Offspring (24 page)

He twisted sideways, trying to hold on to the railing with one arm and flailing with the other and the knife darted past his head. He heard the railing crack as the boy leaned over and tried to stab him but he was still dangling, swinging, trying to grasp hold of something,
anything
solid with his free right hand—and what he found was the wrist with the knife.

He found it by mistake. But he didn’t let go because the knife couldn’t cut him that way and something told him to
pull
so he did pull and that part of the railing the boy was leaning over cracked again—and suddenly the boy let go of the knife, it tumbled away, and grabbed
his
wrist instead as he broke through the railing and fell, held on to his wrist as he fell the length of him and with his other hand grabbed his leg.

And started to
climb
him.

Agony shot through his arm on the railing. But his feet had found the ladder or else they’d both have fallen.

Luke had never seen a boy so strong and an instant later they were face-to-face. A face so dirty the dirt seemed a part of him.

The boy’s breath was hot and it stunk and he was smiling. He saw crazy eyes and twisted brown-black teeth.

The boy had let go of his wrist and had him by the shoulders. He looked up and around and Luke saw what he meant to do, he was going to pull himself up over Luke’s shoulders onto the platform and then up the tree, maybe into the next tree then and over and he might even make it in the darkness, it would be hard for the policemen to see.

He heard Melissa crying and thought,
What if he takes Melissa so they can’t fire. And then what if he falls?
And in the instant that the boy lifted his hand off Luke’s shoulder he got so suddenly mad at him, at all of them and maybe at everybody in the whole damn world who hurt people who never
deserved
to be hurt that he swung his elbow as hard as he could into the middle of the boy’s ribs.

As fast as the boy had appeared he was gone.

Faster
.

One minute he was there and the next he wasn’t. He didn’t even scream.

Luke didn’t look down.

He didn’t need to know if the boy was dead. He could tell by the sound. The sound was the same as the people falling off the rocks.

He didn’t like the sound, but he wasn’t afraid of it either. Not anymore.

His legs were shaking but he managed the two
more steps up to Melissa okay, and then just sat there trembling and breathing and gradually feeling okay again and thinking,
I really did this, I helped her, I maybe sort of even saved her
—feeling pretty good in fact, letting Melissa hold on to his finger, until the policeman came and got them out of there.

Melissa smiled at the policeman all the way down.

It would be nice, Luke thought as he came down the ladder, if his mom had a baby someday. Like Melissa.

You never knew. Maybe she’d meet some guy.

It would be nice, he thought.

If she didn’t, of course, that would be okay too.

It was good to know it really didn’t matter.

Peters dreamed that he and Mary dove off a pier into the sea. They were holding hands. They were naked and their bodies were twenty years old, smooth and firm. The sun was warm. They were getting away from someone or something which they did not fear exactly but which troubled them, and that was why they dove into the sea.

They swam through gentle waves around a short promontory, found sand beneath their feet, and again holding hands, began to emerge from the water.

Suddenly the beach became the streets of town and Mary realized she was naked. People were going on about their business as usual, not staring, but Mary was a modest woman and Peters was aware of her discomfort at running around town as god made her. He regretted leaving their clothes behind. They hadn’t even any money to buy some.

He resolved the problem by stopping, turning toward Mary and embracing her.

“Now they can’t see,” he said.

She laughed. “George! We’re in the middle of the street.”

“That’s the point,” he said. “If we stand here long enough somebody will notice what nice people we are and how in love we are and get us some clothes eventually. Right?”

“Right,” she said, and hugged him back.

“It all turns out eventually,” he said.

And woke up.

He saw the covers on his bed and his body lying under them and saw that it was possible to move his hands. He dealt with that in amazement for a moment. He saw the hospital room and the flowers. And the people by his bed.

A woman with a bandaged head, seated in a chair. Nursing a pretty little baby
.

Holding hands with another woman sitting beside him on the bed. The woman wore a light blue hospital gown the same as he did, but the woman was smiling at him, the first to notice he was awake
.

And a boy dressed in jeans and a T-shirt standing by the window, staring out into the sunlight. The boy turned and glanced at Peters and then he smiled too
.

With all these strangers around him smiling Peters had the god-damnedest urge to smile back at them.

And suddenly he remembered.

He looked over at the boy from the beach and remembered.

And then he did smile.

Hell, these weren’t strangers.

They didn’t
feel
like strangers.

“How’d I do?”
he said.