So who were they then? He fixed them with a long, pot-emboldened stare and watched them shift uncomfortably. Good, he thought. Go away, strange white people.
A pause. No one said anything except for the little kid, who was still bouncing on his toes and mumbling to himself, “This is it, this is it.”
Go away, go away, go away, strange white people, he repeated silently.
“We’ll come back later,” the old guy said.
Hallelujah. You, mister, are a genuine psychic. (Maybe it wasn’t too late for the porn, after all?)
“No!” The kid had this tiny little kid’s voice, like he was on helium or something. “I want to stay!”
“We’ll come back in just a bit, sweetie. Okay?” The lady ruffled his hair. She didn’t seem like a cop anymore.
“NO!” The kid was getting on his nerves now.
“We’re coming back, Noah. It’s okay.”
The kid started to cry. The man squatted down beside him and asked him something in a low voice Charlie couldn’t quite make out. The kid nodded. Then he pointed right at him.
“Sure. That’s Charlie,” he said.
The old guy and the lady looked at Charlie. He began to sweat, as if he’d done something wrong. “I didn’t do anything to this kid,” he said. “I don’t even know him.” Looking beseechingly at their staring eyes. He guessed this pot wasn’t so good after all. It was making him paranoid.
“Is that your name? Charlie?” The old guy asked.
“Yeah.”
They stood there, the four of them shifting on the little concrete doorstep, the blond kid still crying, giving him the heebie-jeebies.
Finally it occurred to him that maybe his mama knew these people. They knew his name, after all. She’d kill him if she found out he kept them waiting out on the stoop.
“Would you like to come in?”
“That would be nice, thank you,” the old guy said. “We’ve been traveling for a long time.”
* * *
What did you do with a grandpa and a woman and a sniffly little kid all standing in your living room? The old guy perched expectantly on the edge of the couch and began writing notes in this tiny spidery handwriting on a yellow pad.
“This is it,” the kid said again. He sounded real excited. He started running around the room, the lady (he was pretty sure she was the kid’s mom) following right behind him.
He knew there was something he ought to be doing. The idea came to him slowly, a shimmering density on the other side of the room that slowly took on weight and motion, wafting over to his brain like a helpful ghost. Food. When people are in the house you offer them food. “Would you guys like something to eat? A snack, or something?”
“That’d be nice,” the old guy said. He looked really grateful, like he hadn’t eaten all day.
When Charlie got back from the kitchen (empty-handed but for a few glasses of tap water—there was nothing in the fridge but some old pasta sauce and the ice cream in the freezer he was saving for himself) the kid was standing in front of the fireplace, pointing at the picture of the farm his Grandpa Joe had painted back when he was alive. “That was upstairs,” the kid was saying. “In the attic.”
“Yeah, we moved it down here after Pop left—” and then he fell silent. “What’d you say?”
“Papa’s not here?”
“My dad lives in Yellow Springs, now.”
“Why’d he move there?”
“Well, he and my mama weren’t getting along anymore, so they—”
The kid was looking up at him wide eyed. Man, this was one weird kid.
“My parents—they’re separated.”
“Separated?” The kid’s face was moving around like he was taking it in.
“You know what separated means, honey?” the lady said. “That’s when a mother and a father decide to live in separate places—”
The kid was walking over to the piano now, lifting the lid on the bench.
“Where’s all the music?”
“We don’t have any.”
“There was music.”
Charlie felt himself beginning to lose it. Freaking out. His grip on reality was slipping the grid. Maybe there was something else in Harrison’s brother’s friend’s pot, like some peyote or something. He’d heard that sometimes people did that, spiked the stuff with something trippy that could send you to some crazy places, though why anyone would want to do that he couldn’t figure, since the whole point as far as he was concerned was to sand down the edges.
He looked at the kid. He was sitting on the piano bench. Try, Charlie, try. “You play piano?”
The kid just sat there.
“No, he doesn’t play,” the lady said.
Then the kid started to play the piano. It was the theme song from The Pink Panther. He could tell that right off, after the first couple of notes. He hadn’t heard that melody in years, but back when he’d heard it, back when his brother played it, he’d heard it every day, sometimes every couple hours ’til their dad threatened to strangle him, and he knew beyond a shadow of a shadow of a doubt that He Was Fucked. He was Fucked-Up. He was Fucked-Up and he was going to freak out, right now, in front of all these white people.
“You gotta stop playing that,” he said.
The kid kept on playing.
“You gotta stop playing that.”
He heard the car coming into the driveway with its telltale hissing muffler.
Oh, Sweet Jesus, thank you. Mama’s here.
“Hey, Kid.”
Fucking Pink Panther.
The kid said: “Don’t you know me, Charlie?”
The car door slammed shut. She was getting something out of the trunk. Come inside the house, Mama. Come inside and sort this shit out, take it out of my hands.
“No,” Charlie said. “No, I don’t know you.”
The kid said: “I’m Tommy.”
He tried to cling to the last shreds of the high but it wasn’t there anymore, it was long gone.
Twenty-Four
In retrospect, they’d done it all wrong.
Anderson stood in the Crawfords’ kitchen, trying to detail for himself precisely how he’d let it all go awry.
Almost three thousand cases he’d worked on and he always did a postmortem and a follow-up, not only to track his subjects but also to learn how to do his work better. Now he was on his last case and he felt much as he did at the beginning, raw and unschooled. His last case had been significant, he had been right about that: significant not because it was the American case that could stir the world at large to take note at last that there was evidence of reincarnation, but because it was the case that proved once and for all that he was finished.
He should have known better. What had he been thinking? They should not have talked to the teenager, should have left immediately to regroup. Almost three thousand cases and certainly fifty or sixty decent American ones: he knew this wasn’t India, where the villagers would eagerly point out possible rebirths, sending him off to look at birthmarks he could barely see. In India they wanted him to succeed, were excited about the possibility of proving what they already knew. On American cases you were careful. You worked your way slowly, slowly, to the matter of what you did, in the gentlest possible terms, making it clear that all you were doing was asking questions.
They should have left before the mother got there.
He should have foreseen that the teenager might jump the gun like that. “Mama, this boy says he’s Tommy,” before the poor woman was even through the door.
He should have realized, most importantly, that since they had not found a body, the woman had not known that her son had died.
“Mama, this boy says he’s Tommy,” the teenager had said. And the woman still edging in the door, hip first, a bag of groceries clutched against her chest and a bundle of papers tucked under an arm.
“This boy says he’s Tommy,” and the boy inside playing the piano, and he himself paralyzed by goddamn verbal t
imidity and also the elation flooding the dopamine centers in his brain: the elation that always accompanied verification that a case was a match—for he was quite sure that the child had never played the piano before, and that the tune he was playing had meaning for the previous personality’s family.
Music: was anything more powerful in summoning what was lost? Was it really so surprising that when the woman turned to the room there was hope in her eyes, that wild, hopeless hope you saw sometimes in the faces of terminally ill people discussing the newest treatments? Was it really so surprising that for a moment she thought that her lost son was there in the room somewhere, that he was alive and had made it back to her?
Or that when, instead, her eyes lit on the small white child who was Noah, who was now running toward her like a blond heat-seeking missile, throwing himself at her legs, she would be undone? She’d had to process all of it at once, the hope and the shock of disappointment and of Noah’s life-force slamming against her body, all while standing on the threshold of her home with her coat on and her keys still in her hand and a heavy bag of groceries in her arms.
He should have taken over right then and there. Established a sense of order. Taken the bag from her arms. Mrs. Crawford, I’m Professor Anderson, please take a seat and we’ll explain our presence here. That was the sentence in his head. He heard himself saying it in a soothing tone. But he hesitated, wanting to be sure he had the words right, and before he had a chance to speak, Janie rushed forward, grabbing Noah by his arm and trying to tug him off the woman’s legs.
“Sweetie, let go.”
“No.”
“You have to let go of her. I’m so sorry,” she said to Denise. She tried to pull Noah away, but he clung tighter, squeezing both her legs in his small arms.
“Is this some kind of sick joke?”
“Noah, you’re bothering this woman, let go NOW.”
“No!” he said. “This is my mama!”
“This is insanity,” Denise Crawford said. She jiggled her leg in an effort to extricate herself from the child. She was still holding the heavy bag of groceries. No one had taken it from her. The teenager was standing there with his mouth ajar. Anderson was watching, forming the words in his mind. There was Noah pressing himself against Denise and Janie trying to pull him the other way, the two of them locked together in a battle of wills like the primal struggle of mother and child, until the stack of papers Denise had been carrying tucked under her arm began to slip, and in an effort to regain control she jiggled her leg again, or kicked, and Noah fell.
He fell backward, his head hitting the wooden floor with a loud crack.
Anderson felt the sound shudder through his body.
The boy didn’t move. He lay still on the ground with his eyes closed. Anderson heard a gasp—that was Janie—then a splash as Denise’s papers slid down, fanning out before all of them, Tommy Crawford smiling in green and yellow and blue.
Janie was by his side in an instant. “Noah?”
Then Anderson got hold of himself and crouched beside the boy. He took the boy’s pulse, and the strong beats brought the room back to life again.
Noah’s eyes opened. He blinked, looked up at the ceiling. His pupils seemed normal.
“Do you know who I am?” Anderson asked.
The boy’s gaze glided from the ceiling to Anderson. He looked at him with a saddened expression, as if the question had disappointed him. “Of course I know who you are. I know everybody here.”
Anderson stood up, brushed off his knees. “I think he’s fine.”
“You don’t know that!” Janie cried. “What if he has a concussion?”
“We’ll keep an eye out for symptoms. It’s not likely.”
“Really? How do you know?”
The question vibrated in the air between them. She doesn’t trust me, he thought. Makes sense. Why should she?
“Oh!” Another thud—this time it was the bag of groceries falling as Denise finally lost her grip on it, the pinball whirr of onions rolling across the floor. Denise stared from Noah to the mess on the floor, shaking her head. “I’m sorry—”
Noah struggled to sit. His face contorted. “Mama?”
“So sorry,” Denise repeated. Her knees seemed to buckle and Anderson was afraid for a moment that they were giving way, that she would fall, and the farce would be complete. Instead, she crouched down, collecting the papers, placing them neatly in a pile.
Janie gathered Noah in her arms. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go get a—glass of water, shall we?” She didn’t wait for his response; she stood up and walked out of the room.
“I didn’t mean … to hurt anyone.…” Denise was hoarse, stunned, gathering the flyers one by one.
“Mama,” the teenager said. “Leave them.”
“No, I’ve got to…”
“Leave the flyers be.”
“It’s not your fault,” Anderson said. “It’s mine.”
She looked up at him, but he couldn’t meet her eyes.
* * *
Ten minutes later, Anderson sat up straight on the couch and let the full force of the woman’s fury and confusion fall upon him. He knew he deserved it.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Maybe we should discuss this once you’ve recovered a bit more,” Anderson answered slowly. “From the shock.”
“Oh, I’ve recovered.” The Crawford woman stood over him. She didn’t seem entirely stable.
This simply proved that approaches always matter, Anderson thought. He should not have listened to Janie. He ought to have e-mailed the woman first. Given her some kind of warning.
She crossed her arms and he felt the rage building inside of her, revealing itself in her shaky voice and the flash of her eyes. “So let me get this straight. You think my son is—reincarnated somewhere inside that child? That’s what you think?”
“Ma’am, we try not to jump to…” He looked at her. Fuck it. “Yes. That’s what I think.”
“You people are out of your damn minds.”
“Ma’am. I’m sorry you—came to that conclusion.” He took a deep breath. He’d met resistance so many times. Why should it affect him so much now? He couldn’t find the clarity inside of himself to explain what he needed to explain. “If you can just take a moment and let me explain some of the things Noah’s been saying and you can either—agree with them or—”
“Some kind of crazy voodoo—”
“It’s not voodoo,” Janie said. She was standing in the doorway.
Anderson felt deeply relieved to see her there. “How’s Noah?”
“Okay. For now. He won’t talk to me. Charlie set him up in the kitchen watching cartoons on the computer.” Janie turned to Denise. “Look,” she said. “I know this all sounds crazy, and totally far-fetched … and the thing is, it is far-fetched, all of it, but maybe it’s also—” She glanced at Anderson, her eyes startled, flung open like a window. “It’s also true.”
Anderson was momentarily stricken with gratitude. Maybe it wasn’t all gone to shit, after all.
“Look, we don’t want to upset you. That’s the last thing we want,” Janie said nervously, and Denise laughed, a terrible sound.
“You can go ahead and believe whatever you like. That’s your prerogative. But please leave me and my family out of it.”
“Did Tommy have a lizard named Horntail?” Anderson asked suddenly.
Denise’s face was unreadable over her crossed arms. “So what if he did?”
“Noah remembers being a boy named Tommy who had a lizard named Horntail and a brother named Charlie. He gave multiple references to Harry Potter books, and likes the Nationals baseball team.” Anderson surprised himself with his newfound fluency with proper nouns, as if some other, intact part of his brain was retrieving the necessary information. This was some quirk of the aphasia, grist for someone’s research paper, only it wasn’t research, it was his life; it was this moment. “He talked about shooting a .54 caliber rifle.�
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Denise twisted her lips into a thin smile. “Well, then, you see? We never had guns in our home. I didn’t even let the boys play with toy guns.”
“He says he misses his mother. His other mother,” Janie added quietly. “He cries about it all the time.”
“Look, I don’t know why your son says these things. If something is wrong with him, then I’m truly sorry. But this is nonsense, a bunch of half-baked coincidences, and you’re telling all this to the wrong person, because to be honest, I don’t care.” Denise laughed again, if you could call it a laugh. Anderson could sense her pain behind that clear, furious facade, like lightning flashing in the distance. There was no way in. “Look, I’m not a minister and, far as I can see, neither are you. And I’m not going to stand here in my own living room and speculate about the hereafter, because none of it makes any difference. Because none of it brings my boy back to me. Tommy is—” Her voice caught. She shook her head and tried again. “My son is dead.”
The words rang out in the room. She looked from one to the other, as if one of them might actually contradict her. He wished suddenly that he was a resident again, armed with his white coat, curing the sick; anything but who he was, where he was: in this room, agreeing with this mother that her son was dead.
“I’m so sorry,” Janie said. Her voice was thick with tears.
Denise Crawford was not crying, though. She was continuing on, speaking in a voice so frozen Anderson felt its chill penetrating deep into his bones: that cold grief he knew so well. “He’s dead. And he’s not ever coming back. And you—you should be ashamed of yourselves.”
“Mrs. Crawford—”
“I think you ought to go now. You’ve done enough. Just—go.”
Janie tried to smile. “Mrs. Crawford—we’ll leave, we’re fine with leaving, if you could see Noah for a few minutes—you don’t have to say anything, if you just sit with him and be … friendly—”
“You convinced this child that he’s someone else. And you dragged him here all the way from god knows where—”
“New York.”
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