The Legend of Safehaven (9 page)

Lachlan looked at the man who was more father than senior partner to him.

“Hell, yes, boy! I see you drove Old Betsy. Are we going on patrol now?”

Lachlan gave a worried look to Galen. An unspoken question crossed the divide between the doctor and the police officer: Was Ben in his right mind? Ben spotted it and laughed.

“Think I’m nuts, eh? Okay, where are we headed to, my apartment?”

Nancy spoke first.

“Ben, we’d like you to be our guest at Safehaven, until you get your sea legs back. How does that sound?”

She hoped his pride wouldn’t be insulted at the implication that he needed recuperation.

Edison added, “You’ll certainly be more active than the old goat who lives there now.”

Galen frowned at him and turned to Ben.

“I don’t know why Edison just insulted himself, but we all would like you as our guest.”

Some of Ben’s old bravado energized his next words.

“Hell, if it’s for free, how can I turn you down?”

For the first time he sat in the back of his police cruiser.

How appropriate, I’m a prisoner—a prisoner of my own body!

“Hello, I’m Dr. Galen. I called earlier about Miriam Castle.”

He shook hands with the home administrator and offered his credentials. The younger man nodded.

“We know who you are, Dr. Galen. No need for that. What can we do for you? You mentioned Miriam’s father being ill. We wondered why he didn’t show up for his weekly visit.”

“He’s had a stroke. Fortunately it was the kind that we could do something about. But none of us knew he had a daughter. What’s the story?”

Jesse Orth was a native Pennsylvanian who had worked at St. Ignatius since high school. He had risen to the rank of administrator and now knew each of his charges personally.

“Miriam has one of the more severe forms of autism,” he explained. “She has almost no verbal skills despite attempts at repetition training. But there is something interesting about her. Please, come with me to her room. Right now she’s with the group in the sunroom area, so I can show you something without upsetting her.”

Galen followed the tall, heavyset man down a hallway marked EAST WING. The area was clean but sparsely decorated and devoid of any meaningful wall hangings. They arrived at an open door marked 3E and stepped inside a dormitory-sized room containing standard, institutional, blond-oak furniture with a desk and chair on one side and a very low-to-the-floor, single bed on the other. Galen was struck by what adorned the walls. They were covered with drawings, done with a mix of charcoal and watercolor and pastel, all of Ben and photographic in quality: his face, full length in uniform, from the side, from the front, and at different ages. And one was of a woman dressed in white wearing a tiara of mock orange blossoms.

Orth pointed to the picture of the lady.

“She did that one just this week. I don’t know where that face came from. No one like that has ever visited her. Fact is, only her father has ever come to see her.”

They walked to the sunroom. Galen saw them standing or sitting—mostly men and boys, alone in a crowd, but that was the nature of the illness. Each resided in his own world. Some stared at the rainbows cast by sunlight coming through the skylight glass in the ceiling. Others sat pushing and pulling at toy blocks on the floor.

Among the few girls and women, one sat on the floor, a lump of modeling clay before her. Her hands moved seemingly independent of her eyes—kneading, twisting, shaping.

Galen watched, mesmerized at the movement of the delicate-featured girl, her hands nearly a blur of activity. Then he saw her creation and was startled. She had brought out of the clay a lifelike image: a full-bodied, seated wolf.

“Mr. Orth, her father is recuperating with us at our place on the mountain. He needs to heal in many ways. After he settles in, would it be possible to have Miriam join him?”

Orth eyed the old doctor. He had heard about what this man and his friends had done for the young Middle Eastern boy. Such news circulated fast through the endless mountains of Central Pennsylvania.

Maybe they could pull another rabbit/hat trick
.

“Yes, Dr. Galen, I think we could arrange that. Just let us know when you’re ready for her.”

He hesitated a second, and then, almost embarrassed, he asked Galen a question.

“I understand that you and your friends call your home Safehaven. Why?”

Galen smiled.

“It’s a long story, Mr. Orth. Let’s just say we call it that because that’s what it is.”

As he drove home, Galen mulled over what he had seen that afternoon. No question Miriam was autistic, but she was one of those rare forms—what the French would call an idiot savant—an artist of high quality. Yet how could her brain produce such works, when it was so genetically or chemically or traumatically different from so-called normal people?

He remembered Manu Kumar, a young boy from India, one of his last patients before retiring, with his doe eyes and vacant smile. Manu was the son of a diplomat. He, too, was what his countrymen called a soulless one. The boy was a perpetual-motion machine, arms waving like the Avenging Kali, pushing away any stethoscope or hands that attempted to examine him. And yet, when left alone, his movements adopted a panther-like grace. Galen had thought he moved like a dancer, and he wondered now if that might be Manu’s talent.

Galen realized his mind was wandering, as he swerved to reenter the right-hand lane of the highway.

Better keep your mind on the road
.

He made one stop on the way back home. His beloved red Jeep was loaded by the time he drove up the curving mountain road and pulled into the house driveway.

“One more thing, and then we shall see what we shall see,” he said to himself, as he lumbered into the house.

Ben’s presence made seven at the dinner table that evening, with him enjoying the place of honor at its head. The other adults and children sat on either side of the maple table Edison had made after the kids had moved in.

“Ben, we have a little ritual here,” Edison said.

“Yes, and any guest has to join in—unless he doesn’t want to,” Nancy quipped.

“What they’re saying, Ben, is that you’ll have to sing for your supper—figuratively, that is,” Galen concluded.

The old trooper looked confused, until Tonio explained, “We eat, and then we gripe, boast, complain, whatever, about what happened during the day.”

Nancy served a citrus-and-almond salad, followed by chilled potato soup, and then to applause she brought out thick slices of roast beef sautéed in garlic butter with mushrooms and stuffed tomatoes. She wowed them again with fresh-baked focacchia—Italian tomato bread—and then a treat she made only for special occasions:
crème brûlée
.

“Don’t worry, Ben,” Edison joked. “The way Nancy cooks, there’s no fat. Even the garlic butter doesn’t have butter.”

The children cleared the dishes then returned to the table.

Ben looked at them and wondered,
Why do this for me?

He laughed nervously.

“I don’t sing too good, folks. All I know is some Polish folk songs, but I doubt you’d be interested in those. What can I say? Thank you, really.”

“I’d like to hear those songs, Tio Benny,” Carmelita said. “But I guess what we’re all interested in is you. We’d like to know how you feel—are you having any problems? Is there anything we can do to help you?”

He blushed. He hadn’t expected a question like that from the girl. Then he remembered: He had missed his visit to Miri. The lopsided grin he had worn as protection against the world started to fall in sadness. He caught himself quickly, hoping they hadn’t noticed.

“That’s very nice,” he said, regaining himself. “I can’t believe how fast things have gotten better. I thought I was never going to talk or move right again. Whatever you did…” and he looked at Galen, “whatever was done, sure seems to have turned the corner for me.”

He turned to Freddie and laughed, as he challenged the boy to an arm-wrestling contest. But the looks from his siblings and guardians stopped the teenager from accepting.

They moved to the living room. The curtains were open to the final remnants of the evening light, as it filtered through the deep, multicolored foliage of the fall trees. Nancy looked at Ben. He seemed tired but also restless.

“It’s probably best if you get some early nap time, Ben. It’s been a busy day, and tomorrow we’d like to show you around the place. Bob and Galen will help you to your room.”

Galen and Edison guided their guest down the hall and helped him settle in.

“There’s an intercom button by your bed, Ben. Just press it if you need anything.”

Edison looked at Galen and grinned.

“It’s hooked directly to Doc Grumpy’s room.”

“I’ll help you with your exercise program in the morning,” Galen said, ignoring Edison’s jab. “We need to be sure your muscle tone remains intact.”

He felt that total exhaustion of mind and body that had overwhelmed him only twice in his life: in Vietnam after Bandana had been killed and when Irene had died. He lay back, resting his head on the homemade pillow and pulling up the patchwork quilt to ward off the slight chill. Nancy had made it from pieces of the children’s long-outgrown and worn clothes. She cherished it especially for the scraps she had salvaged from their first sets of clothes. To her it represented the beginning of a new life for herself, Edison, and Galen.

Ben didn’t know that. He only knew it comforted him.

The sky was dark now, but he could see just a glimmer of quarter moon peering through the top of his bedroom window. He heard the sounds of the house, the creaking and snapping, as its joints, like his, settled down for the night. The wind cast up some of the fallen leaves, and he heard, faintly, a tripartite howl.

What the hell was that?

Then he remembered Faisal and Akela.

Ah, maybe the wolves are welcoming me, too!

He smiled as he drifted off, and soon he was with his wife and daughter in the little house he had planned to buy after Miri was born. They were laughing and dancing around him. He tried to reach out and hug them, but they always stayed just beyond his grasp.

Why do they run away from me? Irene, it’s me, Ben. Miri, come to Daddy, come to Daddy!

They danced in circles around him, tantalizing him like forbidden fruit. The room turned, as his Miri looked at him—looked into his soul with those piercing eyes.

He cried out, “Daddy didn’t mean to leave you, Miri! Daddy didn’t mean to leave you!”

Galen heard him talking in his sleep and quietly stood outside Ben’s bedroom door. As the sounds subsided, he thought about his own losses.

That won’t happen to you, Ben. I promise
.

He returned to his room and dreamed his own troubled dreams.

Sunday entered windy, cool, and overcast. There were six at the table for breakfast.

“Where’s Dr. Galen?” Ben asked, as Nancy brought out a platter of her special, multigrain pancakes.

Edison laughed.

“Hard to believe, him missing a meal, but he said he had to do something in town and that he’d meet us a bit later. By the way, Ben, we have another little ritual around here. I’ll tell you about it after we eat.”

Edison’s eyes had become as large as the pancakes, and he couldn’t wait to dive into them.

Soon the six sat satisfied at the table.

“Freddie, why don’t you tell Ben what we’re going to do next.”

And Freddie, usually seeking the center of attention, suddenly became tongue-tied. So Nancy took over.

“Ben, every Sunday that we can, we visit a special place on the mountain. We call it our Garden of Remembrance. It gives us a chance to recall and thank those who are no longer with us for who they were and what they meant to us. We always ask our guests, our friends, to accompany us. Will you?”

Edison looked at Nancy.

“Ben, do you think you might want to use the wheelchair? It’s a bit of a walk on the side of the mountain.”

“Nah, just one day here and I got my sea legs back already.”

He looked at Carmelita.

“Little lady, want me to sing some of those Polish songs I know?”

She smiled a yes.

They walked quite a bit more slowly than usual. The chilly wind gusted now. Ben took a deep breath. It felt so good to do that. Then his lopsided grin grew broader as he started to sing.

“
Hej, górale, nie bijcie się. Ma góralka dwa warkocze podzielicie się!”

Edison and Carmelita both laughed. Nancy and the boys looked at them.

“What’s he saying?” Tonio asked.

Carmelita blushed, and Edison’s eyes took on a glint that Nancy knew all too well.

“Give us the clean translation, Bob.”

“Let’s just say it’s about two mountain boys fighting over one girl ... and leave it at that,” he replied.

They reached the special spot. The flowers were now frost-bitten and faded, but the surroundings still subdued everyone. Ben stood with the others, each gazing into wherever in the universe his or her loved ones resided. He thought of his Chicago friend and then his beloved Irene, and then the what-ifs: What if he had been more observant that day in Saigon? What if he had stayed home that day and driven Irene to the doctor? What if Miri had been born normally?

Footsteps, several different pairs, approached, disrupting the meditation.

Ben turned and saw a tall figure in uniform and two women, one leading the other. Galen, Faisal, and Akela were close behind. He wiped the tears away and stared at the latecomers: Lachlan and Diane and…

Miri! Miri is here!

Diana led the child-woman toward her father. She stepped awkwardly, hesitantly. She emitted guttural sounds, low at first then rising. Akela’s ears went on point, and he started to do the same. The girl turned toward the wolf, staring. By then Ben had reached her and put his arms around her. He felt the resistance in her body and let go.

Galen intervened quickly.