My Soul to Keep (42 page)

His huge blues eyes looked up at me, and it was clear he didn’t realize who I was for a second. Then he lunged for me and grabbed me around the neck, latching on and pulling me down toward him.

“Where’s my—,” he said in full voice.

I shushed him again and pried him away from me. I whispered into his ear. “We have to be real, real quiet, Nicholas. We don’t want to wake anyone up. Okay?”

He nodded and whispered loudly, “Where’s my mommy?”

I put my mouth next to his ear again. “We’re going to go find her right now, but not another word, okay? We have to be real quiet. Like little mice, okay?”

He nodded solemnly. I stood up with him wrapped around me, his head resting on my shoulder, and thought I might pass out from the alternating waves of ecstasy and abject panic which were crashing in on me. I didn’t know which feeling was more likely to knock me over, but it was a close contest.

We tiptoed from the bedroom and into the hallway. I closed the door quietly behind me just as another door opened at the other end of the hall. I put my hand over Nicholas’s mouth and ducked quickly into the bathroom next door, pulling the shower curtain back carefully and stepping into the tub. I crouched down in the dark, still clutching Nicholas, who had realized by now what was happening and was beginning to hyperventilate. I pulled away from him again and held my finger to my lips, then pressed my lips to his ear. “You need to calm down now, Nicholas. Breathe real slow and quiet, and calm down. You’re safe. I’ll take care of you.”

I felt his breaths deepen and his neck relax, his head dropping limp on my shoulder.

The light clicked on. We both held our breath as someone shuffled into the bathroom, used the toilet, flushed, and then left.

“He didn’t wash his hands,” Nicholas whispered to me when the room was quiet.

I couldn’t help but smile in the darkness. “You’re right, sweetie, he didn’t.”

“My mommy said to always wash my hands.”

“You’re exactly right. That’s a very bad habit not to wash your hands.”

“Did you come to get me?”

“Yes, I did, doodlebug.”

“Will you squeeze me?” he said.

I began to cry as I squeezed him tightly in bursts and he coughed out my name in a whisper. Then I saw a look of dismay cross his face.

“I need my gun,” he whispered frantically.

“No, you don’t, sweetie. You’re safe now. We need to get out of here quick, quick, quick.”

He started to cry. “Mr. Enrique gave it to me.”

“Sweetie, I am absolutely positive he will get you a new one. Let’s get out of here. Now, be quiet like a little mouse. Just like we said, okay?”

I stood and stepped out of the tub, Nicholas still draped over my shoulder, and peeked into the dark hallway. The doors were all closed again. I’d just about made it back to Mrs. Pryne’s room to get my bag when Nicholas leaped from my arms and ran back to the bedroom where he’d been sleeping. I followed and watched, unable to breathe as he fished under his pillow and pulled out his toy gun. He’d hung on to it all this time. He wasn’t about to let it go now.

He raced back to me and hopped into my arms. We slipped through the hallway door and into the brightly lit kitchen.

The hospice workers were in the kitchen, still playing cards at the breakfast table.

“Could you do me a favor?” I whispered.

They looked up at me, apparently unconcerned that I had one of the household’s children in my grip.

“Sure, hon.”

“Call 911, give them the address of this house, and let them know the boy they’re looking for, Nicholas Chavez, is here.”

The woman’s eyes widened.

“Just do it. Please.”

I heard another door open in the hallway. I put my finger to my lips and whispered, “Not a word.”

The nurse nodded, and I slipped back into Mrs. Prynes room, Nicholas still wrapped around me. I was reaching for my bag when I heard a man in the kitchen. I left the bag where it was and slipped into the closet, stepping back into the clothes, letting them come together in front of me. I was afraid to reach into the room to close the door, so I tried to make my shoes blend in with the others and scooted behind a long wool coat.

“Did Nicholas come in here and get a glass of water?” I heard the man ask the nurses. I held my breath.

“No, Mr. Pryne. I haven’t seen him. I think he’s still in bed.”

“He’s not there. He’s hiding somewhere.”

The door to Mrs. Pryne’s room flew open, and a man I took to be Piper Pryne stalked into the room. Nicholas clung close to me. I could feel him clutching his gun tighter behind my neck.

“Did Nicholas come in here, Ma?” the man said.

The tiny form in the bed stirred and said weakly, “Nicholas? Who’s that, honey? Have you seen my parasol? I want to go out for a walk.”

“Whose bag is that? Is that the nurse’s?” I watched through the crack as he pointed at my bag.

“We’re taking the Greyhound to New Orleans in the morning. Don’t you just love New Orleans? Where’s my parasol? I just saw it yesterday …”

The man swore at her, slammed the door, and left.

I waited a minute, listening as he opened doors and called Nicholas’s name, waking the rest of the household. My only hope was that the nurse could call 911 without getting caught. I crept across the room and reached for my bag. I’d just picked it up when Mary Pryne’s hand shot out and gripped my wrist.

She pulled me down to her and whispered in my ear.

“Keep him safe, honey.”

“I will, ma’am. Thank you. How did you …”

“They don’t give an old lady never mind, but I know what’s what.” She patted my hand, then reached up for Nicholas, who climbed down and gave her a hug. She kissed him and touched his face and whispered something into his ear.

He nodded. “Yes ma’am.” He walked back over to me and held my hand, still clutching his gun.

“They’re coming for me tonight,” she told me calmly. “You take care of my grandson for me, and I’ll see you on the other side.”

“I’ll take care of him, Mrs. Pryne. I promise.”

“I know you will.” She nodded. “And, honey?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Call me Mary Anne.”

We slipped out the back door with the words ringing in my ears.

She said it just like her son did.

May Ran.

I
DIDN’T THINK
M
ARIA
had any tears left, but she cried buckets when she saw Nicholas, who was still clutching his toy gun and wearing his Superman pajamas when we pulled up at her house, accompanied by four patrol cars. Martinez met us there, and we all stood there in Maria’s yard, watching and bawling, hugging one another and thanking God above and congratulating ourselves and everyone else—just like at the Oscars.

Nicholas had stories to tell. Googie, whose name Nicholas had never learned, had snatched him, stuffed him into the trunk of the Fairlane, and driven off with him as Nicholas wailed and banged on the trunk lid from the inside. They’d driven for a long while—Nicholas didn’t know how far or for how long—then stopped in an alley, where Googie popped the trunk and handed the child a vanilla cone. He’d told Nicholas they were going to see his grandma and that his mother couldn’t keep him anymore. Then he’d closed the trunk on him again, driven him to Piper Pryne’s house, and dropped him off.

Every morning after that, Googie would pick him up, sometimes putting him in the trunk, and drive around for most of the day, dropping him off at Piper’s house after the sun went down. This was the routine until the white Fairlane popped up on the news. After that, Nicholas spent most of the daytime in Googie’s closet at his mother’s house, which, it turned out, was not air conditioned. After the day-care kids left, he was allowed to play in the yard under Juanita Garcia’s watchful eye.

They’d told him it was to keep him safe.

Under relentless questioning, Piper Pryne admitted he knew the
boy had been kidnapped. He claimed to believe he was hiding the boy for his own good. His brother had been emphatic that the boy was in grave danger and that only an extended stay with Mary Anne Pryne could protect him. Piper had assumed Nicholas to be the vig for a dope deal gone bad.

“It was just temporary,” he said, “till everything got worked out. We never even knew he had a kid. I tell you, one look at him and bam, I know he’s my brother’s kid. Gordie don’t know where Ma lives. She ain’t listed or anything. He ain’t seen her since he was, like, nineteen. Before Nam. So there was no way they could find him, see?”

They threw him in a holding cell and filed charges against him, along with all the other adults involved except Googie. The cops were still searching for him.

The morning of his return, Nicholas finally got to have Sugar Babies for breakfast. Liz, Christine, and I showed up that afternoon with the bunnies. “To finish my birthday,” Christine said.

I’d spent the morning in the kitchen and produced another noncrunchy strawberry cake. Christine brought Nicholas the pink Barbie tiara, which had lain in the dust after his abduction and which she’d saved for him, “For when you came back.”

As we sat in the backyard that Memorial Day afternoon, the breeze soft and the sun gentle after all the hard rain, Christine said suddenly, “My grandma and your grandma have the same name.”

“What, Punkin?” Liz asked.

“My grandma and Nicholas’s grandma have the same name. Mary Anne.”

“I hadn’t noticed that, sweetie,” Liz said gently. “But I don’t think Mary Anne is really Nicholas’s grandma. Not the way yours was.”

“She was nice to me,” Nicholas said, strawberry cake smeared on his face.

“She was?” Maria asked, tearing up again. She handed him a napkin. “Wipe your face, sweetie. What nice things did she do?”

“Mary Anne said I could have my Superman jammies.”

“She did?” I asked. “How did she know?”

“She prayed to Jesus to keep me safe, but I told her my Superman jammies were for double protection, and she told Mr. Piper he had to go to Wal-Mart and get me some right now. But they’re scratchy because he didn’t wash ’em.”

Maria hugged him. “They worked great anyway, didn’t they?”

“And I got cookies and Kool-Aid. The red kind. And I got to have bedtime stories in her bed.”

“Did she make up the stories herself?” I asked.

He stuffed another huge bite into his mouth and said through the cake, “She had Dr. Seuss.”

“The books?” I asked. “She read to you from books?”

“Uh-huh.” He drained his milk. “
Green Eggs and Ham
and the cat one and the Horton one.”

Liz looked at me quizzically. “Why, Dylan?”

I poured Nicholas some more milk. “She’s blind.”

“Was she, Nicholas?” Maria asked. “Could she see the books?”

He shrugged. “I got to pick books from the shelf in Jeremy’s room, and then I could climb up, and she would read them to me until she got sleepy and it was time to talk to Jesus again.”

“Maybe she had them memorized,” Liz suggested. “I bet I could quote every single one of them by memory. Dr. Seuss is the only book-length poetry I’ve ever memorized in my entire life.”

“Elegant, yet simple,” Maria agreed.

“Sophisticated and surprisingly complex,” Liz added with a grin.

I raised my milk glass. “With a tart hint of grapefruit and a soft finish of green apple.”

We had a laugh—the first in forever that wasn’t weighed down by the terrible unknown.

When Martinez arrived for the party, Nicholas leaped from his seat and raced into the detective’s arms. You could have thumped Martinez once on the forehead and knocked him right out, he was so lightheaded with joy. We all were. We were floating in the air like those people in
Mary Poppins
.

He settled in with us, and the kids left the table to play with the
rabbits. Nicholas ran back every minute or two to touch his mother and then ran back to his games.

“Any luck on Googie?” I asked.

“We’ll find him.” Martinez took a bite of Maria’s cake. “Pretty soon they’re all going to figure out it’s every man for himself, and someone’s gonna offer him up. Ybarra’s working on ’em. He’s our best interrogator. It’s like a gift with him.”

“Want some cake?” Liz asked.

He washed the bite down with some of Maria’s milk. “No thanks.”

“What’s going on with Gordon Pryne?” I asked.

“Not a peep out of him. The man has a good lawyer.” He picked up the fork again and took another bite of Maria’s cake. “You met her, Dylan. What did you think of her?”

“Tough lady. She’s got three kids with Down’s. And I think she’s a single mom.”

“Makes me hate her a little less,” Maria said.

“I tried to hate her,” I said. “I mean, I really strained at it, you know? And this is not something that’s usually difficult for me. But she was actually pretty decent. She believes in what she’s doing. And sick as he is, Gordon Pryne is getting good representation from her, which is his right, I guess.”

Liz shook her head in disgust. “He’s one of those people … you don’t even know what to think about him. I can’t believe there are people out there who are that soulless.”

“His mom obviously tried to save him,” I said. “I guess there must be some subterranean streak of decency in him. And in some sick way, I think he does care about Nicholas.”