“Yeah.”
“Then one person stands in the middle and starts bobbling around with a big orange ball. A square ball.”
“Okay.”
“When he finally sits down on the ground, everyone—”
“Picks up some goop and throws it at him?” Richard asked.
“They all yell ‘goop’ and run around in a circle.”
“Of course. How do you win the game?”
“By having fun.”
They both laughed, then Richard gave his son a hug. “We had a week’s worth of fun all in one day.”
“I’ve never had this much fun. Not even in Vermont.”
Richard smiled. “I’m glad you had such a good time. And remember, Uncle David and I worked it out so he could visit us next week for a couple of days.”
“Now I’ll never be able to get to sleep,” Christopher said.
“We chopped a lot of wood, didn’t we?” Richard said, then bent down to kiss Christopher. “Good night, son.”
“Good night, Daddy.” Richard was at the door before Christopher spoke again. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, son. Sleep tight.”
This felt good. This felt like being a dad.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Richard closed the door and stood by it for just a minute, waiting to see if Christopher was going to call him back in. When he didn’t hear anything, he walked down the hall to the office. He looked on his desk for the notes he’d made in Vermont. He had had a few ideas for his novel and was excited to tackle them now. The most he’d ever written was about fifty pages before scrapping them and starting over. He heard that one of the big mistakes of first-time novelists was writing about something they really didn’t know anything about, so he had decided a long time ago to write about growing up. He’d write about a boy growing up in New England, and how the people he knew and the choices he made shaped what he would later become as a man. Maybe not a best-seller or the seed for a blockbuster movie, but it was a story he wanted to tell. The problem was, he was never satisfied with what he had to say.
But he’d taken some good notes, and he felt different tonight. He thought he’d finally figured out what had been wrong all this time. Up until now, he had a message to send. He wanted to make a bold statement about society. He kept changing his mind about what that bold statement was exactly, but he always knew he wanted to make it. During the past few days, though, watching his son and his parents, and today, playing and eating and shopping and talking with Christopher, something became different. Finally, he knew he had a story to tell rather than a message to send.
He found his notes and sat down with his notebook.
Thirty minutes passed, and so did the feeling that something would be different this time. Watching his son and feeling something different was one thing, putting it into words was another. He kept rereading and rearranging his notes, but he hadn’t even written a word, not wanting to put anything on paper that wasn’t perfect. Just as he reached for his notebook, not knowing if he were going to file it in the cabinet or the trash, one word caught his eye: porch. He thought of the porch at Andy’s house, and the feeling came back, and, without thinking, he began writing.
The porch. What it was made of. When it was built. The games played on, underneath, around it. The talks. A resort for lemonade in the summer, a fort for snowball fights in the winter. The first three pages were just about the porch, and then that led to the house. The type of house, the location of the house, the importance of the house—and of the people who lived there. Page after page about the house and its family. Richard wasn’t trying to be poetic, and he wasn’t trying not to be, he was simply putting words on paper, much as a sculptor might throw a lump of clay down on his table. It was a lump of clay, with no particular form, no hidden meaning. But over time, with the proper molding and shaping by talented, loving hands, an image would emerge that could transcend the roughness of its origins and bring to the world something it had never seen before.
For the first time, Richard felt like a writer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
After writing in their notebooks for most of the morning, Richard and Christopher and his Winnie the Pooh ventured out to Central Park. Richard figured his son would enjoy boating on the lake and going to the zoo, but he was surprised at how much he loved riding on the carousel. He couldn’t imagine anything more old-fashioned than a carousel, but his son wanted to ride it again and again.
Richard had promised they’d eat dinner at Grand Central Station. Dinner took a long time because Christopher was so excited to talk about the day, but Richard was in no hurry.
Richard and Christopher climbed the stairs to catch the subway home, Grand Central becoming increasingly crowded and hectic. Richard held tightly on to his son’s hand while he looked for signs pointing to the subway they needed. Something felt different, but he didn’t know what. Like there was some strange sense of tension among all these strangers. Travelers...homeless... commuters...a man selling yo-yos that lit up...a small band—bass, lead guitar, and drums...a woman selling puppets...a self-styled rapper. It was almost like being at a circus thrown together at the last minute. He felt that unique mixture of fun and sadness he’d always experienced at the circus as a kid. But that wasn’t what kept nagging at Richard. Too many people pushing past each other. Too many shadows. Something wasn’t right.
“Stay close,” Richard almost shouted to be heard. “Our train shouldn’t be too far from here.”
They turned a corner, but found themselves at a four-way intersection. Richard, just for a moment, wasn’t quite sure which hall to take. He paused to get his bearings. Christopher held onto his bear more tightly.
Just as Richard made up his mind and started off to the left, he felt a large force hit him from behind so hard that he fell to the floor. He no longer felt his son’s hand in his.
“Christopher!”
He stood up but the crowd was swarming around him and he couldn’t see his son.
“Christopher!” he shouted, but no response. He pushed his way through the crowd.
“Christopher! Where are you?” He looked around the intersection and along the walls. He scanned the different halls, wondering which one he should try, or if he should just stay where he was. He could feel his heart beating, faster, faster, and felt sweat forming all over his body, dripping from his forehead and under his arms.
“Christopher!” he shouted. “Has anyone seen a little boy? A little boy holding a bear?”
No one listened.
He went down one of the halls, calling after Christopher, asking anyone who would listen if they’d seen a boy with a bear.
He turned the corner and saw through the rushing crowd a station employee back against the wall, walking slowly. Richard ran up to the man and grabbed him by his shirt, pushing him against the wall.
“Hey, pal!”
“I’ve lost my son.”
“What?”
“I’ve lost my son. He was with me a minute ago, but now he’s gone. You’ve got to help me find him.”
The man asked to see a picture and then messaged the photo and the boy’s information to the station police headquarters, promising they’d all help look. Richard headed back down the hall. Madhouse. Where was his little boy in this madhouse? He didn’t belong here.
Richard turned the corner into the larger Grand Central foyer and stopped. Thousands. People rushed all over the place, everyone and everything moving around each other, into each other. He looked up into the high ceiling with all its stars and felt himself spinning. Felt the whole station turning around and around. He fell against the wall behind him.
Richard finally saw Al’s newsstand and ran up to it.
“Mr. Carson, what is it?”
“Have you seen a little boy around here, holding a bear?”
“No. What little boy?”
“My son—he’s gone.”
“Let’s go,” Al said. He locked up his
stand. “I’ll help you look.” He pulled down the metal door until it touched the counter, then came out of the stand through a small door on the side.
“Let’s divide up,” Richard said. “You take the east side, I’ll take the west. He’s six years old, about this tall,” he held out his hand, “with brown hair. Oh, forget it, just look at this.” He showed Al Christopher’s picture on his phone.
Richard kept calling Christopher’s name, but no one seemed to notice him. He climbed up on a bench, searching the huge cavern. It was impossible to see individual children in the station. If he was lucky, he might see the tops of one or two heads, but he couldn’t make out faces. A couple of times he thought he saw a boy that might look like his son, but each time the child was with an adult or a couple. Christopher would be alone. Scared and alone.
He climbed down from the bench, still calling his son’s name. When he walked around an information counter, he found a police officer scanning the crowd.
“Officer,” Richard said, “I’m looking for my little boy—”
“Right,” the officer said, “I am, too.” He held up his cell phone and showed the picture of Christopher. “Headquarters sent it to us. We’ve all got one.”
“I don’t see how this is going to work,” Richard said. “How can we find one little boy in this crowd?”
“I’m not looking for one little boy.”
“What do you mean?”
“I hate to bring this up, Mr. Carson, but there’s a chance someone took your son. I’m looking for an adult with a boy who looks like he’s not very happy.”
The officer walked off, cell in hand, looking down a hall.
He was right. As much as Richard didn’t want to admit it, maybe Christopher wasn’t alone. He changed his focus, searching for anyone with a child. A train must have just arrived because another flood of people came down the hall, parting around Richard and making him feel even more helpless. He pushed his way through the new crowd, getting in front of it so he could get a better view of the station.
He found another bench and stood on it to get a broader perspective. He called his son’s name out, realizing it would be almost impossible for Christopher to hear him. As he turned, something caught his attention. A large, bulky man in a dark suit was crouching down near the corner for some reason, a woman standing next to him, nervously glancing all over and tapping the man on the shoulder. She looked frantic.
Why was the man crouching down?
Richard jumped off the bench and started walking over to the couple. The woman saw him, then grabbed the man’s shoulder and shook him. Richard ran toward them, pushing people aside.
“Christopher?” he shouted.
“Come on, come on,” the woman almost shouted to the man. “He’s here. We gotta go.”
The man turned and Richard saw his little boy, clutching his bear, standing against the wall crying. Before the man could stand up, Richard ran into him with all his weight, knocking him into the woman.
“Daddy!” Christopher shouted.
Richard grabbed his son and held him. The man stood up, but suddenly fell down hard, right on his face. Al stood behind him.
“We gotta get out of here, Mr. Carson,” Al said, pointing to door. The woman was running out to a van with “Shapiro’s Coat Outlet” painted on its side. She kept shouting as two men climbed out of the van and started pushing their way into the station.
“Let’s go,” Richard said, and he moved through the crowd as quickly as possible. He couldn’t run—there were too many people—but he soon got lost in the crowd. When he looked behind him, he saw that the three men and the woman had lost track of them and had split up, each scanning the foyer. Christopher held on to his father’s neck with one arm, and to Pooh Bear with the other. He’d stopped crying.
“Follow me,” Al said, taking the lead.
They ran up to his newsstand, making sure none of the men had seen them. As Al struggled with the keys, Richard noticed one of the men heading in their direction. He didn’t think he’d seen them, but he wasn’t sure. Al finally got the door unlocked and the three dove into the newsstand. After he’d locked the door, Al pointed to the floor and they sat down. It was tight, and Christopher sat in his father’s lap, still holding onto his neck. They could hear themselves breathing, almost panting, from all the running. A thin sheet of light passed under the metal door and cut across the interior of the stand. Al opened his mouth, but Richard motioned with his finger to his lips not to say anything.
Richard looked down at his watch and wondered how long they would need to stay hidden. He tried to calm down and think things through, figure out what was happening, but his mind raced in just one place.
After about a half hour, Al touched Richard on the shoulder. “I’m gonna go take a look,” he whispered, then left the stand.
The next time Richard glanced at his watch an hour had passed. His son rocked back and forth in his lap a little bit as though he were trying to calm down his bear. The door started to rattle and Christopher grabbed his father around the neck.
“I’ve looked all over,” Al said, “but they’re gone. The van’s gone, too.”
“I just want to go home, Daddy. Can’t we just go home?”
“Okay, son,” Richard whispered. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
They found a police officer near the information booth and reported what had happened. The officer called for others to come and search the station while he talked with Richard. Richard responded to a list of questions, but nothing seemed to be leading to any answers. The officer did his best to interview Christopher, but all the boy could remember was the man grabbing him and holding onto him while they made their way through the terminal. He never looked up to see their faces because he was so afraid.
“Is there anyone, Mr. Carson,” the officer said, “anyone who’d want to kidnap your son?”
Richard thought of Harold Solomon. He knew what Harold would think, that it had to be the school. But he also knew that Harold wouldn’t say anything—it was too dangerous. But Harold was paranoid. Besides, what would be the point of their trying to kidnap Christopher? Why would they take such a big risk?
CHAPTER FORTY
After the cab took off from the station, Richard let out a sigh and started to relax a little.
“Is everything going to be okay, Daddy?”
“Yes, son, everything’s going to be just fine. Everything’s better when the sun comes up.”
Christopher snuggled up to his father, still holding on tight to his bear, and closed his eyes. Richard found himself looking in the mirror and off to the sides, seeing if the van was anywhere near. He wondered if he would always be like this, checking people’s faces, searching for suspicious cars.
When they got to their apartment building, Christopher was asleep. Richard paid the driver and, with his son in one hand and the bear in the other, made his way up to their apartment. While he fumbled for his keys, the apartment door opened.
“What took you so long?” Carol asked as he came in through the door. “You were supposed to be back a long time ago. I called your cell.”
Richard put the bag down and headed down the hall, carrying Christopher.
“He’s had a rough day,” he whispered. “I’ll tell you about it in a minute.”
Richard laid Christopher on his bed. He took the little boy’s shoes off and covered him with a blanket. When he returned to the living room, Carol was waiting by the couch.
“So, what happened?” she asked.
Richard kept walking through the living room and into their bedroom. Without turning on the light, he sat on the edge of their bed, rubbing his neck.
“You’re gone for days and then you come home late,” she said. “I’m worried sick, some mysterious thing happened, and you don’t have anything to say?”
“When we were at Grand Central today, someone tried to take Christopher.”
“Take? What do you mean, ‘take’?”
“I don’t know. Kidnap, I guess.”
She backed up against the wall and covered her mouth with her hand. “Kidnap? Who?”
“I don’t know who, why, I don’t know anything.”
“Is he all right?”
“A little shaken up, but he’s okay.”
Carol left their bedroom and walked back toward Christopher’s room. When she came back, she looked like she was in the courtroom with a hostile witness.
“Do you still think he’s better off outside of Newman?” she said, keeping her voice down.
“What? Carol, what happened to the—”
“Richard, start thinking of him.” Her voice was low, but he’d never seen her so furious before. “If he were back in Newman—where he belongs—none of this would have happened. You need to start thinking of him.”
“I am thinking of him. We need to be with him all the time, to protect him, to—”
“You were with him today, Richard, and that didn’t seem to help much.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Light from the living room window shone on Richard as he lay on the couch. He hadn’t bothered to get a blanket, or to even take off his shoes. Three times during the night he’d heard noises and had run down the hall, ready to defend his son again. Each time, once he realized there was nothing to fight, he would check on Christopher, then lie back down on the couch, waiting at least an hour for sleep to come back.
“Daddy.”
Richard sat up like an alarm had gone off.
“Are you okay?” Richard asked, grabbing his son.
“Sure. I just wanted to let you know the sun came up.”
“Oh.” Richard hugged his son, trying to calm down. He could feel his heart beating, stumbling over itself.
“You were right,” Christopher said, “everything is better.”
Richard smiled, remembering what he’d told him the night before.
“I think Carol is already gone. Your door is open and no one’s in there. Why did you sleep out here?”
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