A Friend at Midnight (8 page)

Michael hoisted Nathaniel and kissed him. “Come on, Nate. I'll give you a bath. That'll make you feel better. Then we'll both go to bed. Remember how we share a bedroom?”

“Wiwwy come too,” Nathaniel demanded.

“No,” said Lily. “I'm taking a shower.”

In her bathroom, she tried to wash the whole day down the drain, but she couldn't get it off her skin. She put on her summer pajamas and went to check on Michael and Nathaniel. They had tubbed together and were squeaky clean and wrinkled like prunes.

Still to come was Nathaniel crying himself to sleep.

Lily reminded herself that good sisters did not throw their little brothers down the cellar stairs but were patient.

Michael put Nathaniel in his crib and tucked a blanket around him. “Don't do any crying, Nate. You're too old. Grow up.”

“Okie, Miikooo,” said Nathaniel. He closed his eyes and went to sleep, a recruit taking orders from his sergeant.

Lily dragged herself downstairs, wrapped the smashed cell phone in old newspaper, as if it were particularly disgusting garbage, and even took it outside to the trash barrel and fastened the lid tightly.

The kitchen phone rang.

She tottered back in to answer.

“Darling?” cried her mother. “We're almost home! We're on the Whitestone Bridge! Did you get Michael? Is everything okay? Why didn't you call me? I'm a wreck! Is Michael all right?” Michael had run downstairs to signal yet again that he did not want to talk.

Lily did not know how she could do more to protect Michael. But protecting Michael had hardly begun. Lily could not let the school system have any idea what had happened. Was anything more vicious than a gossipy teacher? Yes.

A gossipy counselor.

Schools lived for that word “dysfunctional.” It was right up there with the all-time favorite phrase “low self-esteem.” Teachers loved to say to each other, “Little Michael comes from a dysfunctional family, you know. Predictable result. Low self-esteem.” He'd be in Special Needs in a heartbeat. He'd spend his life with people whose idea of kindness was to rip open a wound every week, so it never healed, but bled in front of everybody. Lily had seen what the Self-Esteem crowd could do to a kid.

Perhaps counseling had its place. The problem was, it didn't keep its place. It spread like a virus, infecting a kid's whole school year, and creeping into the next year, and the next, invading every classroom and lodging in the mind of every teacher. Once said out loud, it would go with Michael all the days of his school life: divorce issues; abandoned by father; subsequent reading problems; low self-esteem; needs counseling.

“Michael's asleep, Mom,” Lily told the teacher she loved most in the world. “And I'm asleep on my feet. We'll see you in the morning.”

“Lily, I want details!”

“There aren't any details. And Mom, don't wake us up early tomorrow, okay?” Tomorrow was Sunday. Usually Lily complained about church, but this week it would serve a purpose. It would postpone conversation. “Wake us up with exactly enough time to get dressed,” she said.

“First you'll need a sturdy breakfast.”

Lily never needed a sturdy breakfast. Lily liked weak, fragile breakfasts—a sip of orange juice and a single blueberry pried out of a muffin. “See you in the morning,” she said, and disconnected. With any luck, even at this hour, Mom and Kells would run into traffic and Lily really and truly would be asleep before they got home. She dragged herself upstairs, but the sleep that had flattened her on the plane did not come. She couldn't even get her eyes to close unless she weighted them with her hands. After a while, she got up and went into Michael and Nathaniel's room.

“I can't sleep either,” Michael whispered.

She sat on the edge of his bed and they held each other in the dark.

chapter
6

S
unday morning, Mom kept flinging her arms around Michael and kissing him all over, the way she would kiss Nathaniel. “Oh, Michael! You just told your father you were coming home? Coming back to me? Oh, Michael, I'm so glad to see you! This is so wonderful!”

Michael slid out of her grasp and onto a chair, facing his glass of orange juice.

“Miikooo's home!” Nathaniel kept yelling. “Got Miikooo atta airport!”

“Yes, you did,” said Kells. “You and your big sister went on a long taxi ride, didn't you?”

Nathaniel frowned. “No, Daddy. Went onna pane.”

His father swung him in circles. “Michael went on the plane, didn't he? Did you see it land?”

“Michael, darling,” said Mom, “I can't find your suitcases. Where are your things?”

Michael studied his orange juice.

“Once Michael decided to come back,” said Lily, “there weren't many flights to choose from and there wasn't enough time for packing. Dad's going to ship his stuff.” I, who hate him, she thought, am giving Dad an out.

“I think some drawers in your bureau never got emptied, Michael,” said Kells. “I'll find something for you to wear. Come on, men.” He tickled Nathaniel under the chin and motioned to Michael. “Let's dress for church.”

Kells had never gone to church until he married Mom. He had never expressed an opinion on church. It occurred to Lily that she had no idea what Kells thought about anything.

“Poor Dennis,” said Mom to Lily. “Your poor father must be heartbroken. I should call him and make sure he's all right.”

Who cared if that snake was all right? What was the matter with Mom? Dennis was the creep she'd divorced, and as it turned out, for excellent reasons. Mom was a fine judge of character. “I think you should leave it alone for a while,” said Lily. “Let it sort itself out. Why don't we go to the mall this afternoon while Nathaniel is napping and grab Michael a few outfits to tide him over?”

There was nothing Mom liked more than the mall. She grabbed a pencil to make a shopping list and then dropped the pencil to crush Lily in a hug. “I haven't even thanked you yet, Lily. You were so mature—getting to LaGuardia and managing Nate at the same time. I feel terrible you had to do it alone. But you rose to the occasion. I'm so proud.”

Socks,
she wrote at the top of her list.

Mom loved those ten-packs of socks. She felt that if you had fresh clean bright white socks on, all would be well.

But she was wrong. Socks weren't going to help. I have to tell her what really happened, thought Lily. She's the mom. She needs to know.

But she could not bring herself to damage her mother's happiness. Her son had chosen her and he needed socks. What else was there?

Lily went upstairs to fix her hair.

In the boys' room, Kells was laying out two sets of clothing. “Michael,” he said, “I think Jamie might press you for details. Sometimes it's good to plan ahead how you're going to answer difficult questions. Shall we think of a line you can use when Jamie asks how come you're home?”

Jamie—who believed in perfect fathers—was in Michael's Sunday school class. And the person who remembered was the stepfather. And the person who was skeptical that Michael had gotten homesick was also the stepfather.

Lily thought, I will not cry.

“The best line,” said Kells, “would be boring and easy to repeat. That way your own words don't upset you. And then change the subject. For example, ‘Mom couldn't stand to have me far away, so I'm back. Tell me about third grade, Jamie. What have I missed?'”

During the second verse of the second hymn, the children left the church and went to Sunday school. When she was little, Lily had always been so eager for that second verse to come and never understood why they couldn't leave on the first verse. What was the point of waiting? So she knew why Jamie leaped off his pew, looked in disgust at Michael—who hardly seemed alive, let alone aware of what verse they were on—and jerked the bottom of Michael's tie. “Come on!” said Jamie. “What are you waiting for?” A month ago, Michael would have pummeled Jamie into little pieces for yanking him around, but this Sunday, he did not notice.

Morning sun poured through stained-glass lilies and roses. The church was hot. The velvet pew cushions were comfy. People looked sleepy.

Dr. Bordon read the text. Luke 11:5–13. The numbers sounded familiar, as if some distant Sunday school teacher had hoped Lily would memorize this.

“Jesus is speaking,” Dr. Bordon said. “And he says to a crowd listening to him, ‘If you had a friend, would you ever go to that friend at
midnight
and say to him, I need three loaves of bread, for another friend of mine has just arrived, and I have nothing to feed him?'”

Lily didn't know the story after all. Jesus was apt to be brief, and you'd better be paying attention or it would be over with and you wouldn't know what it meant. Half the time you wouldn't know what it meant when you
did
pay attention. Reb used to say the real miracle was that anybody figured out how to be a Christian to start with.

“‘Your friend inside his house might answer you by saying, Trouble me not! My door is shut—my children are in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything.'”

Lily usually thought of church as entire, separate. A place she liked, but did not carry around with her in the same way, for example, she carried basic math into a restaurant, to figure the tip. Jesus was a remote dusty person in sandals, saying things that ended up on Sunday school walls, along with pictures of happy peasants in Sudan or India, whose lives were improved by a water buffalo donated by Sunday school children.

But this was different. This applied.

For Michael had called upon Dad for bread—meaning love; meaning home. And just like the verse, Dad had answered, “Trouble me not, Michael. I cannot get up and give you anything. My door is shut.” Lily shivered with the accuracy of it.

“‘I, Jesus, say to you,'” read Dr. Bordon, “‘though your friend will not get up and give you what you need—
because
he is your friend, he
will
get up, and give you everything you need. And I say to you, Ask and it shall be given. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks—receives. Everyone who seeks—finds. To everyone who knocks—that door will open.'”

Wait a second here, thought Lily. Michael was seeking—and got slapped. Michael knocked—and had the door slammed in his face. And Michael wasn't just
asking.
He was
begging.

Dr. Bordon continued to read. “‘If a son asks his father for bread, will the father give his son a stone?'”

Yes, thought Lily. He will.

“‘If the son asks for dinner, will the father put a snake in front of him? If the son asks for eggs, will the father offer a scorpion?'”

Yes. Dennis Rosetti: Scorpion Man.

“‘If you, being a bad person, know that you must give good gifts to your children, think how much more your Heavenly Father will give to those who ask Him for gifts.'”

Lily could have torn a hymnbook in half. What are you up to here, Jesus? My father
did
give his son a stone. He'd do it again. He
likes
stones. Gives nothing but stones.

Turning the Sunday bulletin to the back page, she busied herself reading announcements, hoping to block out Dr. Bordon and his nonsense. The last Sunday in September, nobody had signed up to do coffee hour. Every week in October the nursery school needed volunteers. The choir was looking for tenors.

Yesterday, Lily informed God, there was fear in my brother's voice. He was not afraid of the airport. He was afraid of his father. This father you're so sure wouldn't give him a stone.

Yesterday, even an eight-year-old didn't have a friend at midnight. Listen to me, God. Asking doesn't get you what you want. Knocking on doors doesn't open them. And fathers do so give their son a stone when they ask for bread.

You're no more a father than my real father. I'm done with you, too.

Amanda did not let Lily down. She listened to the whole story, punctuating Lily's recital with cries of agony and little shouts of “Kill him!”

They were lying on towels at the edge of Amanda's pool. They had swum back and forth for fifteen minutes, which was nothing for Amanda but more than Lily usually did in a month. Lily had that nice trim feeling that comes from lots of exercise, and as usual she was convinced that from now on she would swim, swim, swim—and as usual she knew perfectly well this was not going to happen.

Amanda shivered. “I don't want to believe that your dad really did that. I bet he really came back to the airport. I bet he couldn't actually drive away. He tried to find Michael.”

“No. Because if he had tried, and he didn't find Michael, he'd have called airport security.” Lily pictured her father driving away. Paying highway tolls. Stopping for takeout. Unlocking an empty apartment. Watching television. Staying up for the eleven o'clock news. Worrying about the situation in the Middle East.

Not worrying about Michael.

“I bet your father is suffering,” said Amanda. “Think of him, hundreds of miles from here, all day, all night, picturing his little boy alone and scared.”

Lily took off her sunglasses and stared at Amanda.

“Right,” said Amanda. “If he cared, he wouldn't have left his little boy alone and scared to start with. How come your mom and Kells haven't gotten to the bottom of this?”

“They're e-mailing. Thank you, Dennis, for agreeing to ship Michael's stuff. Best—Judith.”

“So she didn't ask your father what happened and your father didn't say. Did Michael tell you?”

“I don't think anything happened. I think Michael was just more effort than Dad felt like. You know little boys. Michael needed laundry and breakfast and dinner and help with his reading and chauffeuring and games and attention and conversation and snacks. And he said to me on the plane, he said—oh, Amanda!—he said,
I thought we would play catch.”

“Poor Michael. How's he doing?”

“He sort of isn't doing. Just sitting there.” Lily felt strangely heavy, hanging on to everything that hurt Michael. No wonder Michael is just sitting there, she thought. He's weighted down.

Amanda slathered sunscreen on her legs and arms. “Still, Lily. Just because Dennis Rosetti is totally worthless, I'm not sure it means that God is. Let's not say it out loud. God might strike us down.”

“If God planned to strike anybody,” said Lily, “and if there's any justice in this world, He'd strike Dad. But no, Dad is fine.”

“Well, you're right,” said Amanda. “That is not fair.” She smacked the sunscreen bottle down on the tiles. She got on her knees. Then she tilted her head back and glared straight up into the sky.