He took a deep breath, but before he could continue they were interrupted by an orderly calling from an open doorway on the far side of the courtyard, brandishing a clipboard.
“Mr. Jett? I hate to break up the party, but it’s time for your physical therapy.”
The old man glowered, his brows knit together.
“What’s the point of all that nonsense?” he growled as the orderly walked over.
“Don’t shoot the messenger,” the orderly said with a long-suffering grin, “it’s doctor’s orders.”
The orderly flashed a smile at Izzie and Joyce while he took hold of the handles at the back of Jett’s wheelchair.
“Mr. Jett’ll be done in about thirty minutes, if you gals want to stick around.”
Izzie had no intention of leaving when they were just getting to the meaty part of the old man’s story, and from Joyce’s expression is was clear that she felt the same.
“We can wait.” Izzie stood up from the cold bench, rubbing her hands together. “But maybe inside, though, instead of out here? I can barely feel my fingers.”
“You two go on to the waiting room, then,” Jett said as the orderly wheeled him away. “I’ll meet you there as soon as these sadists get done torturing me.”
Izzie stuffed her hands in the pockets of her jacket and watched as the old man was wheeled inside, thinking over everything that he’d told them so far. Joyce hopped up off the bench and started walking toward the door with purpose.
“I don’t know about you,” Joyce said, glancing back over her shoulder at Izzie, “but I could use a cup of coffee.”
“Oh god, yes,” Izzie sighed, falling into step behind her.
“But a good cup of coffee,” Joyce insisted. “I figure we could drive over to Monkeyhaus or maybe Sacred Grounds and get back before the old guy is finished up.”
The thought of good caffeine was enticing.
“If you’re driving, I’m buying,” Izzie said, holding the door open and stepping aside to let Joyce through. “Let’s do Monkeyhaus, though. I had a cappuccino there with Daphne the other day, and it was strong enough to keep me juiced up all day. And today, I just might need two of them.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Patrick had spent the better part of two hours tending to the marks that his Uncle Alf had made decades before on the houses of his block. It had been a strangely familiar sensation, quickly settling back into routines he’d all but forgotten about for years, muscle memory taking over as he pulled away vines and weeds, brushed away caked-in dirt and debris, and touched up cracks and gaps in the glittering paint. He found the work went faster and more easily than when he was younger, in part due to his taller height and greater strength and stamina, but also because he was more motivated now to move quickly. Back when he was a kid, his goals had been to earn enough quarters to buy comics or candy bars at the corner shop. Now, it was a question of life and death.
When he was satisfied that the alley behind his house and the surrounding streets were once again relatively secure against encroaching Ridden, Patrick checked his phone and saw that it was almost time to meet up with the kids from Powell Middle School. The trio that he’d run into that morning on the way back from the bakery—the Kienga twins, Ricky and Joseph, and Tommy Hulana—had agreed to spread the word around the neighborhood that he needed as many kids as they could round up to meet him at the blacktop behind Powell Middle School.
He had just enough time to run into the house, wash some of the grime from his hands, and guzzle a quick glass of water before he headed off to the school yard, grabbing a jar of paint and a fistful of brushes on his way out the door. Izzie’s friend Daphne had ducked out a short while before to run some errands, and he’d given her the spare key so she could let herself in if she got back before he returned. But he hoped that this meeting with the kids wouldn’t take long, provided enough of them showed up at the schoolyard.
Powell Middle School was only a few blocks to the south, on the far side of the Church of the Holy Saint Anthony, and still looked pretty much the same as it had when Patrick had been a student there a lifetime ago. As he approached, he had the same odd sensation he usually did when seeing the school grounds, the sense that if he were to turn the corner at just the right moment he might see his old classmates loitering out by the basketball court, still children, talking about the cartoons they’d watched the past weekend or bragging about their collections of action figures. And when he left the building and came back outside, there was always a little part of him that expected to see his mother waiting for him on the corner, the day’s groceries in her arms, to ask him what he’d learned that day. As though the past was a physical place to which one could return, even by accident, if you just could work out the way there.
When he rounded the corner, the blacktop behind the school still looked pretty much the same as it had when he was young, but it wasn’t his classmates as children who were standing around in small groups over near the basketball court, but the children of his classmates. At least, that was how
