The Boy on the Porch (10 page)

A car door slammed shut.

“Hello? Hello?”

A
s soon as John and Marta saw the old car in their drive, they sensed the dark cloud that was about to descend upon them. Jacob slid to the floor and clutched Marta's ankle.

A man leaned against the fence. He was thin and pale, in baggy, faded clothes.

“Marta, stay in the truck with Jacob,” John said.

The thin man said what John and Marta had most dreaded.

“I've come for the boy.”

“I
'm his father and I've come for him,” the man said.

John turned to Jacob. “Is this your father?”

Jacob nodded and then tentatively tapped at his father's arm.

“No” was his father's reply. “We're going now.”

Jacob did not appear afraid of his father, but it was clear that he did not want to leave. He clung to Marta.

“But where will you take him?” Marta asked.

The man named a town three hundred miles away, where he'd found work and a place to live.

“We could keep the boy for you,” John offered.

“‘Keep' him? What do you mean? He's
my
boy, and I'll do the keepin'.”

“I mean in case you need more time—or if it would be too hard for you to have the boy—or—”

“I can do just fine. I never said nothin' about you keepin' the boy. I never did.”

“You didn't say much at all. We didn't know who you were or when—or if—you might come back.”

“I said I was comin' back.”

John pressed the man. “You said ‘
we
'. Why'd you say ‘
we
'? Who else—?”

“I didn't know it'd be just me. His ma—she ran off.”

Jacob's head bent to his chest.

“But why here? Why us?”

“You don't remember me?” he asked John. “I worked up at Vernie Gossem's for a time—when you was working on his place.”

“I—I—honestly, I don't remember—”

“Vernie said you was a good man, that you had a good wife, too.”

“That's all you knew about us? And you left your boy here?”

A second car pulled in the drive.

“What's that sheriff doing here?” the man said. He crossed his arms and spit to one side.

For once, both Marta and John were relieved to see the sheriff's car.

The sheriff slid slowly out of his seat, gave his badge a firm rub, and said, “Saw a strange car up here, out-of-state plates.” He eyed the man leaning against the old car.

“Says he's the boy's father,” John explained.

The sheriff rested one hand on the gun in his holster. “That so?”

The man did not flinch. “Yeah, that's so. I'm his father and I've come to take him.”

The sheriff rubbed his chin. “And how do we know you're telling the truth?”

“Wha—? Why, heck. Ask him. Ask the boy.”

“The boy doesn't talk,” the sheriff said.

“He can nod. Ask him.”

So the sheriff asked Jacob if this was his father and Jacob nodded and then lowered his head again and tightened his grasp of Marta's hand.

John stepped forward. “You got any proof? Any papers?”

“Yeah,” the sheriff agreed. “You got any papers?”

“Wha—?”

John said, “A real father wouldn't want me releasing his boy to just anybody, not without some sort of proof.”

The man slapped the side of his car. “Proof? That's ridiculous.” He kicked a tire, then spun around. “Wait a minute. Wait just a minute—”

The man unlocked the trunk, revealing a crammed jumble of clothes and boxes and bulging trash bags. He burrowed into the pile like a rat on a hunt.

The sheriff motioned for John, Marta, and the boy to step away.

“What are you looking for?” the sheriff demanded.

“Proof! I've got proof!”

“You better not be looking for any guns.”

The man mumbled something as he burrowed farther into the heap. “Lucky thing I'm moving and got all my stuff with me.”

The boy inched forward, curious. John and Marta exchanged a desperate look.

“Here!” the man said, backing out of the trunk with a tattered cardboard box in his hands. He fumbled through yellowed bits of paper. “There you go!” he said triumphantly, shoving a creased document toward the sheriff. “Proof enough?” He dug in his pocket. “And here's some more.” He pulled out his driver's license. “To prove I'm me.”

John and Marta joined the sheriff in examining the first document.

“Looks like a valid birth certificate for the boy,” the sheriff said.

Marta could not remain silent. “We've given him a good home. Jacob is happy here. We can care for him—feed him and clothe him and look after him the way he should be looked after.”

“Are you tellin' me I don't know how to look after my own boy? 'Cause I'm telling you it don't matter what you think. He's
my
boy.”

John whirled toward the sheriff. “What can we do?”

The sheriff studied the man, the boy, the papers in his hand. “Well, now, the way I see it, you don't have much choice, sorry to say. The man is his father, and a father has a right to his boy, don't he?”

“But—”

The sheriff returned to his own car. “Don't he?” he repeated.

As Jacob trailed forlornly behind, Marta and John gathered his things. When the father saw the guitar and drums and box of paint supplies, he said, “He don't need all that and I don't have room for any of it.”

Jacob clutched the guitar, refusing to release it.

“Please let him take it,” Marta urged. “He's so talented.”

The man snorted. “You making fun of my boy 'cause he cain't talk?”

“No, no. I meant—his drawing, his music—”

“Lord Almighty, woman, that stuff ain't going to do him any good in this world.”

“May we write to him? May we see him again?”

“Sure, sure,” the man said. “Sure. Look, he can take the guitar, okay? Probably won't last a week, but sure . . .”

Jacob went with his father. His head was bowed, his shoulders slumped, his feet leaden. He did not cry.

Up in the pasture, the animals sensed the change in the air. The cows hung their heads, the goats muttered sadly, and the beagle wove in and out between their legs, passing along the news.

The boy is gone, the boy is gone
.

T
he boy is gone, the boy is gone
.

Each morning, they heard that refrain. Each afternoon, each evening, they heard that refrain. They heard it in the farmhouse, in the pasture, in the barn.

The boy is gone, the boy is gone
.

Each morning, John woke early and slipped out to the porch, and always, always, he was disappointed to see the empty chair.

The boy is gone, the boy is gone
.

Marta woke in the middle of the night and went to the empty bed.

The boy is gone . . 
.

The beagle sniffed the farmhouse and the yard relentlessly, curling against objects that the boy had touched.

The boy is gone . . 
.

John and Marta strained at the sound of cars passing on the road below. Would this one bring the boy back?

No vehicles turned into the drive.

The boy . . 
.

They sent cards and letters to the boy, and each day, they checked the mailbox at the end of the drive for a reply from the father, but no reply came, and after a few weeks, their own letters began coming back to them, stamped
Unable to deliver
and
No such address
.

The boy was gone
.

A
t the sheriff's office, John explained that the letters had been returned.

“
Unable to deliver
,” John said.

“Is that right?”

“Yes, and
No such address
.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes. He lied to us—that man lied to us.”

“Maybe he just got the address wrong. That happens, don't it?”

“We're worried about the boy. We never should have let him—”

“You didn't have much choice.”

“But we never, never should have let—”

“The boy wasn't yours.”

John wanted to say to the sheriff,
How do you go on with your days when the boy is gone? You wake up, your feet feel heavy, your arms feel heavy, your head is so heavy you can barely hold it up
.

But then he knew what they had to do.

They had to find the boy.

A
nd so they set off for the town the father had mentioned. As they feared, there was “no such address” as the one the father had given John and Marta. It was a straggly town with one filling station, a general store, and a diner. People looked at them blankly when John and Marta asked about the young boy and his father.

“Don't know who you could be talkin' about,” one waitress said. “People come in here from off the road, strangers, we don't keep track. Maybe they were here, maybe they weren't.”