Blue (12 page)

“I'm in kind of an interesting situation,” she admitted to him. “I have an unofficially adopted kid—well, not really. Our paths crossed a few months ago, and I guess you could say I'm mentoring him. He's a homeless kid, an orphan. He's thirteen. He's staying with me right now, and he stayed with me a few months ago. My sister thinks I'm nuts, but he's a great kid, a bright boy. I'm trying to get him on the right path here, get him into high school. I'm not in town much, I'm on the road for SOS/HR for three and four months at a time, and I come back to New York for a month till I'm reassigned and head out again. I'm trying to do what I can for him while I'm here. He's a really, really nice kid.”

Kevin waited as she went on, intrigued by what she'd said. On the one hand, he couldn't see her taking on a homeless teenager, but on the other hand, he wondered if having someone to take care of again might save her. She had been such a great wife and mother, and her personal compass had been broken ever since.

“We were talking yesterday and he told me something that stopped me in my tracks. We've all read it before, for the past few years. It's not a new story, but this is a kid I really care about. He was molested by a priest when he was nine. It's just like in the movies, only worse because it's real. Dark basement, the priest luring him to church by letting him use the piano, telling him they had to keep it a secret or the priest would get in trouble. Sitting next to the boy at the piano, kissing him, hand down his pants, then accusing him of ‘tempting' the priest, so it's supposed to be the boy's fault it happened, and threatening him with jail if he ever told. That meant a lot to the kid since his father was in prison at the time, his mother was already dead. And his aunt thinks this priest is a saint. He tried to tell her, but she wouldn't listen.” It was a typical story they'd all seen on the news, as they both knew.

“God, I hate those guys,” Kevin said in an angry tone. “It seems even worse to me since I'm Catholic and knew such great priests growing up. Priests who do this are an abscess on the ass of the church. I loathe them, and they give the whole church a bad name. The church ought to throw them out of the priesthood and put them all in jail, not protect them.” But a lot of that had been in the news, too, with their crimes concealed by their superiors and the individual churches. She had known instinctively that Kevin would be the right one to call, and it gave her an excuse to talk to him and connect again. “Did he rape the boy?” Kevin asked, intrigued by the story, and happy to talk to her.

“I don't think so. Blue says he didn't, but who knows? He might have repressed it. He was very young.”

“You ought to get him to a shrink and see what they say. They might turn something up with hypnosis. If he's lucky, it was no worse than a kiss and a hand in the pants. It's a total violation of trust, not to mention criminal child and sexual abuse.” Kevin was reacting as violently as she had, and it was a relief to talk to him about it. It gave validation to everything she felt herself.

“I don't know what to do, Kev, or where to start. Who do I talk to? Who do I go to? Or do I leave it alone? If we bring charges against the priest, will it make it worse for Blue, or is it better to punish the molester? I thought about it all night.”

“I take it Blue is the kid?”

“Yes, he has incredible blue eyes.”

“So do you,” he said gently. He had always had a crush on her, but would never have done anything about it—she had been his best friend's wife. Now she no longer was, but he still felt she was off-limits. Hitting on her even over three years later would have still seemed disrespectful to Mark. “To tell you the truth, I don't know what the procedure is,” he admitted. “I've heard the stories about it, like everyone else, but don't know much more. Why don't you let me check it out? Besides, it'll give me a reason to talk to you again,” he said with a warm tone in his voice and she smiled.

“I won't disappear on you again,” she said softly. “I'm better now. Although I'll be back out in the field again in a few weeks. I just got back from Afghanistan.”

“Shit. Nowhere near the human rights guy who got killed by the sniper a few weeks ago, I hope.”

“I was riding in the mountains with him. His horse was cheek to jowl with mine when he got shot. We worked in the same camp.”

“Ginny, that's serious business. Don't risk your life like that.” It sobered him to hear it, and he knew how distraught Mark would have been to think of her in a situation like the one she described.

“What else have I got to do?” she said honestly. “At least this gives my life purpose and meaning, and I'm useful to someone.”

“It sounds like you're doing a lot for this homeless kid. And you can't help him if you get killed.”

“That's what he says, too. But I love what I do.”

Kevin knew human nature, and he had the ugly feeling that she had been risking her life intentionally, maybe even suicidally, since the death of her husband and child, which he knew was what her sister thought, too. The phenomenon wasn't uncommon, sometimes with tragic results.

“We'll talk about that later,” Kevin said practically. “I want to check this priest thing out for you. Do you know if he's still at the same parish?”

“I was so stunned by the story, I never thought to ask. I could check it out, or ask Blue. He may not know. He hasn't been back to church since.”

“Just out of curiosity, why don't you find out if the guy's still there, or was moved? Maybe there were complaints about him. That would be good to know.”

“Blue says there's another boy who hates him, and he thinks he did the same thing to him. He was older. The other boy was twelve.”

“Hang on to all this info, and let me find out the procedure for reporting something like this. And then your boy has to be willing, of course. A lot of victims prefer to stay in the shadows forever and don't complain. That's how guys like this get away with it. Everyone's afraid to rock the boat. Or some people are—not ‘everyone' anymore, thank God. I'll call you when I know something. And check out the whereabouts of the priest.”

“I'll do that,” she promised. “And Kev, thank you. Really, thank you. It was great talking to you.”

“I'm not letting you disappear again,” he warned her, “even if you run off to Afghanistan. I wish you wouldn't do that, though. There has to be something equally useful you can do here instead of halfway around the world, in situations where you might get killed.”

“There really isn't. They need us so badly in the places I go.”

“I never figured you for a Mother Teresa type. You were so glamorous on the air.” She and Mark had really been the golden couple of network news, and now she was in Afghanistan riding a mule. He just couldn't see it, but she seemed committed to it, which worried him. He was going to try to talk her out of it, if he could. But he knew how stubborn she was, and he doubted he'd be successful. She sounded like she was on a holy mission, and with the boy, too. He admired what she was doing for him, and he thought she was right to check it out. The boy deserved to be avenged and have the perpetrator punished and put in prison. Kevin hoped Ginny would follow through. “I'll call you as soon as I know something. Take care, and behave yourself till then.”

“I will. I promise.” She felt better when she hung up. He had been exactly the right person to call.

She didn't say anything to Blue about it that night. She didn't want to until she had concrete information. She wanted Father Teddy's last name, and to know if he was still there, but she thought she could get the information from the parish, if she was clever about it. She wanted to see him for herself.

She was thinking about it that night after she'd gone to bed, when the phone rang. It was Becky. It was rare for her to call so late, which was dinnertime for her in California, when she was always busy with her husband and kids, and cooking dinner for them.

“Something wrong?”

“Dad fell today and broke his arm,” she said, sounding distressed. “He got lost again. I think the medicine stopped working. We took him to the hospital, and he had no idea who I was. He still doesn't. He might be better in the morning, in daylight, but Ginny, you've got to come out. Dad just isn't going to last forever, and he's getting worse. If you don't come now, and wait till you come home again, I think he'll be gone by then. Or his mind will be. Even if he doesn't recognize you now, at least he's lucid some of the time.” She sounded like she was at her wit's end, and Ginny felt sorry for her.

“I'm sorry, Becky. I'll do what I can. Maybe I can come out this weekend.” She thought about it quickly. She didn't want to pull Blue out of school. She didn't want to do anything to jeopardize his graduating in June. But she hadn't said anything to Becky yet about his staying with her again. And she didn't like the idea of leaving him at Houston Street for the weekend—she would be away for a long time soon enough. “If I come out,” she said, “I have to bring someone with me.”

Her sister sounded startled at the other end. “Are you seeing someone?” Ginny hadn't said a word to her about it.

“Yes, but not the way you think. Blue is staying with me again. I'm trying to get him into a very special high school. In fact, he has an audition and interview there next week, so the weekend would work.”

“Oh my God, not that again. For heaven's sake, what are you thinking? The last thing you need is a homeless teenage boy in your apartment, or your life.”

“He's doing very well.”

“Are you fostering him?” She just couldn't understand what Ginny was doing. It sounded like she'd lost her mind.

“No, I'm mentoring him. But he's staying with me while I'm in town.” The concept was so foreign to Becky that it made no sense to her at all. Nothing Ginny did now made sense to her. But Becky was too tired to think about it. She had her father to deal with. And at least Ginny had agreed to come to L.A. It was long overdue, and she was glad that she had finally convinced her.

“I don't want to impose on you,” Ginny said respectfully, “especially since there are two of us. We'll stay at a hotel.”

“We still have a guest room, and the boy can sleep in Charlie's room, if he behaves himself.” She made him sound like a savage. Ginny tried not to react.

“He's very polite. I think you'll like him.” At least she hoped so, but they weren't going to stay long. She was thinking about flying out on Friday afternoon after school, and coming back on the red-eye on Sunday night, to get Blue to school on Monday morning. It was going to be a short trip. “I'll e-mail you what flight we're on,” she told Becky, and a few minutes later they hung up.

Ginny thought about it afterward, and how upsetting it would be to see her father in that condition. And it would be the first time she had seen Becky and her family in three and a half years. She felt nervous about it. She hoped it would go all right.

She told Blue about it in the morning, and he was excited to go to California. She told him why they were going, because her father was sick and old, but he said he was looking forward to meeting her sister and her kids. He was very upbeat about it, which cheered her up, too. And after he left for school, it occurred to her to call his aunt. Fortunately she was there and answered on the first ring. She told her that she was going to L.A. and was planning to take Blue with her.

“Would you mind signing a letter for me?” Ginny asked her. “He's a minor, and I don't have custody of him. If someone at the airline asks me for paperwork of some kind, I don't want them to think I'm kidnapping him.”

“It's no problem,” Charlene said willingly, and they agreed to meet at Mt. Sinai hospital again that night, as they had for the school permission. Ginny drew up the letter for her, and they took care of it in two minutes in the cafeteria.

Then Charlene looked at her. She still couldn't understand why Ginny was doing this for Blue, but it was a very nice thing to do. She suspected that Ginny was a very lonely woman, to be so open to taking Blue into her home and life.

“How's he doing?” Charlene asked her as they walked out together.

“He's doing great,” Ginny said with a confident smile. “He's graduating from eighth grade in June.”

“If he sticks it out,” Charlene added, from experience. She had no faith in his ability to stay in school.

“He will,” Ginny said with a determined look, and they both laughed. She was dying to ask her what Father Teddy's last name was, but she didn't want to arouse her suspicions. Instead, she asked her conversationally what her parish was, and Charlene proudly said it was St. Francis's. To cover her tracks and her interest in it, Ginny told her that she hadn't gotten Blue to church yet, but she was sure she would.

“Don't count on it,” Charlene said knowingly. “He hates going to church. I finally gave up.” Ginny wondered if she even remembered Blue telling her that the priest had kissed him. It sounded like she had just dismissed it as a childish lie.

Ginny thanked her again for signing the letter, Charlene went back to work, and Ginny took a cab back to the apartment where Blue was getting ready for bed. She had already laid out his travel clothes for the next day. She had bought him another pair of jeans, khaki pants, three collared shirts, a thin windbreaker, a new pair of high-top Converse, and new underwear and socks. She wanted to give him the best chance with her sister that she could. She didn't think new Converse alone would do it—it would take a lot more than that to win Becky over. But Ginny had faith that Blue would behave well and hold his own with her family in L.A. He was thrilled about the trip, though sorry that her father was sick.

“Sleep tight,” she said, stooping to kiss him once he was in bed. She had just checked his suitcase again, and he had everything he needed, including new pajamas.