

  “Come on in,” Mr. Copeland said, looking as excited as a kid.

  The furniture in the living room was sort of funny-looking, metal frames with glass tabletops and sleek black leather pads instead of thick cushions. There was a wall of big windows at the back that looked out over the lake. Mom and Dad’s house, Cole’s house, and all my friends’ houses in Memphis often smelled of spices from the foods that were prepared in them every day. The air in the Copelands’ place was cool and sort of blank, as if no one had ever cooked a meal or baked a cake there.

  As if no one really lived there.

  “Let me give you the grand tour,” Mrs. Copeland said. She took me by the hand, which would have been okay if I was five. Just as she started to lead me toward the dining room, BJ came walking up the hall. “Oh hi, BJ.” She gave him a big smile and raised my hand over my head the way a referee lifts the arm of the winning boxer in the ring. “Look who’s here. Dwayne’s finally home.”

  “Yeah,” BJ said in this flat tone. He tucked a baseball cap on his head as he headed for the front door. “I’ll see you guys later.”

  “Wait,” Mr. Copeland said. “Where are you going?”

  “Over to Tubby’s.” BJ was reaching for the doorknob.

  Mr. Copeland put up a hand. “Stop, BJ. You can’t go out now.”

  BJ turned, looking as if he’d just been kicked in the butt. “You said I had to stay home until you and Mom got back. Well, you’re back, and that means I can go out.”

  “BJ, we just brought your brother home,” Mrs. Copeland said in this pleading voice. “Don’t you want to spend some time with him?”

  “I’ll spend time with him later. I’m going to the movies with Tubby and Dell.” BJ turned and opened the door.

  “No you’re not.” Mr. Copeland moved over quickly and pushed the door shut. “This is the first time in almost fourteen years that Dwayne has been home with us. This day is for family.”

  “But that’s not fair! You told me I had to stay in while you were gone. You didn’t say anything about after you got back—”

  Mr. Copeland blocked the whole door, putting his hands on his hips. “This is not a debate. We’re all spending the day together as a family, and I don’t want to hear another word from you about going out with your friends.”

  BJ scowled, and for a second I thought he was going to actually push his dad out of the way. It was a relief when he stepped back, looking offended. “You’re going to make me give up my whole day. I have zero life now, is that it?”

  It was fine with me if BJ went out. As far as I was concerned, he could move in permanently with his friends if that made him happy. I just didn’t want there to be any bad feelings between him and his parents. I actually wanted some time alone, and I started to say that just as Mr. Copeland stepped right up and looked BJ squarely in the eye.

  “This is your brother here,” Mr. Copeland hissed at him in a voice shaking with emotion. “Do you understand that? Do you understand what he’s been through, especially over the past month? It’s important that you be here for him today. All of o
ur lives have changed. That’s going to require a significant readjustment, and it’s important that you take part in that too. Now give your brother a proper greeting and let him know how glad you are to have him home. Have I made myself clear?”

  BJ was slow in answering. “Yes, sir.” Anger glimmered in his eyes, and for an instant, I thought he was going to spit out a curse. Instead he broke into a smile. It was one of those scary smiles, the kind you see on a movie vampire before it lunges and rips the neck out of its victim. BJ walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Welcome home, little bro.” Then he squeezed, digging his thumb hard and deep below my collarbone. It hurt like the worst thing ever. I flinched, and I had to bite my lip to keep from squealing.

  When he let go, I could feel tears tingling in my eyes. I blinked them away. He backed up a step and gave me that manufactured smile again. Mr. and Mrs. Copeland were smiling so happily at the both of us.

  My shoulder still hurt, but I faked my way into their smile club.

  “AND LAST but not least, this is your room.” Mrs. Copeland pushed the door open for me.

  It had been a long tour, with Mrs. Copeland as the guide and Mr. Copeland and BJ tagging along as her backup, I guess, in case she overlooked anything. BJ hung back from the rest of us, following along like a kid being led to detention by the principal. The condo was bigger than the house where I lived in Memphis. I was going to need GPS just to find the way from my bedroom to the bathroom.

  Speaking of my bedroom, it was… different. There were lots of pictures of me as a baby on the walls—big pictures and small ones. The bed was so neat it didn’t look as if it had ever been slept in. The whole room looked unused, like a stage set up and waiting for the play to begin.

  “We’ll have to let you put your stamp on it, of course,” Mrs. Copeland said in this apologetic voice. She seemed a little embarrassed. “I’ll take you shopping soon so you can get posters for the wall or whatever you’d like to put up. Your dad and I did buy plenty of new clothes for you, so you’ll be fine until your things from Memphis are delivered.”

  “It’ll be dinnertime soon,” said Mr. Copeland. His eyes were suddenly so bright it was almost scary. “This day is all about you, so we’ll let you pick what we’re having, Dwayne.”

  Zay. Just please call me Zay. But instead of that, I said, “Oh, whatever we have is okay with me.”

  “Well, what’s your favorite dinner?”

  “Pizza with Italian sausage and Canadian bacon.”

  “Done! That’s what we’re having.” Mr. Copeland clapped me once on the back.

  “Well, Dwayne, your dad and I will take a trip to the supermarket to pick up the fixings to make pizza,” said Mrs. Copeland. “We’ll have salad on the side, and I’ll make lemonade. While we’re gone, you boys can start getting to know each other.”

  Then Mr. and Mrs. Copeland did the scariest thing yet. They went off and left me alone with BJ.

  Chapter Twelve

  AFTER MR. and Mrs. Copeland left, BJ stared at me for an hour.

  Okay, it wasn’t actually that long, only a few seconds, but it sure felt like an hour.

  He moved over to the bed, sat down, and then reclined with his back against the headboard and his legs crossed at the ankles. He folded his arms across his chest and stared at me again. This stare made me even more uncomfortable. It made me feel as if I were a fly and he were holding a swatter, just waiting for me to land somewhere convenient.

  I tried to swallow, but all the spit had evaporated from my mouth.

  “So,” he said, “little brother.” “Brother” came out like a cuss word. “Right now I’m supposed to be in a theater with my friends watching the new Star Wars movie we’ve only been waiting a whole year to see. Instead, I’m here with you.”

  The way he said “you” made me feel like Martian fungus.

  I tried swallowing again, with no better luck than before. “I didn’t want them to make you stay. You could’ve gone to the movies with your friends.”

  “Hey, thanks. Too bad you didn’t say that to them before they left. Not that it would’ve done any good.” He tucked one hand behind his head and waved the other at the room. “So what do you think of your new digs?”

  “It’s nice,” I answered. Translation: this place creeps me all the way out.

  “Yeah.” BJ nodded, looking around. “It’s sort of dry and dull, but okay, I guess. Having all these baby pictures of you on the walls is freaking weird. I would’ve said that just now, but nobody listens to me around this place. You know, I’ve lived here all my life, and this is the first time I’ve ever actually been in this room.”

  He looked at me, waiting for me to say something. I didn’t know what he wanted me to say, so I kept quiet.

  “Dwayne, ask me why I’ve never spent any time in this room.”

  It looked as if the swatter was going to smash down on me any second. “BJ, why haven’t you ever spent time in this room?”

  He tucked both hands behind his head, settling in for a long stay. “Well, Dwayne, I’m glad you asked me that. You see, my parents wouldn’t let me come in this one area of our home because they said it was your private, personal space. ‘Stay out of Dwayne’s room, BJ. We have to keep that room ready for him.’ They turned it into a shrine, and of course I always wanted to come in because they put all kinds of wonderful stuff in here. Every Christmas, every year on your birthday, they bought presents. I’m talking bikes, video game systems, laptops, air hockey… really cool stuff, all wrapped up with ribbons and bows, and I couldn’t touch any of it. ‘Those are Dwayne’s things,’ they told me. This place was so packed with your ‘things’ that Mom and Dad could barely get in here.”

  I looked around the distinctly uncluttered room.

  “Don’t bother looking for any of that stuff,” BJ said. “When the FBI finally found you, Mom and Dad took everything out and gave it to some children’s charity. But don’t worry, Dwayne. They’ve already said they’re buying you all new stuff. Yeah, they’ll get you whatever you want.” He was quiet for a moment, studying me. “I don’t remember you. I was only two years old when you disappeared, so I don’t remember you at all. What I do remember is that my parents were always talking about you. ‘Dwayne, Dwayne, Dwayne. Dwayne’s a year older and we have to get bigger shoes for him. We have to get presents for Dwayne’s birthday. We have to paint Dwayne’s room and keep it ready.’ It was like our house was haunted or something. I kept expecting to look up one day and see a little ghost boy hovering in the doorway.”

  My heart seemed to pump out a little chill that creeped through my body like ice water. I moved over and sat on the floor with my back against the wall, drawing up my knees and wrapping my arms around them.

  BJ kept watching me. “And now the ghost is here, flesh and blood,” he said, his voice suddenly sounding angry. “But you know, Dwayne, sometimes I felt like a ghost around here too. Mom and Dad were always focused on you, a kid I almost couldn’t believe had been real. Everything we did as a family, they had to bring you up. Every time they took me trick-or-treating when I was little, they mentioned you. They wondered what kind of costume you would’ve wanted, what kind of candy you would’ve liked. On my birthdays they wondered what gift you would’ve picked for me. And then there was all the time they spent looking for you.”

  He pushed off from the headboard, sitting on the edge of the bed. His gaze burned into me. “I’ve been going to science camp every summer since I was ten. Every year, one kid gets an award for best project, and last year I won it. Mom and Dad swore they were coming to the awards ceremony, but then the FBI called about a lead they had on you, and there I was at the ceremony, the only kid without his parents. I was in a peewee football league, and they missed a lot of my games. I did a play in second grade and they weren’t there for that. All because they were looking for you. Putting up posters, checking news stories, meeting with detectives and FBI agents… it was always about you. They couldn’
t see me because they were looking for you.”

  BJ sounded so angry and hurt, and it felt as if it was my fault. “I’m sorry, BJ.”

  “So here you are, in the flesh, Dwayne, and it’s still about you. I’m missing a movie I’ve been looking forward to for months, thanks to you. I don’t like pizza, but I’m eating it today, thanks to you. Mom and Dad are gonna care even less about what I want, thanks to you.”

  “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Yeah, thanks for being sorry, Dwayne.” He raised his eyebrows. “You flinch every time I call you ‘Dwayne.’ Why is that? I’ll bet you’d rather be Zavier. Is that it? You want me to call you Zavier… or Zay?”

  I started to nod, to tell him yes, please, just call me Zay. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. The judge said I had to be Dwayne. More importantly, my mom in Memphis told me I had to be Dwayne.

  “Well, you know what I wanted, Dwayne?” BJ asked after I didn’t answer him. “I wanted my mom and dad to be happy, to be normal. I wanted them to go to work and come home and have dinner and watch television with me like any normal happy family. But they were always stressed out by that never-ending search for you. They never had any time for themselves or for me because they spent every spare second on you. So, we don’t always get what we want, huh?”

  BJ stood up so fast it was almost like a torpedo launch. I got up too, nervous as anything. “You’re still stressing them out. Since you turned up, they’ve gone from being afraid for you to feeling guilty. That’s why they just made me a prisoner in my own freaking house.”

  He walked fast across the room. I was between him and the door. He pushed me hard in the shoulder to get me out of the way. “You should’ve stayed missing,” he snapped as he left.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “HEY, MR. Copeland—” I slapped a hand over my mouth, but it was too late. My face got warm with embarrassment. “Sorry, sorry. That was stupid of me. I meant to say ‘Dad.’”