“Ready to go home, Sally?”
“Yes.” Her voice was listless. The nurses reported that she still cried out in her sleep. Her legs were fully healed, finally. She could walk again, badly and awkwardly, but she could walk. Except for the loss of her spleen, she was whole again. Her hair was trimmed short to compensate for what had been shaved, but that would grow out soon enough. Even the scars, the surgeons said, would fade, and the pediatricians assured him that in a few months the nightmares would end. Jack turned to run his hand along the little face, and got a smile for his efforts. It wasn’t the smile he was accustomed to getting. Behind his own smile, Ryan’s mind boiled with rage yet again, but he told himself that this wasn’t the time. Sally needed a father now, not an avenger.
“We have a surprise waiting for you,” he said.
“What?” Sally asked.
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise,” her father pointed out.
“Daddy!” For a moment his little girl was back.
“Wait and see.”
“What’s that?” Cathy asked on getting in the car.
“The surprise.”
“What surprise?”
“See,” Jack told his daughter. “Mommy doesn’t know either.”
“Jack, what’s going on?”
“Doctor Schenk and I had a little talk last week,” was all Ryan would say. He released the parking brake and headed off onto Broadway.
“I want my bear,” Sally said.
“He’s too big to sit there, honey,” Cathy responded.
“But you can wear his Smokey hat. He said it was okay.” Jack handed it back. The wide-brimmed campaign hat dropped over her head.
“Did you thank the people for the bear?” Cathy asked.
“You bet.” Ryan smiled for a moment. “Nobody flunks this term. But don’t tell anybody that.” Jack had a reputation as a tough marker. That might not survive this semester. Principles be damned, he told himself. The mids in his classes had sent Sally a steady stream of flowers, toys, puzzles, and cards that had entertained his little girl, then circulated around the pediatric floor and brightened the days of fifty more sick kids. Smokey Bear was the crowning achievement. The nurses had told Cathy that it had made a difference. The monster toy had often sat at the top of Sally’s bed, with the little girl clinging to it. It would be a tough act to follow, but Jack had that one figured out. Skip Tyler was making the final arrangements now.
Jack took his time, driving as though he were carrying a cargo of cracked eggs. His recent habits at CIA made him yearn for a cigarette, but he knew that he’d have to stop that now, with Cathy home all the time. He was careful to avoid the route Cathy had taken the day that — His hands tightened on the wheel as they had for weeks now. He knew he had to stop thinking about it so much. It had become an obsession, and that wasn’t going to help anything.
The scenery had changed since the . . . accident. What had been bare trees now had the green edges of buds and leaves with the beginning of spring. Horses and cows were out on the farms. Some calves and colts were visible, and Sally’s nose pressed against the car window as she looked at them. As it did every year, life was renewing itself, Ryan told himself. His family was whole again, and he’d keep it that way. The last turn onto Falcon’s Nest Road finally came. Jack noted that the utility trucks were still around, and he wondered briefly what they had been up to as he turned left into his driveway.
“Skip’s here?” Cathy asked.
“Looks like it,” Jack replied with a suppressed grin.
“They’re home,” Alex said.
“Yeah,” Louis noted. Both men were perched at the top of the utility pole, ostensibly stringing new power lines to accommodate the experimental transformer. “You know, the day after the job,” the lineman said, “there was a picture of the lady in the papers. Some kid went through a window and got his face all cut up. It was a little brother, Alex. The lady saved his eyes, man.”
“I remember, Louis.” Alex raised his camera and snapped off a string of shots.
“An’ I don’t like fucking with kids, man,” Louis said. “A cop’s a different thing,” he added defensively. He didn’t have to say that so was the kid’s father. That was business. Like Alex, he had a few remaining scruples, and hurting children was not something he could do without some internal turmoil.
“Maybe we were all lucky.” Alex knew objectively that this was a stupid way for a revolutionary to think. Sentimentality had no place in his mission; it got in the way of what he had to do, prolonging the task and causing more deaths in the process. He also knew that the taboos against injuring children were part of the genetic programming of any human being. Mankind had progressed in its knowledge since Marx and Lenin. So whenever possible he’d avoid injuring kids. He rationalized that this would enhance his sympathy in the community he was seeking to liberate.
“Yeah.”
“So what have you seen?”
“They got a maid — black o’course. Fine-lookin’ woman, drives a Chevy. There’s somebody else in there now. He’s a white dude, big guy, an’ he walks funny.”
“Right.” Alex made note of the former and dismissed the latter. The man was probably a family friend.
“The cops — state cops — are back here every two hours minimum. One of them asked me what we were doing yesterday afternoon. They’re keeping an eye on this place. There’s an extra phone line into the house — gotta be for an alarm company. So they got a house alarm and the cops are always close.”
“Okay. Keep your eyes open but don’t be too obvious.”
“You got it.”
“Home,” Ryan breathed. He stopped the car and got out, walking around to Sally’s door. He saw that the little girl wasn’t playing with the seat-belt buckle. He took care of it himself, then lifted his daughter out of the car. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and for a moment life was perfect again. He carried Sally to the front door, both arms clasping her to his chest.
“Welcome back.” Skip had the door open already.
“Where’s my surprise?” Sally demanded.
“Surprise?” Tyler was taken aback. “I don’t know about any surprise.”
“Daddy!” Her father got an accusing look.
“Come on in,” Tyler said. Mrs. Hackett was there, too. She’d gotten lunch ready for everyone. A single mother of two sons, she worked hard to support them. Ryan set his girl down, and she walked to the kitchen. Skip Tyler and her father watched her stiff legs negotiate the distance.
“God, it’s amazing how kids heal,” Tyler observed.
“What?” Jack was surprised.
“I broke a leg playing ball once — damned if I bounced back that fast. Come on,” Tyler beckoned Jack out the door. First he checked out the stuffed animal in the car. “I heard it was some kind of bear. That one must have played in Chicago!”
Then they went into the trees north of Ryan’s house. Here they found the surprise, tied to a tree. Jack loosed the chain and picked him up.
“Thanks for bringing him over.”
“Hey, no big deal. It’s good to see her home, pal.”
The two men walked back into the house. Jack peeked around the corner and saw that Sally was already demolishing a peanut-butter sandwich.
“Sally . . .” he said. His wife was already looking at him with an open mouth. His daughter’s head came around just as Jack set the puppy on the floor.
It was a black Labrador, just old enough to be separated from his mother. The puppy needed a single look to know to whom he belonged. He scampered across the floor, mostly sideways, with his tail gyrating wildly. Sally was on the floor, and grabbed him. A moment later, the dog was cleaning her face.
“She’s too little for a puppy,” Cathy said.
“Okay, you can take him back this afternoon,” Jack replied quietly. The remark got him an angry look. His daughter squealed when the dog started chewing on the heel of one shoe. “She’s not big enough for a pony yet, but I think this is just the right thing.”
“You train it!”
“That’ll be easy. He comes from good stock. Champion Chesapeake’s Victor Hugo Black for a father, would you believe? The Lab’s got a soft mouth, and they like kids,” Jack went on. “I’ve already scheduled him for classes.”
“Classes in what?” Cathy was really befuddled now.
“The breed is called the Labrador Retriever,” Jack noted.
“How big does it get?”
“Oh, maybe seventy pounds.”
“That’s bigger than she is!”
“Yeah, they love to swim, too. He can look after her in the pool.”