by Carol Caiton
The next photograph was of all three of them with Joey dead center, pulling one of his monkey faces. His mother had taken that picture. She'd been cooking something for dinner over a camp stove he'd lifted for her while Michael had been the distraction. She'd made some kind of fuss, having to stop what she was doing because the boys wanted their picture taken together.
The one after that showed Michael's mom, hands raised while hanging wet laundry on a rope strung across one of the rooms in the boarded-up house they'd lived in. Michael must have called to her because she turned her face toward him and smiled when she saw what he wanted. It was a good picture and Kyle saw the resemblance between them that he'd never noticed as a boy. Streaky blonde hair, engaging smile. Holding the photo out to Michael he said, "Good looking woman, your mom."
"Yeah," Michael quietly agreed.
"It's been a long road," Kyle murmured. He and Michael had come full circle. But it was a miracle the two of them were sitting beside one another after all these years.
He had to clear his throat when he looked at the next picture. It was taken the same time his mother had shot the one of the three boys. This one was of her, standing over that camp stove, stirring whatever she'd been cooking. The boarded up window beside her vaguely lit the kitchen with dots of light where he'd drilled a hundred little holes so they could see what they were doing—during the day at least.
The last photo was unexpected. He remembered Michael taking it, but he'd never seen it developed. So there were five pictures, and this one damn near undid him. It was taken long after Michael moved in with them. Michael had swiped a book for Joey 'cause he'd come down with a rotten cold and Kyle, with his third grade reading level, had been stumbling over the words, reading it out loud, while Joey leaned against his arm. It was one of the few times Joey sat still and the pose was poignant, showing his face as clear and memorable as Kyle could have hoped. It was the best gift Michael could have given him.
Smoothing his thumb over Joey's hair, he had to clear his throat again. "We can scan these into Kathy's computer and make copies."
"Yeah." Michael said, staring out the window. "Sounds good."
After a last glance, Kyle slid the pictures back inside the decrepit envelope and held the flaps open for Michael to include the one of his mother."
"Ya know what Ky?"
"What's that?"
"I don't ever want to see that frigging street again."
Kyle gave him half a smile. "Me neither. Let's go inside and show our wives we're still alive."
He was only half serious. He'd told both Jessica and Rachel that he'd arranged for police backup going in, so they'd had no reason to worry. Not much, anyway.
What he really wanted was to go inside and hold his young bride and let the purity of his life with her soak into his pores. He wanted to put behind him the scene he and Michael had just left and take a clean, clear breath of air.
But he neglected to take into consideration Derek's police scanner and even now, didn't think about the fallout from Abdul's 911 call. It threw him when he and Michael passed from the vestibule into the living room and found both Jessica and Kathy standing rigidly still, staring at them. Perplexed, he glanced over at Derek who scowled at him, and then it hit him.
Swinging back around, he barely got his mouth open to explain before Jessica tore into him, doing justice to a Chinese fishwife.
"Let me translate," he heard Michael say just before he caught a glimpse of Kathy's and Derek's astonished expressions. "How could you take Michael into danger like that! Poor Michael had no idea he was walking into gang territory!"
She didn't even hear him, rattling on while interspersing a few English words like donkey and pasture . . . . And, of course, Michael put his own spin on that too.
"She's telling him he should take better care of his friends and—"
She stopped talking and whirled around to face Michael, and planted her hands on her hips. "You got that part wrong."
All four of them stared at her.
"I told him you were both idiots." Then she marched over and gave Michael a hug. "What were you thinking?"
"See there," Michael grinned, "she likes me."
She eased back. "Go to Rachel, Michael. She won't take comfort from anyone."
Michael sobered in an instant. He looked around and Kyle saw, as well, that Rachel wasn't in the room with them.
"Where is she?" His voice was edged with urgency.
"Upstairs in your room."
* * *
Michael took the steps two at a time. Why had Rachel needed comforting? She'd been fine when he and Kyle left the house, not happy with their excursion, but sure not in need of any comforting. For that matter, why had Jessica been chewing out Kyle? And Kathy had been pale and worried-looking. What was going on?
He found his wife lying down on top of the puffy comforter, long blonde curls spread out behind her, sound asleep.
Closing the door behind him, he toed off his running shoes and walked over to the bed. She'd been crying. Her nose was pink and the pillowcase was a few shades darker beneath her face.
He settled onto the bed and moved in beside her, sliding one arm under her pillow to pull her face toward his chest. It was the best way he could think of to let her know he was okay.
"Michael," she breathed, slipping an arm around his waist.
He dipped down to kiss her forehead. "Hey, baby, how you doing?"
A fresh tear slid across the bridge of her nose. "Fine. I'm doing fine."
"Yeah?" Easing back a little, he reached up with his thumb and wiped away the wetness. "If you're doing so good, then what's this?"
She pressed into his T-shirt, breathed in, then relaxed. "I didn't cry until I knew you weren't in danger anymore."
He frowned. "What made you think I was in danger?"
"We heard it on Derek's police scanner."
Ah. Well that answered a lot of questions. He smoothed his hand up her back and sifted his fingers into her hair. "I'm sorry, baby. If I'd known, I would've called to tell you we were okay."
"We knew." She sniffed. "Derek had the information as it was happening."
Shit.
"Michael?"
"Yeah?" He lowered his fingers from her hair and began unbuttoning the back of her maternity blouse. Her skin was warm and soft and sweet smelling and—
"How do you feel about inviting Kathy and Derek to stay with us for a week or so?"
He paused midway down her back. A cop? Staying in his house? "For a week?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, reaching under his T-shirt to undo the button on his jeans. "If we're going to try talking Kyle and Jessica into building a house across the street, we should get to know Kathy and Derek better. And they want to get to know you too."
"Me?" he'd started to unhook her bra, but paused again. "What do they wanna know me for?"
"Because now that they've seen you and Kyle together, they know he'll never come back to Philadelphia. Not to live."
He thought about that for a minute. Yeah, he was determined to keep Kyle in Florida, and yeah, he and Kyle both needed to hold onto whatever family they could lay claim to.
"And I think," Rachel went on, "they want you to get to know them too. I think they'd like to be part of all our lives."
Now that was something Michael would have to think about. There weren't a lot of people he wanted in his life. He needed space to breathe. But since there wasn't much he wouldn't do for Kyle, inviting Derek and Kathy to visit for a week wouldn't be that big a hardship. Even if he and Rachel couldn't walk around the house naked. For seven days. It wasn't like they'd be in his back pocket forever.
"Tell you what," he said. "We'll go ahead and invite them down for a week and see how it goes, okay?" Hell, between Ethan and Nina, Ali, Jill, Simon, and the rest of the guys, his house was getting to be as popular as a nightclub.
Brooding on that for a minute, it surprised him to realize that maybe he didn't need quite as much space
as he used to. When had that happened?
"Michael?"
"What is it, baby?"
She smiled up at him. "Do you need help unhooking that bra?"
He gave her one hell of a wicked grin. "Rachel, when have I ever needed help taking off your clothes?"
Then he sucked in his stomach to make it easy for her to pull down his zipper.
* * *
When Michael opened his eyes again, it was dark outside and one of his legs was numb. He hadn't even gotten his pants off this time and the way he'd thrown one knee over Rachel's had caused the bunched up denim to cut off circulation in his other leg.
Carefully extricating himself, he pulled his jeans up and his stomach growled. Loud. He glanced at Rachel, but she was out of it. They'd missed dinner and his stomach was telling him it wanted sustenance.
He waited until all the pins and needles stopped jabbing at his leg. Then he eased off the bed, stepped on his T-shirt, and was glad he did 'cause he wouldn't have known where to look for it.
Leaving his shoes behind, he eased open the door and eased out into the hallway in his socks. He could see his watch now. The wall sconce cast enough light for him to see it was only ten o'clock. Maybe everyone else was still up.
The stairs creaked here and there and it was a sound he hadn't heard since he sold John Rawson's big old colonial and moved to Florida. It was a nice house Kyle had finished growing up in. A good house. And yeah, he knew Derek and Kathy thought of him as theirs. Kyle had lucked out.
It was quiet downstairs. A lamp was lit in the living room but no one was in there. He looked around, noted the general coziness of the room, but he was of the less-is-more school and was glad Rachel seemed okay with that.
Heading for the kitchen, that light was on too, and he smelled coffee. Rounding the entranceway, he found Kathy sitting at the table, finishing the last of a cookie. She looked up as soon as he stuck his head around the corner.
"Michael."
"Hey, Kathy." His stomach growled again and he grinned. "Guess I don't have to tell you why I woke up."
She had a nice smile. "You have a choice," she told him. "There's all sorts of sandwich material in the fridge, or I can heat up a plate of leftover dinner for you."
That was a no-brainer. He waggled his eyebrows at her and grinned.
She pushed away from the table, shaking her head. "Men are so predictable."
"Yeah, we've all got simple needs."
"Hmmph. Not so simple. Lasagna takes a good hour to prepare."
"And I'm sure it tastes terrific." He pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. "Where is everyone?"
"Derek's talking on the phone, and Kyle and Jessica went upstairs about an hour ago."
At nine o'clock? Then again, who was he to comment on that since he'd climbed into bed with Rachel while it was still daylight?
"So," he said, "what made you and Derek decide to take in a foul-mouthed street kid with an attitude? —Or is that private?" He already knew the background info. It was the personal stuff he was interested in now.
She started cutting a slice of lasagna, paused, then continued cutting. "No, it's not private. Our niece, Kimberly, was the social worker assigned to Kyle when his mother died. Kimmie came to see us one night after work and told us about him, that she'd never seen a child so overloaded with frustration. Sometimes it would erupt and he'd start throwing things or punching walls.
She got a plate and loaded it with a big slice of lasagna, then went on. "He was tagged as a high risk case, and whenever anyone tried to talk to him, all they got was the same response, over and over. 'Find Michael for me.' That's all he would say. Screaming it, cursing it, beating the walls with it . . . no matter what anyone said to him. He was as foul-mouthed as you just said, and when Kimmie sat down to talk with Derek and me, she didn't sugarcoat it."
Hearing Kathy talk about what it was like for Kyle made it more real than reading about it in the social worker's file.
"Kimmie came to see us because, in her words, we had what this boy needed."
"What did she mean—what he needed?"
She put his dinner in the microwave, got some silverware, folded a napkin, and set him up with a proper place setting.
"Kimmie decided the best way to get through to Kyle was to try and do what he demanded from everyone—find Michael for him. So she passed your name along to every agency she could think to contact. But this was before Amber Alerts, so getting information into wide-spread circulation . . . ." She lifted one hand in a vague gesture.
"Derek went to see Kyle. He asked who you were and why it was so important to find you. Kyle said you were his brother. He said you were the only family he had left." She shook her head, smiling a little. "Derek was in uniform at the time, which didn't do much to impress Kyle."
"No, it wouldn't." Michael smiled back.
"But Derek had contacts. He had friends scattered around the country who worked in various branches of law enforcement. So he waited for Kyle to finish telling him how useless cops were, in colorful language, then he told Kyle they'd have a better chance of finding you if he'd get off his little tush and help the police—in similarly colorful language, of course.
And that, Michael knew, would have planted in Kyle the first seeds of respect.
"So," she went on, "Derek took him to headquarters and introduced him to a sketch artist. He explained what steps the police take to start looking for missing persons, and by midafternoon, Kyle's image of you was being circulated, and not just here in Philly. He had Kyle take part in the search, operating the fax machine, showing the police the street where you'd lived, the park you'd gone to. They posted a sign on the house you lived in with Kyle's family. It had a list of contact information so you'd know how to reach Kyle if you returned."
The microwave dinged and she got his dinner. He ate while he listened, but his stomach took a back seat to the conversation.
"It helped," she said. "Giving Kyle an active role in the search for you made him feel as though he was doing something constructive. It gave him focus and an outlet for some of that frustration. And in the meantime, I filed a lawsuit against the hospital responsible for his mother's death. I think it was the first time in his life he saw the system work for him instead of against him.
She was on the mark there, he thought.
"Before Derek and I knew it, fighting for Kyle and helping him look for you became a priority. There were times when we questioned ourselves. Kyle was like a wild wind. He ran away from three foster homes within days of being placed, and he bent to no one unless he wanted to bend." She sighed. "But when something was important, he'd find a way to get in touch with Derek. And finally, we talked to Kimmie about taking him in ourselves."
She smiled, then chuckled. "I remember being afraid our new stereo—and anything else that sold easily on the streets—was going to disappear. But what happened was just the opposite. I started finding food in the pantry. Food I hadn't bought. Soups, canned meat . . . ." She shook her head. "When I asked Kyle about it, he told me he was earning his keep by helping to provide for the family. That he'd been providing for his family since he was seven years old."
Michael nodded. "Yeah. That's the way it was in our world."
She sat quietly for a minute, her eyes a little watery. "That was the day Kyle stole my heart. I sat here in the kitchen thinking about what he'd done and what he'd said. Then it occurred to me that he'd taken an active role in our household because he considered it his home. He'd accepted us. God, Michael, it took forever to convince him to stop stealing, to make him understand it was our responsibility to take care of him, not the other way around."
She chuckled again, then went on. "Derek came home and found me crying. I showed him the pantry and told him what Kyle said. It was still rough going. Kyle was accustomed to unimaginable freedom. He'd disappear until nighttime and no one knew where he was until one day Derek drove over to the neighborhood where you lived and found him sitting on the top p
orch step. He was just sitting there. Waiting for you to come home."
Tears watered up her eyes again and Michael waited.
"For five years Kyle went back to that house. Almost every day. He probably spent a third of his life sitting on that porch, waiting for you to come back. I've never seen anything like it. We only managed to keep him in school because we made sure he had enough money to ride the train over there afterward, then Derek or I would pick him up after work and bring him home."
She lifted an expressive hand, then lowered it back to the table. "Eventually we took out a second mortgage and bought that house. We did some repairs and during the warmer summer months, one or both of us would sit on the porch with him and take care of some paperwork while he stared out at the street. Sometimes he'd bring a book to read, but mostly he just stared out at the street."
Michael didn't say anything because he couldn't. There was too much going on inside—like when he'd ached for those pictures of Kyle and Joey and their moms, and when he'd fought the heart-destroying need to type Kyle's name into a search engine just to find out where he was.
"Then one night Derek and I were watching the late-night news. They did a special interest piece on Senator Rawson and talked about a teenage boy he'd taken in off the streets then adopted. Your name was mentioned and Derek and I must have stared at one another a full ten seconds. Then he pulled his clothes back on and took off for the station to check it out. He would have driven all the way to Washington to get a photograph of you if that was what it took. But calls were coming in, dozens of them, from people he knew who had recognized your name and remembered we were looking for you. A friend in the FBI faxed a picture to Derek and it was you. Older, but Kyle's police sketch was amazingly accurate."
"You found Michael and you never told me?"
Michael turned around and saw Kyle standing in the doorway.
