A Measure of Blood (4 page)

WHEN JANET GABRIEL'S CELL PHONE RANG,
it was ten at night in France, but still Sunday, and she was sitting with her husband, Arthur, on the terrace of the house they had rented. Their luggage was packed for the next morning's flight; this, their last evening, was something delicious—peace, food, wine, the sounds of creatures getting ready for the night.

She had to look for the phone and only just managed to find it.

When Christie identified himself, Janet walked back to where her husband was sitting. She couldn't imagine why the detective whom they knew, but not intimately, would call her in France.

“Look. This isn't for sure,” he began. “I know you've given up and all that, but—”

Janet almost laughed then. “Richard. Please. No. Is it those four kids again?” She couldn't do it and she knew that—never even met the four kids he'd wanted to put with them two years ago.

“How about one?” His voice was serious.

“Oh. One of the four?” She looked at Arthur who was mouthing, “What? Who?”

Christie went on. “Here's the situation. Child Services will be involved tomorrow and they'll be looking for a foster home for this kid, Matthew. It's a new case. Matthew Brown. You're still officially registered as foster parents, right?”

Jan looked at her husband's worried face. She clicked the little megaphone that switched on the speakerphone. “Yes,” she said.

“Well this is a kid—almost eight. His mother's been murdered. She was a single mother. I don't have to tell you he's going to do better with something familiar around him. His mother lived on Morrowfield—that's only, what, seven blocks from the two of you. He went to school at Minadeo. He has friends in the neighborhood. This could work out for him… . He's a handsome boy, and smart. Apparently has a nervous streak—I haven't seen it yet. He's in deep grief. He badly needs parents. He needs a strong mother and father. Will you meet him? If I can finagle the thing—which I hope I can.”

Arthur looked stunned.

Jan thought:
a beautiful boy, smart, almost eight.
She had always wondered if something would happen when they were old, even older than this. Something. Some event. Just like that. And she would be a mother because in her heart she never really gave up. She always thought she and her husband were an Abraham and Sarah, waiting. She said, “We get home in the evening tomorrow.”

“It isn't for sure. I'll fight for it.”

It isn't for sure.

NADAL BROWN HAD
PARKED HIS MAROON PONTIAC
outside his mother's house in State College, Pennsylvania, earlier in the day and for most of the afternoon sat with his mother, watching TV. Pretending to watch. He'd poked out of the living room a couple of times to do laundry. For hours, his heart pounded so hard he thought she might see.

A glimpse. That's all he got of his son. Then he couldn't find him.

He didn't remember the drive there. He did it in a dream.

At one point, his mother said, “Why is the washing machine taking so long?”

He shrugged that he didn't know. He'd run everything twice but he didn't say so. She fed him some sliced ham with cheese and bread and strong coffee. She drank coffee all day long, couldn't get enough of it, always smelled of it. She sat beside him, saying she'd watch anything he wanted to watch on the tube. He picked channels at random, trying not to surf at lightning speed (which she hated). When it was suppertime, she brought him a platter with two wraps, lots of hot sauce. The hot sauce shot another jolt through his system, making him feel shaky inside.

Now, it's nighttime and he's finally beginning to calm.

His mother asks, “Do you need money or something?”

“No.”

“Just felt like visiting. Needs his mama,” she says hopefully.

But he twists away from her. “I'm not a baby. Can't I just knock back for a couple of hours, be a vegetable? Okay with you?”

“I'm glad you're here. I always thought you didn't like this house.” She indicates the dining room where his father spent his last weeks on a hospital bed and where the old man finally breathed his last. At least the hospital bed isn't sitting in the dining room anymore. “I thought I would never get you here again, just sitting with me.”

“Well, here I am.”

“I put the bed up in that little room, the one you liked. For a while I used it as my sewing room.”

A strange little room—lock on the door, window that doesn't open. He chose it because he felt he could shut his father out, though his father never tried to come in.

They go quiet, in agreement not to talk about the father he hated, the man who had materialized only in the last years, when nobody needed
him
anymore and when he was sick and useless and he needed
them
.

“Tell me what else to get you.”

“Nothing. Really.”

His mother is plump and small. She doesn't think enough of herself, always serving people. She's too soft. And people use her.

He stares straight ahead at the TV.

“Do you like golf now?”

“Yeah.”

All that. All that and he had only caught a glimpse of the boy and he didn't have him.

THE ROOM SMEL
LED
LIKE SOME LADY'S PERFUME.
He memorized everything in the room because he was excellent at memorizing. Dark wood bureau with one, two, three … eight photographs in frames. Incense burner. Funny decorated candles, little statues. A guy with a lot of arms and one guy with an elephant's trunk. Bedroom slippers on the floor in a row with shoes, shoes, then boots. The covers on him were red and gold, but so many layers, one thing after another. He hated covers.

He sat up in bed. He thought there was a good chance his mother was not dead.

The detective tried to tell him he did right, but he knew he didn't. He'd held his mother's hand. He was afraid to pump her chest because there was a lot of blood and he didn't want to touch the blood. But he should have done it. He saw it on television and knew what to do and could have done it. This was what bothered him.

He didn't do anything brave. Then Mrs. Panikkar and Oopale came to him and tried to pull him from his mother. The two women were crying. Mrs. P had lied at first and said her husband wasn't home.

Even if his mother was completely dead, he knew she could wake up, like in those TV shows where machines beep and doctors call out orders and the person comes back alive.

Dr. P told him his mother was dead but Matt thought he seemed odd, like maybe he was lying.

It was almost dark out but there was enough light from street lamps to see. He spied his clothing across the room—a few things the police had brought him, old pants and a T-shirt. He put them on. From somewhere in the apartment, he heard voices and also a TV. He opened the bedroom door. They were in the kitchen, eating, probably food from their restaurant, which he went to with his mother one time. “All these great spices!” his mother had said. “I love spices.”

He tiptoed through the living room and out the front door. To his left there was yellow police tape making an
X
over his own door. To his right was the door to the stairway he took earlier today when he ran. Nobody was around to see him. He peered down the stairs. There was nobody in sight. He descended quickly and quietly.

Dead as a donut
—that's what his mother used to say when they would find a stinkbug or some other insect with its feet up in the air. The expression made no sense. Why was a donut dead?

He trotted down the street in what he was pretty sure was the direction of the hospital.

One woman looked hard at him, and she even stopped walking to watch him, but she didn't stop him. He turned the corner and walked for a block before he decided it was better to get away from busy Murray Avenue and use the street a block over where there weren't so many people. He took Pocusset Street and kept walking. He often stayed up till midnight. He didn't like to sleep.

He passed a yard where older kids were playing basketball under outdoor lights.

He was good at fooling people.

Back in Oopale's room, when the door opened, through his pretend-closed eyes, he watched them—father, mother, daughter looking at him.

“He's sleeping,” the foot doctor said.

And all the while he could see them.

They closed the door.

“What does
your
father do?” kids asked him at school. His mother said once, “Your father is far away and can't be with us. But you don't have to answer about that.” He was supposed to say, “My mother is a painter. She takes care of me alone.”

If it turned out she was really dead, maybe he could live with Grady. Or Jade.

He walked for a long time and passed a little store on Bartlett where older kids were shopping for sodas and chips. He didn't have any money with him, but he was winded, so he paused and sat on a stone wall.

“You okay, kid?” one boy asked.

“Yeah. Just going to meet my father.”

A girl, quite heavy, with a bright, friendly face, said, “Honey, do you need any help?”

“Do you know where Shadyside Hospital is?” The ambulance men on their phones mentioned Presbyterian, Montefiore, Shadyside. He was pretty sure they decided Shadyside.

“Are you sick?”

“No, I just want to know where it is.”

“Are you sure you're okay?”

“Yes. I know somebody in the hospital. I want to go tomorrow.”

“How are you getting there?”

“I'll get my father to drive me tomorrow.”

She began to recite directions, then dug in her purse and pulled out a phone. “Just a sec. I'll show you a map.”

He watched her working Google and coming up with a map and a picture. “Pass Forbes, Wightman to Wilkins, left on Wilkins to Fifth Avenue, then left onto Aiken. Not too far. Follow the zigzags. Cool, huh?” She let him study the small picture on her phone.

“Very cool. I need one of these,” he said.

She laughed. “I guess. Are you sure you're meeting your father?”

“He's just late. He's always late.”

She frowned and lingered for just a little while but then she got into a car and drove off. He started walking again.

As he walked down Wightman, he saw a car that reminded him of the one the man had leaned on. It was maroon. He walked around it.
Corolla
. The color, the shape of the headlights, the shape of the grille—this is like the car he saw that day. Corolla.

That day.
My father,
he thought, happy at first. But his mother dropped her groceries. The applesauce jar broke. She cried out and cursed. When she stooped to pick the bag up, she said, “Help me, Matt.”

“Matt? His name is Matt?” the man had asked.

“It's none of your business.”

“Oh, yeah, it is. You owe me. Big time.”

“Leave me alone. Leave us alone. What are you doing here?”

“I'm here in town now. I want to see my son.”

“He isn't yours. You're wrong.”

“Don't lie.”

“I'm not lying.” Then his mother got very calm. “Get in the car,” she told Matt.

Matt did what she said, but he kept the door open so he could hear what they said.

“Bitches. Bitches. You think you can treat a man like dirt?”

“Look. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. We didn't have a thing in common. I'm sorry. You can't keep bothering me.”

“And my son?”

“Please. Do the math. He's not even eight years old. For God's sake, he's not yours. Leave us alone … or I'll call the police.” Except she called him something now that he thinks of it.
Doll
.
Dull
.
Dal
.

When his mother drove away from the store, still very upset, Matt asked, “Is he my father?”

“I swear to you he's not.”

“Then why did he say he was?”

“I don't know. He's wrong.”

“Where is my father?”

“We don't know
where
he is, but he's not like that.”

Why would she not
tell
him?

Then one day, not long ago, his mother came home upset. She kept hugging him and saying, “I'll always take care of you.”

He knew she'd seen the man again.

Something is wrong. He's winded. The street he's on isn't Wilkins yet. It's still Wightman. He stands in front of a small apartment building. He tries the door and it opens. He stands inside and suddenly he's not sure, he wants to lie down and he's beginning to cry.

A man entering the apartment building stops in his tracks and says, “Hello. Never saw you here before. Are you all right?”

“Um …”

“Are you okay?”

“Um … I need a ride to the hospital. They took my mother earlier and I tried to walk there but it's taking too long. I need to see her.”

“Oh. Is anyone with you?”

“No.”

“What's your name?”

“Matt.”

“Where do you live?”

“I just need to get to the hospital.”

“Maybe we should get you home.”

“There's nobody there.” He starts to open the front door to leave.