The Boy on the Porch (9 page)

The dog found a ragged red rubber ball and brought it to the boy's feet. The boy threw the ball, the dog retrieved it and brought it back, enjoying the game. On one throw, the ball bounced off the path into the leaves, and when the dog returned, he brought a dirty, sodden child's shoe.

“Aw, some poor child has lost his shoe,” Marta said.

“Leave it,” John said. “It's filthy.”

The boy seemed intrigued by the shoe, turning it this way and that. He sat down on the ground and took off his own shoe and tried to wedge his foot into the dirty shoe.

“What—? What are you—?”

“Leave it,” John repeated. “Don't be silly. It's filthy and it's too small anyway. Can't you see that?”

But the boy tried again to force his foot into the shoe.

“Cut that out,” John said. He knelt to put the boy's own shoe back on and tossed the dirty shoe to the side of the trail.

They had barely moved on when the boy returned to reclaim the shoe, clutching it in his hand.

“Why?” Marta asked. “Why do you want that old shoe?”

The boy tapped his foot and then raced on.

“Funny kid,” Marta said. “Wanting that old shoe.”

“Yeah. Funny kid,” John agreed.

T
he boy did not want to part with the shoe. He carried it with him all that day, took it to bed with him that night, and toted it around all the next day. While he painted on the barn wall, the shoe rested on a stool beside him. When the beagle snatched the shoe, the boy gently removed it from the dog's mouth and wedged it in his pocket.

It was a flimsy canvas shoe, the sort a child might wear in the summer, its sole worn, the canvas stained with mud and mold. It took some convincing for the boy to allow Marta to wash it. He stood by the tin tub while it soaked. He took the stiff brush from Marta and scrubbed the shoe, rinsed it, and pegged it to the line to dry.

He checked on the shoe so often that John said, “It's just a shoe. It's not going anywhere.”

The boy seemed startled. He tapped rapidly on John's arm, an urgent and insistent message.

“What? What?”

The boy gave John a look that he had not seen before. Was it disappointment? Was the boy disappointed in John?

“Okay, okay,” John said. “It's
not
just any old shoe.”

To Marta, later, John said, “That shoe is bothering me.”

“Don't be silly, John. It's just a
shoe
.”

The next day they returned to the spot where they'd found the shoe. It had rained the night before and the earth was dark, the leaves still dripping here and there. The sky was overcast, the lake flat and gray.

Again, the boy and the beagle ran ahead. The boy had insisted on carrying a knapsack with the shoe inside.

“I thought we were going to try different places each time,” Marta said.

“I know, but there was something about this spot—it's nice here, don't you think?”

“If it's so nice, why do you look so worried?”

“Worried? I'm not worried.”

The boy and the beagle roamed in and out of the trees, on and off the path. Before they reached the beach, the boy returned to their sides, holding aloft the shoe, wet and stained with mud.

“You got it dirty again? Why'd you do that?” John asked.

The boy shrugged the knapsack off his shoulder, opened it, and retrieved the clean shoe. He held it next to the dirty one.

“The other shoe!” Marta said.

John leaned in for a closer look. “What do you know! You found the other one.”

The boy held the shoes close to his chest. Then he knelt, and with a stick, he drew in the dirt a figure of a child. Next to it, he drew a taller child. He placed the found shoes at the feet of the first, smaller figure. He sat down, took off his own shoes, and placed them at the feet of the taller child.

“I don't get it,” John said. “What's he trying to tell us?”

The boy thought a minute. Then he scratched out the figures and began again. He drew a child in the dirt. At the child's feet, he placed the found shoes.

“You did that already,” John said.

Then the boy made the same figure bigger. He elongated the body, the arms, the legs. He made the feet larger. Now he removed the found shoes and placed his own shoes at the feet of the drawing.

“The boy grew!” Marta said. “His feet grew. He needed larger shoes, right?”

“Well, of course,” John said. “If your feet grow, you need—”

“Oh—” Marta knelt beside the boy and lifted the found shoes. “Are these
your
shoes?”

The boy nodded, and as he did so, he exhaled deeply, as if he were releasing volumes of trapped air.

O
n the day the boy found the second shoe, after they'd eaten their sandwiches at the beach and after the boy and the beagle had run through the paths, John steered the truck down a road that, he guessed, would lead them around the far side of the lake. It would be a longer route home, but the sun had come out and the air was fresh, a perfect day for a drive along a country road.

It was on this day that the boy, who had been studying the second shoe as he sat between John and Marta, with the beagle at his feet, suddenly slapped the shoe against the dashboard. He lunged for the window at Marta's side and leaned out, his head turning this way and that.

Marta grasped the boy tightly. “Don't do that! Whatever are you—stop—you're going to fall out! John, stop this truck!”

John pulled to the side of the road and had barely stopped the truck when the boy jumped out, tugging at Marta's sleeve. The beagle, picking up on the boy's agitation, ran in circles around the trio, shaking its head, pawing at the boy's legs.

“What happened?” John asked. “Did something bite him? Did he cut himself? What's the—”

Marta was standing as still as a fence post. John followed her gaze. In the distance was a shabby trailer surrounded by rusted bits of metal. At one end was a tall, narrow tree, its trunk painted blue, and from it hung a swing.

The boy gripped Marta's hand as she and John remained standing by the side of the road, unable to move.

“Do you know this place, Jacob?” Marta asked. “Do you—why, you're
trembling
.”

The boy backed toward the truck.

“John, let's go. I don't like this. Jacob doesn't like this—”

“Get in the truck. Wait for me,” John said, and he headed off toward the trailer to investigate.

In the truck, Jacob slipped to the floor and hid his head in his hands. Marta locked the doors and strained to follow John's movements.

The trailer was abandoned, inhabited only by startled squirrels. Leaves and dirt and tattered bits of clothing littered the damp, dark rooms, cobwebs clouded the windows, and dirty pots filled the sink. John retrieved a worn, soiled stuffed toy—a rabbit—and returned to the truck.

When John offered Jacob the stuffed animal, the boy scowled, snatched the rabbit, and threw it out the window. With his fists, he pounded on the dashboard and shook his head back and forth. John and Marta had never seen him so agitated.

And so they drove home, silent and shaken.

They remained silent as they walked up to the pasture and barn to feed the animals. The cows and the goats murmured greetings and swung their heads this way and that, puzzled. The beagle rubbed up against each of the animals, communicating his own confusion.

Something is different
, the dog seemed to be saying. That knowledge circulated among the animals.

Something is different. Something has changed
.

That night, John said to his wife, “The sheriff might be able to investigate more.”

Marta did not answer. Instead, she got up and went to check on the boy, who was sound asleep, with the beagle curled beside him.

T
hey considered moving.

They'd take Jacob, of course, and the dog, but they'd sell the other animals and the house and make a new start somewhere else.

“No one would be asking questions about the boy. They would assume he belonged to us—”

“And we could just go on with our lives and everyone would be happy.”

“But the people—if they came back—”

“Does it look like they're coming back?”

“No, but they might, and if they did come back, and we weren't here, then they might call the sheriff and—”

“What about a birth certificate? Isn't he going to need one of those?”

“Lots of people can't find their birth certificates.”

“But—”

“But—”

Round and round they went:
Should we stay or should we go
?

T
hey stayed.

And the days went on as before, and when September came, John met with the sheriff and explained that the people had not returned for the boy, and they wanted to arrange legal custody of Jacob.

“Well, now, that might take some time,” the sheriff said. “Up at the county courthouse, things move as slow as a turtle in quicksand. We could get the welfare people out here, but naw, that department is a mess. You best hold on to the boy for the time being and see if those people show up, I guess, long as the boy doesn't mind being with you.”

When John told the sheriff about the abandoned trailer, the sheriff promised to investigate.

At the schoolhouse, John was told that it might be better to wait until January to see about enrolling the boy, when they were better staffed. They did not know what to do with a child who did not speak.

“But he's very talented,” John said. “He can draw—”

“All kids draw.”

“And music, he's very talented in music, too—”

“All parents think that about their kids.”

That afternoon, John, Marta, and Jacob drove out to an orchard and picked a bushel of ripe, red apples. And while the sun was shining down on them as they munched on the fruit, and as the beagle ran in and out of the boy's legs, back at their farmhouse, several miles away, an old car pulled into the drive.