to help him too. And we have to be patient with him, no matter how hard it is.” She hesitated, then went on. “Sometimes … well, sometimes the only way I can deal with it is to remember that whatever I’m going through, what Alex is going through must be ten times worse.”
Marsh put his arms around his wife and pulled her close. “I know,” he said. “I know you’re right, but I just can’t help myself sometimes.” A rueful smile twisted his face. “I guess there’s a good reason why doctors should never treat their own family, isn’t there? Lord knows, my bedside manner deserted me tonight.” His arms fell away from Ellen as he stood up. “I’d better go apologize to him.”
But when he entered Alex’s room, his son was sound asleep. As far as he could see, even his rage hadn’t affected the boy. Still, he laid his hand gently on Alex’s cheek. “I’m sorry, son,” he whispered. “I’m sorry about everything.”
Alex rolled over, unconsciously brushing his father’s hand away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
At a few minutes past nine on Saturday morning, Bob Carey maneuvered his father’s Volvo into the left lane of the Bayshore Freeway, and three minutes later they left Palo Alto behind. Alex sat quietly in the back seat next to Lisa, his ears taking in the chatter of his three friends while his eyes remained glued to the world outside the car. None of it looked familiar, but he studied the road signs carefully as they passed through Redwood City, San Carlos, and San Mateo, then began skirting the edge of the bay. His eyes took in everything, and he was sure that on the return trip that afternoon, even though he would be seeing it all from the other direction, all of it would be familiar.
Then, a little north of the airport, Bob veered off the freeway and started inland.
“Where are we going?” Kate Lewis asked. “We want to go all the way into the City!”
“We’re going to the BART station in Daly City,” Bob told her.
“BART?” Kate groaned. “Who wants to ride the subway?”
“I do,” Bob told her. “I
Kate started to protest further, but Lisa backed Bob up. “He’s right,” she said. “I had to argue with my folks for half an hour to keep from having to bring Kim along, and if we get caught now, we’ll all be in trouble. Besides, I like BART too. It’ll be fun!”
Forty minutes later, they emerged from the BART station, and Alex gazed around him, knowing immediately where he was. Yesterday he’d found a tour guide to San Francisco in the La Paloma bookstore, then spent last night studying it. The city around him looked exactly like the pictures in the guidebook. “Let’s ride the cable car out to Fisherman’s Wharf,” he suggested.
Lisa stared at him with surprised eyes. “How did you know it goes there?” she asked.
Alex hesitated, then pointed to the cable car that was just coasting onto the turntable at Powell and Market. On its end was a sign that read “Powell & Mason” and, below that, “Fisherman’s Wharf.”
They wandered around the wharf, then started back toward the downtown area, through North Beach on Columbus, then turning south on Grant to go into Chinatown. People milled around them, and suddenly Alex stopped dead in his tracks. Lisa turned to him, but he seemed unaware of her. His eyes were gazing intently at the faces of the people around him.
“Alex, what is it?” she asked. All morning, he’d seemed fine. He’d asked a few questions, but not nearly as many as usual, and he’d always seemed to know exactly where he was and where they were going. Once, in fact, he’d even told them where a street they were looking for was, then, when asked how he knew, admitted to having memorized all the street signs while they rode the cable car. But now he seemed totally baffled. “Alex, what’s wrong?” Lisa asked again.
“These people,” Alex said. “What are they? They don’t look like us.”
“Oh, Jeez,” Bob Carey groaned.
“They’re Chinese,” Lisa said, keeping her voice as low as she could, and silencing Bob with a glare. “And stop staring at them, Alex. You’re being rude.”
“Chinese,” Alex repeated. He started walking again, but his eyes kept wandering over the Oriental faces around him. “The Chinese built the railroads,” he suddenly said. Then: “The railroad barons, Collis P. Huntington and Leland Stanford, brought them in by the thousands. Now San Francisco has one of the biggest Chinese populations outside of China.”
Lisa stared at Alex for a moment; then suddenly she knew. “A tour book,” she said. “You read a tour book, didn’t you?”
Alex nodded. “I didn’t want to spend all day asking you questions,” he said. “I know you don’t like that. So I studied.”
Bob Carey’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You studied? You read a whole guidebook just because we were coming up here for a day?”
Again Alex nodded.
“But who can remember all that stuff? Who even cares? For Christ’s sake, Alex, all we’re doing is messing around.”
“Well, I think it’s neat,” Kate told her boyfriend. Then she turned to Alex. “Did you really memorize all the streets while we were on the cable car?”
“I didn’t have to,” Alex admitted. “I got a map, too. I memorized it.”
“Bullshit!” Bob’s eyes were suddenly angry. “Where’s the mission?” he demanded.
Alex hesitated a moment; then: “Sixteenth and Dolores. It’s on the corner, and there’s a park in the same block.”
“Well?” Kate asked Bob. “Is he right?”
“I don’t know,” Bob admitted, his face reddening. “Who even cares where the mission is?”
“I do,” Lisa said, reaching out to squeeze Alex’s hand. “How do we get there?”
“Go down to Market, then up to Dolores, and left on Dolores.”
“Then let’s go.”
The little mission with its adjoining cemetery and garden was exactly where Alex had said it would be, crouching on the corner almost defensively, as if it knew it was no more than a relic from the city’s long-forgotten past. The city, indeed, had even taken away its original name — San Francisco de Asis. Now it was called Mission Dolores, and it seemed to have taken on the very sadness its name implied.
“Want to go in?” Lisa asked of no one in particular.
“What for?” Bob groaned. “Haven’t we all seen enough missions? They used to drag us off to one every year!”
“Well, what about Alex?” Lisa argued. “I bet he doesn’t remember ever seeing a mission before. And did you ever see
Following Lisa, they went into the little church, then out into the garden, and suddenly the city beyond the garden walls might as well have disappeared, for within the little space occupied by the mission, there was no trace of the modern world.
The garden, still kept neatly trimmed after nearly two hundred years, was in the last stages of its summer bloom. Here and there dead leaves had already fallen to the ground, dotting the pathways with bright gold. Off in the far corner, they could see the old cemetery. “Over there,” Alex said softly. “Let’s go over there.”
The quietness of his voice caught Lisa’s attention, and she turned to look into Alex’s eyes. For the first time since the accident, there seemed to be life in them. “What is it, Alex?” she asked. “You’re remembering something, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Alex whispered. He was walking slowly along one of the paths now, but his eyes remained fixed on the weathered headstones of the graveyard.
“The graveyard?” Lisa asked. “Do you remember the graveyard?”
