lintels; white-painted French windows and doors were recessed in
graceful arches, with deep sills. The sidewalks were shaded by lattice
arbors draped with a mix of purple- and yellow-blooming bougainvillea,
from which the wind drew a chorus of urgent whispers. Inside, the
floors were gray vinyl tile, speckled with peach and turquoise, and the
walls were peach with white base and crown molding, which lent the place
a warm and airy ambience.
They paused in the foyer, just inside the front door, while Julie
withdrew a comb from her purse and pulled the wind tangles from her
hair. After stopping at the front desk in the cozy visitors’ lobby,
they followed the north hall to Thomas’s first floor room.
His was the second of the two beds, nearest the windows, but he was
neither there nor in his armchair. When they stopped in his open
doorway, he was sitting at the worktable that belonged to both him and
his roommate, Derek. Bent over the table, using a pair of scissors to
clip a photograph from a magazine, Thomas appeared curiously both
hulking and fragile, thickset yet delicate; physically, he was solid but
mentally and emotionally he was frail, and that inner weakness shone
through to belie the outer image of strength. With thick neck, heavy
rounded shoulders, broad back, proportionally short arms, and stocky
legs, Thomas had a gnomish look but when he became aware of them and
turned his head to see who was there, his face was not graced by the
cute and beguiling features of a fairy-tale creature; it was instead a
face of cruel genetic destiny and biological tragedy.
“Jules!” he said, dropping the scissors and magazine, nearly knocking
over his chair in his haste to get up. He was wearing baggy jeans and a
green-plaid flannel shirt. He seemed years younger than his true age.
“Jules, Jules!”
Julie let go of Bobby’s hand and stepped into the room opening her arms
to her brother.
“Hi, honey.” Thomas hurried to her in that shuffling walk of his, as if
his shoes were heeled and soled with enough iron to preclude lifting
them. Although he was twenty years old, ten years younger than Julie,
he was four inches shorter than she, just barely five feet. He had been
born with Down’s syndrome, a diagnosis that even a layman could read in
his face: his brow was sloppy and heavy; inner epicanthic folds gave his
eyes an oriental cant the bridge of his nose was flat; his ears were
low-set on a head that was slightly too small to be in proportion to his
body; the rest of his features had those soft, heavy contours often
associated with mental retardation. Though it was a common shaped more
for expressions of sadness and loneliness, it no less defied its
naturally downcast lines and formed itself into a wondrous smile, a warm
grin of pure delight.
Julie always had that effect on Thomas.
Hell, she has that effect on me, Bobby thought.
Stooping only slightly, Julie threw her arms around her brother when he
came to her, and for a while they hugged each other.
“How’re you doing?” she asked.
“Good,” Thomas said.
“I’m good.” His speech was thick but not at all difficult to
understand, for his tongue was as deformed as those of some victims of
DS; it was a little larger than it should have been but not fissured or
protruding.
“I’ real good.”
“Where’s Derek?”
“Visiting. Down the hall. He’ll be back. I’m real good. Are you
good?”
“I’m fine, honey. Just great.”
“I’m just great too. I love you, Jules,” Thomas said happily, for with
Julie he was always free of the shyness that colored his relations with
everyone else.
“I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, Thomas.”
“I was afraid… maybe you wouldn’t come.”
“Don’t I always come?”
“Always,” he said. At last he relaxed his grip on his sister and peeked
around her. “Hi, Bobby.”
“Hi, Thomas. You’re looking’ good.”
“Am I?”
“If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’.”
Thomas laughed. To Julie, he said, “He’s funny.”
“Do I get a hug too?” Bobby asked.
“Or do I have to stand here with my arms out until someone mistakes me