Reprisal ac-5

by F. Paul Wilson

  And yet here he was, Father Ryan, asking the same question—one chagrined Father Ryan, realizing that he never really had answered the question for others, and he now could do no better for himself.

  Chief Morgan of the Monroe Fire Company had provided some sort of an explanation, though. He had pulled Bill aside in the rear of Cahill's Funeral Home during the wake.

  "I think we found the cause, Father," he had said.

  "Was it arson?" Bill said, feeling the rage rise up in him. He'd been sure the fire had been set. He had no idea who or why, but he couldn't bejieve the fire could spread so far so fast on its own.

  "No. W.e had the arson team go over the place. No sign of an accelerant. We think it started in the wiring."

  Bill had been dumbfounded.

  "You mean a short circuit could make a house burn like that?"

  "Your folks built that house before the war—the Second World War. It was a tinderbox. A good thing one of the neighbors called it in or you wouldn't be standing here."

  "Electrical…?"

  "Well, the wiring was as old as the house. Not made for modern appliances. Something gets overheated once too often and then…" He finished the sentence with an elaborate shrug.

  But he had said more than enough to leave Bill feeling weak and sick. Even now as he turned away from the grave and began walking aimlessly, the nausea still churned in his gut. He hadn't mentioned to Chief Morgan that not all the wiring was old. He had spent a couple of weekends over the winter rewiring a few of the rooms himself.

  My God, had the fire started in one of the junction boxes he'd replaced? But he'd done the work in January, two months ago. If he'd botched something it would have been apparent before now. The sparks had probably originated in some of the old wiring he hadn't got around to replacing yet. Still, Bill was unnerved by the mere possibility that he had contributed to his parents' horrible deaths.

  He stopped and looked around. Where was he? He'd wandered away from the gravesite without actually watching where he was going. He remembered walking through a stand of oaks and was now halfway up the rise on another of Tall Oaks' grave-studded knolls. No upright tombstones at Tall Oaks; everyone got uniform flat granite markers, the implication being that no matter what you were in life, you're all the same in death. Something about that approach appealed to Bill.

  A patch of lush, dark green grass off to his left caught his eye. The grass in Tall Oaks was just beginning to come back from its winter brown, but the green of this one small spot was almost tropical.

  Curious, Bill approached it, then stopped in shock. He recognized the grave before he was close enough to read the marker. It belonged to Jim Stevens.

  A flood of memories swirled around him, especially of the afternoon he had stood on this same spot with Jim's wife Carol and looked down at a similar patch, only that had been dead grass surrounded by living. The grass over the grave today was so green, so perfectly rectangular, almost as if…

  Bill squatted and ran his hands over the emerald blades. Despite the setting, despite the horrors and misery of the last three days, he had to smile.

  Plastic.

  He dug a finger under the edge and lifted. The plastic sod came up, revealing a patch of cold, brown, denuded earth beneath. His smile faded as he realized that even after almost twenty years the gardeners at Tall Oaks had been unable to make anything grow over Jim's grave. He glanced up at the flat granite and brass marker.

  "What's the story, Jim?" he said aloud. "What's going on here?"

  No reply, of course, but he felt his heart give a sudden twist in his chest as he noticed the dates on Jim's marker: January 6, 1942-March 10, 1968.

  March 10. Today was March 13—his parents had burned to death three days ago… in the early hours of March 10.

  Suddenly the wind through Tall Oaks seemed to blow colder, the sunlight seemed to fade. Bill dropped the corner of the plastic turf and rose to his feet.

  As he walked down the slope his mind whirled. What was going on here? Jim Stevens, his best friend, had died violently, horribly on March 10, and now two decades later his parents had died just as horribly… on March 10.

  Coincidence? Of course. But he could not escape the feeling that there was some sort of message there, some sort of warning.

  But of what?

  He shook off the thought. Superstitious garbage.

  He returned to his parents' grave, said a final prayer over their coffins, then headed toward his car.

  The boys of St. F.'s were all waiting for him when he returned, swarming like bees around the hive of his office door. He'd been back only once for a few moments since the fire, like a thief in the night, long enough to grab a few changes of clothes before rushing back to Long Island where Father Lesko was letting him bunk in Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow's rectory for the duration of the wake and funeral, but he was certain the kids all knew what had happened. Especially since so many of them seemed to be having trouble meeting his gaze this morning when he said hello to each of them by name.

  What kind of talk had run through these halls last Sunday? He could almost hpar it: Hey! Didja hear? Father Bill's folks got burnt up in afire last night!… No way!… Yeah! Burnt to a crisp!… Is he comin' back?… Who knows?

  Bill knew. He would always come back. And he would keep coming back until they closed this place down. No personal loss, no matter how great, would keep him from fulfilling that vow.

  Only a few of the boys were smiling. Weren't they glad to see him?

  As he stuck the key into the lock on his office door, Marty Sesta stepped forward. He was one of the oldest boys in St. F.'s, and the biggest. He tended to throw his weight around but he was basically a good kid.

  "Here, Father," he said, his brown eyes averted as he thrust a legal-size envelope at Bill. "Dis is from us."

  "Who's 'us'?" Bill said, taking the envelope.

  "Alia us."

  Bill opened the envelope. Inside was a piece of drawing paper, quarter folded. Someone had drawn a sun behind a cloud. Below was a flat green line with some tuliplike flowers sprouting from it. Block-printed words hung in the air: WE'RE SORRY ABOUT YOUR

  MOM AND DAD, FATHER BILL.

  "Thank you, boys," Bill managed to say past a steadily constricting throat. He was touched. "This means a lot. I'll… see you all later, okay?"

  They all nodded and waved and took off, leaving Bill alone to ponder the incomprehensible wonders of children and what they could wring from a single piece of paper and some crayons. He'd expected a little sympathy from some of them, but never this kind of united display. He was deeply moved.

  "Are you sad?" said a familiar small voice.

  Bill looked up and saw blond hair and blue eyes. Danny Gordon was standing in his office doorway.

  "Hi, Danny. Yes, I'm sad. Very sad."

  "Can I sit with you?"

  "Sure."

  Bill dropped into the chair and let Danny hop up onto his lap. And suddenly the dark winter chill that had enshrouded his soul since Sunday morning melted away. The drifting sensation faded. The gaping emptiness within began to fill.

  "Are your mommy and daddy in heaven?" Danny asked.

  "Yes. I'm sure they are."

  "And they won't be coming back?"

  "No, Danny. They're gone for good."

  "That means you're just like us."

  And then it was all clear to him. The touching drawing, the sympathy from the kids. They'd been long-time citizens of the country to which he'd just emigrated. They were welcoming him to a land where no one wanted to be.

  "That's right," he said softly. "We're all orphans now, aren't we."

  As Danny jumped off his lap, unable to confine himself to one location a second longer, Bill felt a sudden oneness with the boy, with all the boys who had passed through the doors of St. F.'s during his tenure. More than mere empathy, it was like a merging of souls. The drifting sensation dissipated as his anchor found bottom again and caught.

  But he wa
sn't entirely without family. He knew that although he was indeed an orphan like the other residents of St. F.'s, he still had the Society of Jesus. Being a Jesuit was like belonging to a family of sorts. The Society was a close-knit brotherhood. Whenever he needed them he knew his brother Jesuits would be there for him. In fact, as a priest, there was no reason why he shouldn't consider the whole Church as one huge, extended spiritual family. And in that great body of relatives, the residents of the St. Francis Home for Boys could be looked upon as his immediate family.

  True, he had lost his parents, but he never would be truly alone as long as he had the Church, the Jesuits, and the boys of St. F.'s. He would always have a home, he'd always belong.

  And that was a good feeling.

  Bill put the horrors of last Sunday morning behind him by throwing himself back into the daily routine of running one of New York City's last surviving Catholic orphanages. He felt he'd already faced and survived the worst that life could offer. What else was left to go wrong? Whatever could go sour had already done so—in spades. Things would be looking up from now on.

  And for a while, through much of that spring, his life did indeed seem to chart a steadily upward course.

  Then the Loms crossed the threshold of St. F.'s.

  SIXTEEN

  It was a warm Saturday afternoon in early June. Bill was interviewing a young couple in his office. They seemed too young to be seeking to adopt a child. Mr. Lorn was twenty-seven, his wife Sara was twenty-three.

  "Please call me Herb," said Mr. Lorn with a trace of the Southwest in his voice. He had a round face, thick brown hair receding from his forehead, a thick, stubby mustache, and wire-rimmed glasses. He reminded Bill of Teddy Roosevelt. He half expected him to shout "Bully!" at any moment.

  "Herbert Lorn…" Bill said, musing aloud. "Why does that name sound familiar?"

  "There's a British actor with the very same name," Herb said.

  "That's it." Bill remembered the actor now—Peter Sellers's Inspector Clouseau had driven him mad.

  "You've probably seen a number of his pictures. No relation, unfortunately."

  "I see. And you want to adopt one of our boys?"

  Sara nodded excitedly. "Oh, yes! We want to start a family right away and we want to begin with a boy."

  She was tall, dark, and slim with short, deep brown hair, almost boyish in its cut, and luminous eyes. Her application said she was twenty-three but she looked younger. And her drawl was delightful.

  Bill had gone over their applications before the interview. The couple had been married only a year; both were native Texans, both graduates of the University of Texas at Austin, although they'd graduated five years apart. Herbert worked for one of the big oil companies; he had been transferred to the New York office recently. His salary was impressive. Both were practicing Catholics. Everything looked good.

  Only their ages were against them.

  Normally Bill would have rejected their application with a gentle explanatory letter advising them to give more time to their decision to adopt a child. But the details of Sara's social and medical history, combined with the fact that the couple had not limited their request to an infant, prompted Bill to give them a second look.

  "You say here that you're interested in a boy between the ages of one and five," Bill said.

  That had surprised him. As a rule, what a young childless couples wanted most was an infant.

  They both nodded. Sara said, "Definitely."

  "Why not an infant?"

  "We're realists, Father Ryan," Herb said. "We know the wait for a white newborn can be seven years. We simply don't want to wait that long."

  "Plenty of couples do."

  Sara said, "We know. But I'm willing to bet that those couples can occupy themselves with tests and procedures and hopes that they'll conceive their own child during the waiting period." She glanced away. "We don't have that hope."

  Bill glanced at the application again. According to a summary of Sara's medical history, supplied by a Dr. Renquist in Houston, she had been struck by a car at age eleven and suffered a pelvic fracture with internal bleeding. During exploratory surgery they found a ruptured uterine artery and had to perform a hysterectomy to save her life. The matter-of-fact tone of the summary ignored the emotional impact of that kind of surgery on a child. Bill saw a girl growing through her teenage years as the only one in her crowd who didn't get her period. A small thing in perspective, but he knew how kids don't like to feel they're on the outside looking in—at anything; even if it involves a monthly mess and discomfort, they want to belong. But more than that was the inescapable fact that Sara would never have a child of her own. He was moved by the finality of her condition.

  "Are you sure you can handle a toddler or a preschooler?"

  She smiled. "I've had years of on-the-job training."

  Sara's family history was a definite plus. She was the oldest of six children—and all her siblings were boys. Bill knew that in that sort of family structure, a female first child becomes the second-string mother. Which meant that although childless, Sara was already well experienced in the art of caring for children.

  Bill was impressed with Sara. Over the years he had developed a sixth sense for adoption applicants. He could tell when a couple wanted a child merely to complete the family portrait, because having a child was expected of them, because everyone else had one, or because it looked good on a resume—married with children.

  And then there were the others, the special ones, the women in which the nurturing drive was so strong that it went beyond an instinct and became an imperative. These women could not feel complete, would not be a whole person until they had one, two, three children under their wings.

  Sara struck Bill as the latter sort of woman. He wasn't reading much off Herb—at worst he was a yuppie wanna-be—but Sara radiated the need to nurture. It warmed the room.

  "Very well," he said. "I'm satisfied so far that you two have possibilities here. I think St. Francis can help you."

  They beamed at each other.

  "Great!" Herb said.

  "We'll run a routine check on your references, of course, but in the meantime, I'll let you look at some photos of the boys we have residing at St. Francis now. Later on—"

  Suddenly Danny Gordon was charging through the office. He had a rocketship in his hand and he was making rocket noises as he roared it into orbit around Bill's desk.

  "Hiya, Father!" he shouted as he passed behind Bill's desk at escape velocity. "You can be the man in the moon."'

  Bill ran a hand over his mouth to hide a smile.

  "You'll be going on a real trip to the real moon if you don't get back to the dorm this instant, young man."

  "Back to Earth!" Danny shouted.

  As he careened around the desk he came face-to-face with the Loms.

  "Whoa! Aliens!"

  Sara turned her dark eyes his way and smiled at him. "What's your name?"

  The boy skidded to a halt and stared at her for a second, then went into orbit around her chair.

  "Danny," he said. "What's yours?"

  "Sara." She held out her hand. "Pleased to meet you, Danny."

  Danny stopped again, this time for a couple of seconds, but he wasn't still. His feet were tapping and shuffling on the floor as he glanced from Sara's hand to Bill. Bill nodded, encouraging him to do the polite thing. Finally Danny shrugged and shook her hand.

  "How old are you, Danny?" she said, keeping a grip on his hand.

  "Seven."

  "Has anyone ever told you what a handsome boy you are?"

  "Sure. Lots of times."

  Sara laughed and Bill found the sound delightful, almost musical. And then he noticed something.

  Danny was standing still.

  Normally by now the boy would have pulled his hand free and been on his way around the room again, racing along the walls and caroming off the furniture. But he was simply standing there talking to her. Even his feet were still.

&
nbsp; She asked him questions about rocketships, about school, about playing, and he answered her. Danny Gordon was standing in one spot and carrying on a conversation. Bill was amazed.

  He watched them together for a few more minutes, then broke in.

  "Excuse me, Danny," he said, "but aren't you supposed to be tending to your chores in the dormitory?"

  Danny turned the full power of his big blue eyes on Bill.

  "I want to stay here with Sara."

  "I'm glad that you do, and I'm sure Sara wants you to stay as well, but we're in the middle of some grown-up work here and I'm sure there's some Danny work left to be done back in the dorm. So say good-bye and I'll see you later."

  Danny turned back to Sara, who smiled and gave him a little hug.

  "Nice talking to you, Danny."

  Danny stared at her a moment, then walked—walked—out of the office.

  As Bill stared after the boy in wonder, Sara turned to him.

  "That's the'boy I want."

  Bill shook off his amazement and focused on the young woman.

  "He's seven. I thought you were interested in an under-five child."

  "I thought I was too. But now after seeing Danny I've changed my mind."

  Bill glanced at Herb.

  "How do you feel about an older child?"

  "What Sara wants, I want," he said with a shrug.

  "And I want to adopt Danny Gordon."

  "That's out of the question," Bill said abruptly.

  The statement surprised him. He hadn't intended to say anything like it. The words just seemed to pop out of his mouth.

  Herb Lom's expression was shocked; Sara appeared hurt.

  "Why… why is that out of the question?" she said

  "Because he's hyperactive," Bill said.

  "He looked like a normally active boy to me. And he was charming."

  "What you saw here was an aberration. Believe me, I have it on good authority from a number of specialists. Raising Danny will be a tremendously demanding full-time job."

  "That's true of raising any child," she said, looking at him lev-elly. "And it's a job I'm qualified to do."