The Returning (13 page)

“. . . one new face,” Larry was saying. “Would you care to introduce yourself to the group?”

John realized with a jolt that Larry had spoken to him and was now waiting for him to respond. He shifted in his seat, cleared his throat. “Um . . . hi, I’m John. I . . . I’m not new to A.A. I’ve been in A.A. for about five years down in Virginia. I just moved back here again. I’m from here, or Rochester really, but we live here now.”

He pressed his lips together so as to stop stumbling over his words. He looked at Pamela. She looked at him. She smiled.

“Welcome, John,” Larry said. “We’re glad to have you here. Now I’d like to ask Rick to read a section from chapter five of the Big Book, and after that I’ll introduce the discussion topic for the evening.”

An hour and a half later, when John was walking home through the dusk, he remembered little of what was said at the meeting. He did, though, recall feeling annoyed at a man who repeatedly and loudly blew his nose into a soiled handkerchief. He remembered cringing in shared embarrassment at a woman who stuttered painfully, trying in vain to announce seven years of sobriety. He also knew he had reached into his wallet and pulled out a five to drop into the basket when it was passed around.

But beyond that, all he could remember were those eyes. Those deep, brown, lonely, lovely eyes.

The circle had joined hands at the end and recited the Lord’s Prayer. When they came to the plea about “lead us not into temptation,” he had squeezed his eyes tight, trying to rid his mind of unwanted thoughts.

O Lord
, he prayed silently now,
deliver me from evil
.

But as he went on walking home through the fading light, he was all the while thinking of Pamela.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

Every time Billy stepped
through the entrance gate of the Conesus Lake Amusement Park, he felt happy and excited. He loved the crowds, the rides, the midway games, the ice cream and cotton candy and fried foods on a stick.

The park was also the place that sucked Billy’s pockets dry of any spare change he had after he put most of his paycheck in the bank.

“Come on, Phoebe,” he said, tugging at his sister’s hand. “Let’s get to the arcade and win some tickets.” Once he’d played enough games and earned enough tickets, he could claim the prize he’d had his eye on for a couple of weeks now.

“You said you’d ride the merry-go-round with me,” Phoebe reminded him.

Billy nodded. “I will later. I want to go to the arcade first.”

“Is Beka working there today?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see.”

As they wound their way through the crowd on the midway, Billy was aware of the stares, especially from other kids—little kids, teenagers—but he tried to ignore them. Hadn’t they ever seen a person with Down syndrome before? There were plenty of them around, so Billy didn’t know what the big deal was. Anyway, he wasn’t nearly so freaky as the kids with dreadlocks, piercings, and tattoos, or the kids with a load of fake gold chains around their necks, their pants hanging down so low you could see the brand of underpants they wore. Now
they
were worth staring at. Billy pulled Phoebe along, cutting a determined path through the crowd, focused on reaching the arcade.

“Hey, Billy!”

Billy stopped short, and Phoebe stumbled into him. “Sorry, Phoeb,” he said. “I thought I heard my name.”

“Hey, Billy!”

Phoebe lifted one skinny arm and pointed toward the Toss-a-Ball game just ahead of them. “Look. It’s Beka’s boyfriend.”

David Morgan beckoned to them with a baseball in his hand. “Billy! Come on over and win your little sister a stuffed animal!”

Billy rocked on the balls of his feet, unsure of what to do. He wasn’t any good at the Toss-a-Ball game. He’d tried it a couple times before and didn’t like it. It looked as if it’d be easy to win that game, to smash that pyramid of cans all over the place, but the ball wasn’t a real baseball, and it was too light to do any real damage. One, maybe two cans fell, but never all six.

He felt Phoebe squeeze his hand. “Billy,” she said. “Look at those pandas! Maybe you could win me a panda.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Come on, Billy. Just try, all right?”

He knew it couldn’t go well either way. If he played, he wouldn’t win. If he didn’t play, she’d be disappointed in him for not trying.

He allowed Phoebe to pull him over to the booth. David Morgan gave them a wide smile. But Billy wasn’t smiling. “No one wins this game,” he said.

David laughed. “Are you kidding? People win all the time. I just restocked the prizes an hour ago.” He turned to Phoebe. “You want Billy to win you a stuffed animal, don’t you?”

Billy followed David’s gaze to Phoebe’s eager face. Her eyes were wide as she nodded happily. He felt his teeth clench as he looked at the cans stacked on the board. “Okay. Give me one ball.”

“Listen, Billy,” David said, “it’s a better deal to go three for five. Five dollars gets you three tries, and there’s no way you can’t empty the shelf on three tries, is there?”

Billy had never liked David very much. He didn’t know why, but every time he saw the guy, he felt something turn over in his stomach. It may have been the fact that David Morgan was good-looking and he knew it. He had the kind of face that showed up on the cover of those Hollywood gossip magazines. Nice features, thick dark hair, perfect white teeth—the whole works. A face like that did something to a person, turned him into someone you couldn’t trust. Especially when he was dating your sister.

“I don’t know, David—”

“Here you go, Billy-boy. Three balls. Don’t disappoint the little kid there, all right?”

Reluctantly Billy reached into his pocket and pulled out a five. He laid it on the counter and picked up the first of the balls. He was surprised again at how light it was. He thought he might as well be tossing a marshmallow at bowling pins. He could have used the five dollars at the arcade, winning tickets for the prize he wanted.

He drew back his arm and hoped his anger would smash the pyramid. But he let go a ball that dropped short of the target by several inches, swerving off to the left and ending up in the tarp beneath the board.

“Tough luck, Billy,” David said. “But hey, you’ve got two more balls. Put a little more muscle into it and aim it just off center.”

Billy tried not to look at Phoebe, who was clapping her hands and hopping up and down. He took a deep breath, drew back, and tossed the ball. This one hit the target, and he felt a shiver of hope as the ball shaved off the peak of the pyramid.

“You got one!” David announced. “Okay, last ball. You can do it, bud.”

For a split second Billy thought maybe he could. If he aimed just right, if he threw hard enough, he could win that panda for Phoebe. In his mind he saw all five remaining cans explode outward, sailing off the shelf in different directions. Pulling his arm back like a pitcher on the mound, he collected all his strength and threw out his arm, sending the ball sailing. It soared in a trembling arc toward the target, but like the first ball, it fell short, missing the mark by a wide margin and landing with a thud on the tarp.

“Aw, too bad, Billy-boy.” David grinned, then winked at Phoebe. “Maybe next time, huh?”

Billy clenched his teeth. He didn’t take his eyes off the cans that had outdone him. He wanted to tell David there wasn’t going to be a next time. He wasn’t going to fall for this one again and waste his money. He wanted to yell at David, tell him the game wasn’t fair, because someone who’d thrown the balls as hard as he’d thrown them should have knocked down all the cans. Something wasn’t right here if a person tried so hard and couldn’t win.

He felt Phoebe squeeze his elbow. “It’s all right, Billy,” she said. “Never mind. Let’s just go to the arcade.”

He ignored her for a moment but finally gave in as she tugged him away from the booth. Holding hands, they stumbled on down the midway, their tennis shoes pressing against steamy blacktop, through sticky puddles of melted ice cream and discarded cotton candy, over generator wires stretched out like black snakes in the sun. Billy thought Phoebe might have said something, but he couldn’t hear her over the carnival barkers and the music coming from the rides. He didn’t bother to ask her what it was. He looked straight ahead, seething until they reached the arcade.

Rebekah stood behind the counter, collecting tickets and handing out prizes. Billy marched to the glass case holding the toys and trinkets, searching for the one item he wanted.

He let out a sigh of relief. It was still there.

“That’s the last one, Billy,” Rebekah said, tossing a handful of tickets into a bucket.

Billy looked up anxiously. “Are you sure? There’s no more?”

“Nope, they’re gone. We only had a few, but apparently there were people out there who wanted the silly things.”

“It’s not silly.” Billy looked back down at the nightlight that was nestled in one corner of the glass case. On the white plastic covering was the picture of a tiny lamb sleeping on a patch of grass.

“They’re for babies,” Rebekah said.

“No they’re not.” Billy shook his head. “They’re for anyone, and I like it.”

Rebekah shrugged. “Whatever.”

Billy was sure the lamb was the one his Sunday school teacher had read about from the Bible, the one that lay down in green pastures and walked with the shepherd beside still waters. He liked that, and he wanted to have the lamb in his room, where he could see it every day.

“How many tickets do you have, Billy?” Phoebe asked. Billy rubbed his forehead as he thought. “I remember. I have seventy-nine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Dad counted with me. We counted three times.”

“So how many more tickets do you need?”

Billy pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket and looked at it. “Two hundred and twenty-one.”

“Wow. That’s a lot.”

“Yeah. I better get busy.”

“Can I help? I usually win some tickets playing that bowling game.”

“Okay, sure. Here’s a dollar, Phoeb. You get four tokens.”

“Don’t worry, Billy. We’ll win the nightlight.”

“I hope so.” Billy looked up at his sister behind the counter. “Can you hold it for me, Beka? Don’t let anyone else buy it?”

She shrugged again. “Sorry, Billy. I have to sell it if somebody wants it, you know? I could lose my job if I didn’t.”

Billy looked at the nightlight again. He had to have it.

He went to the token machine and started feeding it dollar bills.

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

Andrea pulled the bedsheet up
to Phoebe’s chin, then bent down to kiss her cheek, her forehead, her nose. That always made Phoebe smile. “Good night, sweetheart,” Andrea said.

“Good night, Mommy.”

“Do you think you can stay in your own bed all night tonight?”

“I don’t know.” The child pursed her lips, looked up at her mother with big round eyes. “I’ll try,” she promised. “But I wish I had my own room.”

“Someday you will. Your own room with all your own things.”

“Okay, Mommy.”

“Good night, Phoebe.” Andrea moved to the door and switched off the light.

“Mommy?”

“Yes?”

“We forgot to say my prayers.”

“Oh yeah. Okay, I’m listening.”

“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. May angels watch me through the night and wake me with the morning light. Amen.”

“Okay, go to sleep now, Phoebe.”

“Mommy?”

“Hmm?”

“Billy says angels watch over us night and day. Do you think they’re watching me right now?”

“Well, yes. I’m sure they are. So you don’t need to worry. Now go to sleep.”

Andrea pulled the door shut with a sigh. She knew Rebekah would wake Phoebe up when she came home from work, and Phoebe would end up on the floor by Billy’s bed again. She hoped Phoebe would soon outgrow her fears.

She poured herself a cup of iced tea from the fridge and carried it to the overstuffed chair in the front room. She sat down heavily and put her feet up on the tattered hassock. She was tired, bone tired, but not quite ready to go upstairs to bed.

She would drink her tea and revel in a few moments of quiet first. She loved the evening quiet, filled as it was with the night songs of crickets and cicadas and the occasional gentle lapping of waves on the shore. Here, by the open window, she could even feel a bit of cool breeze rising up from the lake.

She drank deeply, put her head back, listened. From somewhere out there in the dark came the sound of Billy’s voice and John’s response. They weren’t on the glider outside the window; Andrea thought they must be sitting together on the porch steps.

“So you want to come, Dad?” Billy asked.

“Sure, Billy. Sure I do,” John answered.

“You’ll like Pastor Gunther. He’s real nice.”