“How’s Miguel holding up?”
“He’s doing pretty well, I think. He keeps asking me about his twenty thousand dollars.”
Boone laughed. “Is he going to get it back?”
“Hard to say. It’s evidence right now, but he might. Up to the judge, I think. We won’t know until all this is over. We don’t need the money, but Miguel’s really hoping for it, so I hope he gets it because he’s driving me nuts about it.”
Boone smiled. “How about all the questioning? Is that getting to him?”
“Well, he’s tired of police officers and lawyers and social workers talking to him about David Rosetti and Larry Catrell, but he’s a tough kid. I think he’s doing all right.”
He really was, Alice thought. She had been concerned about him at first, having to relive some truly traumatic moments. She was worried, too, about his safety. She wondered if reputed mob boss Paul Rosetti would want to eliminate the star witness against his son, who would soon be facing formal charges stemming from his illicit activities with an ever-growing list of young boys, boys who later had been violated and murdered by Larry Catrell. It turned out, though, fortuitously, that the elder Rosetti was unhappy with his son’s criminally deviant behavior and was not at all reluctant to wash his hands of David. Apparently, Alice thought, even Mafia dons have some moral limits.
“Glad to hear he’s doing all right,” Boone said. “You guys seem great together.”
“Yeah, it’s going really well. We’re getting along great. Formal adoption is still a ways down the road. I told you they finally located Miguel’s parents, right?”
“Yeah, you said they were more than happy to legally terminate their parental rights. Sound like real sweethearts.”
“Hey, at least they’re doing the right thing for Miguel, even if it also happens to be the convenient thing for them. Anyway, that’s one obstacle out of the way for Miguel and me. Child Services was a little concerned at first that I was trying to adopt too soon after…after Daniel died, but I think they’re over that now. They see how well Miguel’s doing with me as his court-appointed guardian. Our caseworker tells me that, although it might not be a short road under the circumstances, he definitely likes our chances.”
“I think that’s really fantastic.” Boone put a hand on her arm and added, “And what about you? Not you and Miguel, Alice, but you. You doing okay?”
She nodded. And she really was okay. After Daniel had left for his sales convention over three months ago, she’d never seen him again, at least not alive. While he was at the convention, he’d had a brain aneurysm and died shortly after. His headaches that week clearly had been more than alcohol-related. Alice cried for a good long while, but eventually came to realize that she was crying for the past, grieving for the college boy she’d fallen in love with more than the man she’d been married to for eight years. She loved Daniel, but had come to love him as a dear friend and little more. He was a good man, but he wasn’t her soul mate, if such a person existed—and she thought he might. With Daniel, Alice might have been content much of the time, but she wasn’t happy. And she wanted to be happy. So when Daniel died, though she mourned, she did so for him, not for herself—for the loss of his life, not for the loss of their life.
“Yeah, Boone, I’m okay. I really am.”
He nodded. “I’m glad.”
Miguel whooped and Alice looked down the short path to the dock and saw Nathan struggling to get a net under a big fish wriggling over the water at the end of Miguel’s line.
“Sounds like fish for dinner,” Boone said.
“Looks like it, too.”
“I wish they’d catch a pizza now and then. I don’t really like fish all that much.”
“They’d probably have to change their bait,” Alice said.
“Anchovies, maybe?”
“Probably.” After a moment, she said, “Getting anywhere with your father?”
“Nah. We talked once and I left him a couple of messages after that, but he just isn’t interested in a meaningful relationship. It’s too bad, of course, but I certainly don’t blame him.”
“You and Nathan seem to be doing well up here together, though,” Alice said.
Boone chuckled. “Nathan’s great. We really get along. It seems to be working out for both of us, especially now that I’m teleconferencing with my clients.”
“You two have a good rapport going.”
Boone nodded. “It was a bit tough at first, after…you know, after he realized he wasn’t going to find his son after all. But he seems to have come to grips with it…though I think he still secretly hopes Jeremy will walk through the door one day.”
“I think it really helps him that you’re here,” Alice said. “Every time Miguel and I come up here he seems happier than the last time.”
“I can’t replace his son, Alice.”
“You don’t have to. Whatever you’re doing, I think you’re doing it right. You’re doing him a lot of good.” She looked over at him. “And I have to add that this fresh air seems to suit you too.”
Boone smiled and nodded to himself. “Who’d have thunk it, right?”
HOURS LATER, AFTER a dinner of grilled white perch, they cleaned up together. Boone used a dishtowel to dry the dishes Alice washed and handed off to him. When he’d done his part, Boone handed the dishes to Nathan, who put them where they belonged in the cabinets. Miguel sat at the table and watched the routine, which, after several months of repetition, looked almost choreographed.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened to us all,” Miguel said. “I still don’t get it.”
Join the club, Boone thought.
Alice laughed. “I don’t think any of us do, Miguel.”
Two days after their ordeal, while the three of them were visiting Alice in her hospital room, they talked about the strange events that brought them all together that terrible night at the castle. Boone and Nathan described their surreal experiences, and Alice was relieved to be able to talk about her mysterious encounters with the little boy to people who wouldn’t try to have her committed. During that conversation, Nathan mentioned the coincidence of both his son and Boone knowing a man named Simon Wood.
“Simon Wood?” Alice said at the time. “I once knew a boy by that name. That was a long time ago. First grade, I think.”
“I knew one, too,” Miguel said, surprising everyone, though perhaps none of them should have been surprised by anything at that point. “I knew a Simon Wood, too.”
“Really?” Nathan had asked.
“He was my third-grade teacher. He only had one leg. Well, he had two, but one of them was fake.”
“That’s him,” Boone said. “That’s the one I knew. He was from Boston. He lost his leg in Afghanistan.”
“He was my teacher in Philly,” Miguel said.
“That’s right,” Boone said. “I remember now. He said he was going to be a teacher after he healed up and got himself together. He must have moved to Philadelphia.”
“What are the odds?” Alice asked. “How could we all have a connection to someone named Simon Wood?”
“Not just someone named Simon Wood,” Nathan said, “but the same Simon Wood.”
“We don’t know the boy I knew in first grade is the same one you guys knew.”
They thought about their respective ages, how old Simon probably was, and did the math. It seemed to work out. “And you talk about odds?” Boone had said. “What are the odds that the four of us got into this somehow, and that three of us all know the exact same Simon Wood but you just happen to have known a different one?”
She’d shaken her head. “Not good, I guess. It has to be the same Simon.”
Alice had told them that, the next day, after she was released from the hospital, she looked up Simon Wood on the Internet and learned that someone matching his name and his exact description had died in a car accident almost a month earlier—shortly before the little blond boy first appeared in one of her
sketches.
Now, months later, in the kitchen of the lake house Boone and Nathan now shared, Boone was thinking again about Simon Wood. They all were, Boone knew.
“I guess I’ll never understand it all,” Miguel said.
Boone said, “Actually, I have a friend who knows a little about this stuff. So I ran some of it by her the other day.”
“How could anyone know about this stuff?” Nathan asked as he put two coffee cups into a cupboard.
“Well, not exactly this stuff, necessarily, but stuff like it. Abby teaches graduate courses on it.”
“Abby, huh?” Alice asked and Boone wondered if it could possibly have been a touch of playful jealousy in her voice. “And what did Abby say?”
“Well, as we know, every one of us seems to have touched Simon’s life, either directly or indirectly, in some way that he must have considered profound.”
“Jeremy was friends with Simon in Afghanistan,” Nathan said, “and actually saved his life—at least that’s what another of Jeremy’s soldier buddies told me a few weeks ago. But I never met Simon Wood personally.”
“With Jeremy gone, though,” Boone said, “Simon the…uh…spirit…turned to you, Nathan.” Nathan nodded. Boone continued. “And when Simon the wounded vet came back to the States, he came to see me to work through his emotional issues over what he had gone through over there, and particularly to help him deal with the loss of his leg.”
“Your relationship certainly would have had a profound impact on him,” Alice said.
“At our last session, he actually told me that I’d helped him more than I’d ever know.”
“Okay,” Alice said, “I get that, I really do. But I don’t see how I affected him strongly enough for him to…come to me after he died…to involve me in all this. We were just kids. I hadn’t seen him since the first grade. He moved away that summer, I think. That was twenty-five years ago.”
Miguel spoke up. “I think I might know, Alice.”
“You do?”
Miguel continued, “I think so. Mr. Wood was my third-grade teacher at Meredith William Elementary in Philly. I’d stay after school sometimes and we’d just talk. He was the only adult I ever trusted, I think.” He quickly added, “Until I met you guys.” Boone smiled and imagined the others did the same. “Anyway, I had a huge crush on this one girl, Sophie Cunningham. I mean, I was so in love with her. And after I started telling Mr. Wood about it, I stopped myself and told him I was being stupid, that I was just a kid. And I remember all this because what he said to me always stuck with me.”
“What was that?” Alice asked. She handed Boone a wet but squeaky-clean plate.
“He said I shouldn’t be afraid to make a big thing about Sophie because you just never know. He said he met the love of his life in the first grade.”
“He did?” Alice said.
“That’s what he told me. He said he never forgot that little girl in first grade. He said no one he ever met after that made him feel that way again.”
“My God,” Alice said.
“Were you two sweethearts?” Nathan asked.
“I guess so. I mean, yeah, I guess we were, but it was first grade, you know? I made him a necklace out of macaroni in art class, I think. He put a daisy in my hair. I think he might have been…” She paused, thinking.
“Alice?” Boone said.
“Something just came to me,” she said. A memory…faded in color and a bit ragged at the edges, but still clear enough. Simon was my first kiss.”
“That’ll do it,” Nathan said. “That’s why he never forgot you.”
“After we jumped off the swings, he ran to me, stole a kiss on the lips, smiled, and ran away.”
“And the little swinger never forgot you,” Boone said, smiling. “You must have been a heck of a kisser back then.”
“Still am.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Boone felt his cheeks flush. The words had just slipped out. They were getting to know each other better all the time, becoming more comfortable with each other, less guarded, so those unfortunate words just flew out before he could stop them. He wished he could take them back, but when he heard Alice laugh under her breath he was glad he’d been so bold.
“All right, you two, there’s a child here,” Nathan said.
“So that covers everyone but me,” Miguel said. “I mean, what did I ever do for Mr. Wood? All we did was talk after school, and I was the one who needed it, not him.”
They paused in what they were doing and looked over at Miguel.
“I think Mr. Wood could tell how much things sucked at home,” Miguel said with a shrug. “He asked if I needed him to do something about it. I told him I’d let him know if I did. I was about to, actually, when…things happened and I ran away.”
“Sorry, Miguel,” Boone said.
“Whatever, I’m okay now, don’t worry about it. But really, what did I ever do for him? It was him doing stuff for me all the time, talking to me, letting me hang around after school so I didn’t have to go home. He even drove me home one day when I thought my old man was going to be mad because I was late.”
“Maybe this whole thing wasn’t about having done things for him,” Alice said. “Maybe it was just about touching his life, you know? You obviously touched his life. For whatever reason, you mattered a lot to him, Miguel.”
From the corner of his eye, Boone saw Miguel nod. The fact that he could matter to anyone still seemed like a difficult thing for Miguel to believe, even after all the time they’d spent together.
“It seems like we all mattered to him,” Nathan said.
“He did something incredible,” Alice said, “all because we gave him something we didn’t even realize we were giving.”
Boone felt Nathan’s eyes on him. It was even more incredible than the others knew. They thought Larry had simply fallen from the castle trying to shoot them. Nathan and Boone hadn’t told them what Nathan swore he’d seen—a black figure on the roof of the castle, rising up, flying at Larry, taking him over the edge and down to the ground, all while Boone lay unconscious.
“Makes you think, doesn’t it,” Alice asked, “how we might never really know the impact we have on the lives we touch?”
Boone nodded, thinking about how just a handful of minutes with Alice in that rest stop had given him the strength and the tools to fight back against his panic.
Miguel said, “But wait, I’m still really confused. We all knew Mr. Wood a long time ago, years ago. So he came to Alice as a little ghost boy? And he came to Nathan in his dreams, looking like Nathan’s son? And Boone, he scared the heck out of you, hit you with pictures and things to make you leave your home?”
“First of all,” Boone said, “I wasn’t that scared. But Miguel, what’s your point?”
“Well,” Miguel said, “I don’t get it. He did all of that just to get you to save me from Larry?”
“Actually, my friend Abby had a thought on that,” Boone said.
“Abby again,” Alice said.
“Yeah, Abby, and she thinks that Simon appeared to the three of us in the way he figured we’d each best respond to. He came to Alice as the little boy who knew her so long ago and gave her a mystery to follow, knowing she wouldn’t be able to resist.”
They all knew that, for a while, Alice had thought the little specter might have been her never-born son.
Boone continued. “And he appeared to you, Nathan, as the soldier who knew Jeremy, but he looked enough like your son that you weren’t sure, and he even let you think he might be, knowing you’d do whatever you had to do to see it through. And for me, well, he must have known that with my agoraphobia, I’d never leave my apartment unless I was forced out.”
“Hmm,” Nathan said. “I guess I should feel used—we all should—but I can’t argue with the results.” He leaned over and ruffled Miguel’s hair.
Boone felt the same way.
“You know, Boone,” Alice said, “everything you just said makes se
nse, I guess, but if Simon could do all those things, why not just tell us what was going on? Why not just, I don’t know, appear to us and say that a little boy was in danger? Why not just tell us where to go instead of giving us these cryptic, bizarre clues we had to decipher? Did your friend Abby have any thoughts on that?”
“Well, she obviously couldn’t know for sure, but she speculated that things probably work very differently over there, on ‘the other side,’ that Simon did what he could do the only way he knew how. Maybe he couldn’t speak. Maybe he saw everything symbolically and reached out that way, with symbols. Whatever he did, it worked.”
Nobody spoke for a minute or so. Alice washed dishes, Boone dried them, Nathan put them away, and Miguel watched. Finally, Alice said, “There’s something that’s been bothering me, though. I started seeing the boy—little Simon, I guess—weeks before Miguel ever even met Larry. And Nathan’s dreams started before then, too.”
“I told Abby that,” Boone said. “Her response was that time is probably a bit more flexible wherever Simon is. It may not follow the same logic or rules as it does for us. It might fold back on itself, skip ahead, run back and forth a little, replay things over again, who knows? We do know that Simon somehow knew that Miguel would need our help—and contacted some of us about it—before Miguel was even in danger.” Boone secretly wondered if Simon even knew about the aneurysm waiting to blow inside Alice’s husband’s head.
“Well,” Nathan said, “Thank God he did. Otherwise, I’d have to take this bag of trash outside to the cans all by myself.”
He handed a bulging kitchen garbage bag, tied at the top, to Miguel. Everyone chuckled, even Miguel.
HOURS LATER, ALICE was sitting on Miguel’s bed in what used to be Jeremy’s room as the boy pulled the covers up to his chin. She was about to say good night when Nathan popped his head into the room.
“You’re falling down on the job, Miguel,” he said.
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