Full Circle (30 page)
Joshua mulled that over. “It must be code for some illegal project.”
Then Kayla entered the waiting room with Mrs. Drummond in tow. “Adam, we need to speak. It's urgent.”
Joshua rose to his feet, hesitated, then offered Adam his hand. “Will I be seeing you around?”
Adam shook his hand, replied, “Count on it.”
Joshua held his hand a fraction longer than necessary, and said simply, “Good.”
Kayla remained stationed by the exit until she had glared Joshua through the doors. When she moved forward, Adam asked, “How's your father?”
“Resting.”
“Did you talk to the police?”
“Yes.” She sat down and took his hand. “Adam, something's happened to your mother. When the hospice couldn't raise you on your phone or at the boardinghouse, they called the office.” Kayla added her other hand to the mix. “It doesn't look good.”
A
t Heathrow's Terminal Three, Honor embraced first Kayla and then Adam. She wished them a good flight and said she and Peter had decided to put off the birthday celebration and Christmas so the four of them could enjoy it together. She then whispered something to Kayla, who nodded and embraced her once more in reply.
Adam waved at the vanishing car and wondered at the ease this family had with farewells and sudden journeys. He asked, “Do you want to tell me what she said?”
Kayla bit her lip, then said, “If at all possible, either she or Peter will be there when your mother's time comes.”
Adam passed through Heathrow departures in a calm that was maintained only because of his traveling companion. Beside him, Kayla might have been suffering from an over-dose of worry and haste on top of her bruises, but he would never tell from looking at her. She appeared utterly unfazed by the entire process, checking in, passport control, the stepped-up security, the garish duty-free hall, the noise, the crush, the call for their flight. The plane left from Terminal Three's farthest gate, a long trek down a tunnel enclosed by glass and rain.
He and Kayla slept, her head resting upon his shoulder most of the way across the Atlantic. He listened to the plane drone above the wintry sea, his vision clouded by the veil of her hair. When Adam rose and went to the washroom, he returned to find her awake and waiting for him. She wrapped her arms around him and rocked him as tightly as the seats permitted.
When she released him, it was to give him a look as strong as any he had ever received. One that shaped the words long before she spoke them. Adam was nodding agreement, at least inside himself, before the first hesitant words emerged. Even so, he waited until she was finished to respond with one word. Yes. Then he refitted himself into her arms. And remained like that through the rest of the flight.
They landed at Baltimore/Washington International Airport at midnight according to his body clock. Customs and baggage claim took another hour and a half. They took a taxi to the Days Inn in Crofton. The city was not really a community with definable borders. Washington's dangerous northeastern sprawl infected it from one side, Annapolis wealth from the other. His mother had used it as a base because it let her take pictures in two markets.
The motel receptionist was a friend named Faye. The motel was equidistant from the cancer clinic where his mother had been treated and the hospice where she now resided. The motel sheltered a lot of people in for treatment, or receiving unwanted news, or relatives waiting out the hard hours. Faye showed him her normal grand smile and took a firm hold of his hand. “Now ain't this nice. You finally brought a lady to meet your momma.”
“Faye, this is Kayla.”
She offered her other pale-palmed hand. “How you doing, girl?”
“Tired but fine.”
“Faye's sister is chief nurse at the hospice,” Adam explained.
“Yeah, Yolanda thinks the world of his momma. And this boy here. Did Adam tell you about his momma asking him to fly off to England?”
“He did, yes.”
“Him going because his momma asked takes first prize in my book.” She patted Adam's hand. “It's good you and this fine-looking lady of yours made it back.”
“You've heard something?”
“Same as what you've been ready to hear for some time now.”
“I talked to her . . .” He struggled to sort through the mental timeline. “Day before yesterday. She sounded fine.”
“She
is
fine.” Her grip was warm as a heart's fire. “Her Christmas is gonna be spent next to the reason for the season. How much finer can she be?”
The hospice occupied a corner position one street off the main thoroughfare, across a parking lot from Crofton's largest church. The steeple was lit up with Christmas lights, and a Nativity scene was illuminated on the church's front lawn. The hospice's only sign of the season was a tiny tree on the receptionist's desk. Otherwise the front room was the same as always. The outside clock held no importance here. People came when they wanted and stayed as long as they liked. The visitors in the front room each occupied a private space. Their closeness only intensified the respect others showed. The duty nurse hugged Adam as he entered, then gave Kayla the same treatment as soon as they were introduced. One of the hospice's few rules was people fed on hugs long after they lost their interest in food.
“Faye called and said you were on your way,” the duty nurse told them. “I'll just go make sure your mother is ready.”
His mother made as if to push herself to a seated position as they entered the room. It was a gesture that took him straight back. He had walked into so many rooms, gauging how she felt by this movement. Today her arms scarcely had the strength to track down the sides of her covers, much less raise her up.
Ellen Wright's voice was a skeleton of sound. “Now isn't this nice.”
“I'll go fetch another chair,” the nurse told them.
“Mom, this is Kayla Austin.”
“So very nice to meet you, Mrs. Wright.”
“Adam has never brought anyone to see me before.” Ellen Wright blinked with the slow cadence of one whose every act was measured. She waited as the nurse set down Adam's chair and her son took a seat. When the door closed, she said, “You are very beautiful, and you must call me Ellen. I sent my boy away for his own good, and look what happens.”
Adam said, “Faye told us you've had a turn.”
“We both knew this was coming.” One hand lifted far enough to brush the air. She did not have the time to waste on such matters. Ellen Wright addressed Kayla. “Even after Adam took his apartment in Washington, he lived here. Do you under-stand what I'm saying?”
Kayla nodded slowly. “You realized Adam had no life except in this room. So you sent him away, hoping he would learn what he needed to in England.”
His mother studied Kayla a long time, before looking at her son and saying, “What a lovely young lady.”
“We brought a gift for you.” Kayla released Adam's hand and fumbled for the case she had been carrying since insisting that Honor drive her by the office before leaving for Heathrow. The case was large and flat and the color of saddle leather. Kayla opened the flap and gingerly drew out a photograph.
Adam recognized it the instant the image came into view. Then he had to blink very hard to keep it in focus. The Eve Arnold photograph was from
The Bible
, directed by John Huston, who had also played Noah. The picture was of Huston readying himself for one of the shots of the animals on the boat. Huston prepared not by studying his lines, but rather by feeding the animals. He was dressed in a sackcloth robe tied with a rope belt. The animal trainers and the cast all stood and gawked at this great man, kneeling in the dirt and feeding the geese by hand. His mother had hung the same photograph in the hall between their living room and kitchen.
“How lovely,” Ellen Wright murmured. “It's always been one of my favorites.”
Kayla said, “My mother went through a number of passions in her life. Eve Arnold was one of them.”
“You lost your mother?”
Kayla settled the picture on the foot of the bed and used folds in the blanket to prop it open. “When I was thirteen.”
Adam looked from the photograph to Kayla and from her to his mother. The two of them chatted with the ease of old friends, or people who had so much in common the words were secondary.
His mother asked, “What was it we were discussing?”
Kayla settled her free hand on top of Ellen's. “You sent Adam away.”
“I was becoming increasingly occupied with the other side. Adam needed to see beyond this bed and the coming end. I needed him to see that his struggle was not futile. That it wasn't about my passage. It never has been.”
Kayla said, “I don't think I could ever be that brave. Not in a hundred thousand years.”
Ellen studied the younger woman. “The joy lies in the struggle. The struggle lies in daring to hope.”
Kayla shivered. “Even when it's hopeless?”
“Child, it is never that. Your
reason
for hope changes. Mine has simply gone from the temporary to the eternal.” Ellen turned to her son and said, “There is a giant inside you, just waiting to be awakened.”
Kayla said it then. Voicing for the very first time what he had agreed to. “Adam has agreed to travel back to Africa with me.”
Ellen's gaze tracked back and forth between them. She repeated, “Africa?”
“Tanzania, Mom. Dar es Salaam.”
Kayla explained what her project sought to do, the money she hoped to be receiving, the need she had to expand in proper fashion. Nothing so insignificant as a thief and a breaker of dreams. Not in the face of new dreams to take their place. She finished, “I've asked Adam if he would mind coming down and helping me put together a real business plan.”
“What about your job in England?”
Kayla's gaze rested on him. “We're only talking about a temporary assignment. One that won't pay much.”
“I was a tough bargainer,” Adam said. “I held out for a plane ticket and meals.”
“He can go back to Daddy in a month or so,” Kayla said.
“Maybe,” Adam said.
“Yes,” Kayla said. “Maybe.”
Adam realized his mother was tiring by how her eyes began drifting shut. Though she said nothing, Adam knew it was approaching time to leave. But there was one thing more that needed doing.
He took a long breath, leaned forward, and asked, “I was wondering, Mom. Would you like to pray with me?”
Softly Kayla corrected, “With us.”
They found a restaurant catering to the hospital crowd, and a waitress who found nothing out of the ordinary in serving breakfast at eight in the evening. afterward, adam drove the rental car back to the motel. Kayla insisted on accompanying him to his room. He stretched out on top of the covers, and Kayla sat down beside him. adam stared up into her face and saw the love. The calm. The sympathy. The sorrow.