Small Blessings (30 page)

Or, some long-quiescent imp pointed out, poured them down his throat.

*   *   *

Supper conversation had been mostly about soccer.

Agnes had made a real effort to follow Henry's rather confused explanation of the game's workings. “But why can't they just catch the ball and throw it?” she'd asked at one point.

“Because,” Henry said, exhibiting the kind of elaborate patience required of small children in their dealings with grown-ups, “it's against the
rules
!”

Immediately after ice cream, however, Agnes had chased Tom and Henry out of the kitchen. Tom had protested, saying that since she had cooked, he should clean up, but Agnes had flapped her arms at him until he'd left. She needed a few orderly moments to herself, and really, when you thought about it, washing dishes was a very orderly process. Besides, it was time for her after-dinner cigarette.

She was down to two Camels a day—one after lunch and one after dinner. Agnes had resolved to be shunt of them entirely by the time it was too cold to sit out on the back steps, but it wasn't that cold yet. She slid on the sweater she kept hanging by the back door, grabbed the tuna-fish can she used as an ashtray, and took herself outside.

It was almost full dark. Summer was losing its grip. Agnes sat on the top step, lit her Camel, and inhaled deeply, enjoying the feel of smoke scratching around inside her lungs. Then she blew the smoke out and watched darkness gobble it up.

Small pleasures, deeply enjoyed. How old was she before she recognized this as the true joy of living?

Perhaps she should write a book.

Or perhaps not.

Too many people wrote books already.

But surely she should do
something.

The world around Agnes was peaceful, but far from quiet. Night-shouting insects screeched away fortissimo, aware their screeching days were numbered.

It was easier for Agnes to think out here in this dark, solitary spot. Life lost its insistence; people who weren't there kept her comforting company, Joe, Marjory, her parents, friends whom she hadn't seen for years before her daughter's funeral. Rose Callahan appeared to be the newest attendant, for there she was, hovering companionably alongside Marjory.

Agnes chuckled. So, Rose Callahan had kissed her son-in-law! What a hoot! Deep down, under the layers of acquired cynicism, Agnes knew she was still the same hopeless romantic who in the course of a single afternoon had fallen for her flyboy like a felled tree. Why, this part of her wanted to know, should Tom and Rose and Henry
not
live happily ever after? What was wrong with their three separate lives intertwining, turning this poky old house into a place where occupants experienced the kind of safety and warmth and
interconnectedness
of which everyone, in their heart of hearts, dreams?

Of course, Henry's past was murky and his future unsettled, and there was that mysterious money to be dealt with, but she, as a lawyer, could help sort that out. It was obvious from the child's behavior that, after only a few days, he felt quite at home with them. There was also the fact that Tom's name was on his birth certificate, which counted for a lot. If no other man came forward to challenge Tom for paternity, then Henry was legally his. And it seemed likely that poet-cum-romance-novelist Retesia had pretty much lost interest in being a full-time mother.

Agnes took one last deep drag and stubbed out her Camel in the tuna-fish can. The problem with allowing herself only one cigarette after dinner was that one cigarette was too quickly smoked. As soon as it was out, she wanted nothing more than to light another.

Well, phooey on that! A resolution was a decision. She would get up and find something to keep her mind off cigarettes.

Back inside, Agnes looked around the orderly kitchen. There were a few Henry leavings—his Tonka truck, some crayons, a brand-new soccer ball still in the box—but she liked having those around. The truth was she, Agnes Tattle, crusty old broad, liked having
Henry
around, liked it a lot. Maybe even, as startlingly uncharacteristic of her as this would be, she was beginning to love the boy a bit—love being construed in her lawyer's mind as a heartfelt commitment to someone's current and future well-being.

Just as she was about to turn out the kitchen lights and head upstairs for the evening's
Masterpiece Mystery
fix courtesy of Netflix, Agnes spied a stack of papers that Tom had brought home with him, put down, and forgotten. Or perhaps meant to throw away. Impulsively, Agnes walked over and picked them up.

They appeared to be some kind of flyer for a series of events at the Book Store.

*   *   *

Tom was still surprised by how much he enjoyed reading Harry Potter to Henry. He'd expected to enjoy Henry's enjoyment of the book, but not to enjoy it himself. Something, however, appeared to have put a sock in his persistent pedantry, allowing him to dive uncritically into the story as though he, too, were a child. His favorite character was Ron Weasley, the perennial sidekick. It had probably been his own role in life. If, that is, he'd
had
a role and not just a muddle. He'd definitely not been leading man—or leading boy—material.

At the completion of tonight's ritual two chapters, Tom closed the gaudily jacketed book. “Okay, that's it for tonight, Henry. Time for you to go to sleep.”

Henry's blue, blue eyes were not at all sleepy. “Just one more chapter? Please?”

Tom looked at his watch. He loved these small parental routines.
Loved
them. The devil might be in the details, but so were the angels. It was nine fifteen. Henry's official bedtime (a concept with which he appeared familiar) was nine o'clock. Tom shook his head. “Not tonight.”

“Tomorrow?” Henry's voice was high and piping. He still needed reassurance that tomorrow things would not revert to whatever they'd been before the train delivered him into Tom's keeping.

“Tomorrow,” Tom said firmly, reaching a hand out to stroke the boy's springy hair.

“Okay, then.”

He trusts me,
Tom thought, leaning forward to kiss the boy on his forehead. “Good night, Henry. Sweet dreams.”

“Good night.” Henry turned on his side.

Tom waited hopefully for him to add “Dad” to the end of “good night,” but it didn't happen. Oh well, he hadn't called Henry “son” either. Such things would fall into place naturally in their own time. As the Supremes had put it, you can't hurry love.

Henry fell asleep almost immediately. Tom tiptoed out of the room, not quite closing the door. The newly installed night-light burned steadily in the hall, and in its dim glow Tom was startled to see Agnes standing there, holding a stack of papers.

*   *   *

Agnes sat in her usual spot at the kitchen table and watched Tom dialing Retesia on the phone. One of Rose's flyers was before her and there it was, second from the top: November 23, Retesia Turnball, winner of the 2000 Dorothy Prize and 1995 Writer-in-Residence, 2:30
P.M.
“at home” in the Book Store, 7:30
P.M.
Library Reference Room. Reading new, unpublished poems as well as selections from her prize-winning book,
Fading Flowers.

Tom had taken one look at it and immediately called John Thomas, head of the college Creative Writing Department and reading series sponsor. Of course, John had contact information for Retesia Turnball, who—surprise, surprise!—was not off on tour as a romance novelist but was instead remarried and living in Ann Arbor.

Agnes could not remember a time when she had been involved in a real crisis but had not been the one in charge. It felt weird to sit here and watch Tom dial Retesia. With uncharacteristic diffidence, she'd suggested he wait until morning, but Tom—also uncharacteristically—had waved her suggestion away, making it clear that he was going to find out what part Retesia played in Henry's life, and he was going to find out
now.

“Hello,” Tom said into the phone. “This is Tom Putnam, a professor at a college where Retesia Turnball will be giving a reading in November. May I please speak to her?”

There was a pause while Tom either listened or waited. He did not look at Agnes but stared rather fixedly at Marjory's kitten calendar, which neither of them had yet had the heart to take down.

“I'm sorry if she's gone to bed,” he said finally, “but I still need to talk with her. This is an emergency!”

Was it an emergency? Agnes wondered. Well, yes, it probably was. If Henry did not belong to Retesia, then they'd have to get cracking and find out where he had come from. And where all that money had come from as well.

There was another pause in the action, during which the only sound was the ticking of the kitchen clock. Agnes found herself thinking about the funny old clock in Rose Callahan's kitchen.

“Hello, Retesia,” Tom said firmly into the phone. “This is Tom Putnam. Do you remember—”

There was a short pause.

“Yes, it has been a long time,” he said. Agnes wondered if Retesia could hear the impatience in his voice as clearly as she could.

Another pause.

“That's very nice. I'm delighted you won the Dorothy Prize, and that you've remarried.”

Pause.

“Marjory is dead, I'm afraid. She was killed in a car wreck just a short while ago. But listen, I didn't call just to chat, I called because I need to ask you something important. Did you send me a letter two weeks ago about a boy named Henry?”

Agnes could hear Retesia's answering squawk from where she sat.

“So you did not send me any letter?” Tom, rightly in Agnes's opinion, wanted to be very clear on this point.

Another squawk.

Tom soldiered on. “Okay then, I have just one more question. Are you by any chance the mother of a six-year-old boy, and if you are, did you send him up here for a visit?”

This time there was a more prolonged squawking, during which Tom held the receiver away from his ear, looked at Agnes, and shrugged. Finally there was a pause. “I do understand, Retesia,” Tom said. “I do know it's late. But I trust
you
understand I wouldn't be calling you with these questions if it wasn't terribly important.”

Pause.

“Certainly, I'd be happy to explain when you get here. I look forward to seeing you again.” Without waiting for more, he put the phone down and leaned against the kitchen wall.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Agnes said.

“What?”

“You will
not
be glad to see her again, will you?”

Tom actually thought this over. “Not really, I suppose. It just seemed like the polite thing to say.”

“I take it Retesia is not Henry's mother?”

“She is not.”

“So if you are not Henry's father and Retesia is not his mother, then who is Henry, what's he doing here, and where did that money come from?”

Tom shrugged again. Was he pleased, Agnes wondered, that Henry was—as it were—up for grabs? “It's a complete mystery,” he said.

“Isn't it just?” Agnes said. “Where's Inspector Morse when we need him?”

Tom came back to the table, pulled out his chair, and sat down. “The most important point is that Henry's here.”

Agnes's legal mind immediately hummed into action, ticking off other points that had to be considered important as well. But then she caught sight of her dead daughter's disgusting kitten calendar and all those points just flew away. “I agree. Everyone needs a home, including Henry, and, furthermore, I think it is entirely possible that you and I need Henry.”

Tom nodded.

Silence. Agnes watched Tom worry some thought like an old bone. Finally he spat it out. “What do I owe Marjory in all this? It feels funny to be so swept up by something that has nothing to do with her. It's not disrespectful of her memory, is it?”

“You mean, do I think you and I should do nothing about Henry's situation, or feel nothing for him, either, until we've observed an official period of mourning?”

Tom smiled. “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds absurd, doesn't it?”

Agnes nodded. “It does. Conventional, but absurd. I don't know about you, Tom Putnam, but I've been in mourning for my daughter for decades.”

A look of pain crossed Tom's face. “Me, too, I guess.”

“Enough is enough, in my opinion. And one more thing, while we're getting down to brass tacks here.”

“Yes?”

“I had lunch with Rose Callahan today.”

Tom gazed at her like a dumbfounded donkey. “You did?”

“I did. And we had a very nice talk about you.”

Dumbfounded gave way to worried. “About me?”

“Yes. I hear you are quite the basketball player.”

“I am?”

“Yes. And that you asked her out to dinner and she turned you down.”

Tom turned the color of cherry licorice and said nothing.

Now what?

Agnes plowed on. If she didn't, who would? “I think you should ask Rose out a second time.”

“You do?”

Agnes read confusion, a plea for help, and, yes, hope in his eyes. Hope was good. Hope gave her something to work with. “Yes. I do.”

“Where?” Tom asked.

Did she have to do
everything
? “You figure that out.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Agnes could see Tom's mind ticking through restaurant options. “Take her to some interesting place in Charlottesville,” she said.

The relief in his face was immediate and immense. “Good idea.”

“So, can we get back to Henry for a moment?”

“Certainly,” Tom said.

“I'm thinking it's time we sat him down and asked him about himself. What do you think?”

Tom considered this. “He's had some real troubles, you know? I mean
real
troubles.”