Thomas spoke to his grandmother until all the change ran out. He asked her if she wanted to call him back, but she said that she was behind on her phone bill and they had blocked her making any outgoing calls except for 911.
Thomas lost all direction for a while then. He wandered the streets, talking to Alicia sometimes and other times to his mother. He daydreamed about all of those letters and what they might have said.
Thomas tried to think about what his brother looked like now that he was nineteen. But all he could imagine was a bigger version of the blond-headed boy.
Maybe there were photographs in the letters. Maybe he needed Thomas to be there for something.
Thomas knew that he was the only person that Eric ever confided in. The bigger boy was too proud to admit fear to his father, and around Branwyn he always lost his tongue.
Only with Thomas, when they were alone, did Eric say how he really felt.
“I don’t know why everybody thinks they like me so much,” Eric once said to his brother. They were five, sitting atop the stone elephant pretending they were in India delivering spice to the English.
“They don’t
“No. If they did they would ask me about what I liked instead of making me spell words and go to their houses.
They never want you to come.”
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Thomas remembered the pain that his brother felt for him, and he wondered if he was still the same or if he’d changed like other boys did when they became men. Thomas hadn’t changed. He was still the same, he knew. He got a little bigger, and he no longer had a clubhouse or a valley or a friend — but he was still the same.
Thinking this last thought, Thomas made up his mind to find his brother. He wouldn’t be afraid that Eric wouldn’t talk to him. He wouldn’t be quiet. And anyway, he had found something out that he knew the old Eric would like. And if Eric was the same, he would still like it.
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14
Eric sat up until late in the night holding his daughter and thinking about Raela. Christie loved him and so did Mona. He had fallen into this life as he had into everything else. He never made decisions — he didn’t have to. Everything came to Eric.
Raela was his first real challenge — that’s how he saw it. If he became friends with the child, she would own him, and his family would be destroyed. He knew this. But it didn’t have to happen. All he had to do was commit himself to the life he was living. This commitment would save his girlfriend and daughter, and make him a part of the world. He would be like other people who had to deny themselves in order to survive.
At three in the morning he brought Mona inside and put her in her bed. Then he went to his bedroom and gently shook Christie by the shoulder.
She came awake with a start.
“What’s wrong? What?”
“I wanted to ask you something.”
“What?” she asked, the fear still deeply rooted in her voice.
“Do you still love me?”
She hesitated.
“Why are you waking me up in the middle of the night to 2 0 7
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ask me that?” she said. Then, noticing that he was dressed,
“Haven’t you been to bed?”
“I’ve been awake,” he said, “thinking about you.”
“Me? What about me?”
“I want you to marry me.”
Christie gasped. “What?”
“Marry me. We’re already parents together. We need to work right together.”
Christie slapped Eric across the face hard enough to turn his head. When he turned back, she slapped him again.
“How dare you,” she said, seething.
“What? I thought you wanted this?”
“I do. I did. But I gave up. You were here, but not the way I wanted you. I loved you, and all you ever did was care in return. You never laughed out loud or ran to me or got mad and walked out. You never got jealous when men would stare. You weren’t even upset when you found Drew here sitting with me after you’d been gone for days.”
“You’re friends,” Eric said with a sheepish smile. “I didn’t think women liked men to be jealous.”
“But you shouldn’t take us for granted,” she said in a voice loud enough to fill a small auditorium.
