Everything Changes

haphazardly out of her face with some randomly placed plastic clips. “Buzz Lightyear!” Tamara says, kneeling down to examine Henry’s costume. He nods, smiling shyly at her. I watch Tamara through my mask, the rubber, slick with my saliva, sticking to my face. It’s a strangely disembodied feeling, being so close to her again while she has no idea. I’m dying to reach out and touch her face, to bury my hands in the thick rings of her hair, but she would no doubt find the advances of a satanic monk alarming, so I stand quietly, impotent in my disguise.
    “What’s your name?”
    “Henry.”
    “Here you go, Henry,” she says, tossing some Hershey’s Miniatures into his bag. She looks up at me as she does, and I’m suddenly positive she can see me, right through the mask. But if that were true, she’d be angry, wouldn’t she, at this violation? And the expression spreading across her face is anything but angry. Suddenly, impossibly, she steps forward and hugs me. I hug her back, too shocked to say anything. After a few seconds, she whispers into my rubber ear. “Please, just tell me it’s you.”
    “I just figured this is how you treat all the grown-ups,” I say, my voice muffled under the mask.
    “Thank God,” she says with a laugh, hugging me tighter.
    “How did you know?” I say, spreading my fingers out across her back.
    I can feel her trembling in my arms. “My Zack alarm was going off.”
    Finally, we separate. “So, what?” she says, stepping back as I pull off the mask. “Did you actually rent a kid for this little stunt?”
    “This is Henry King,” I say, brushing the sweaty hair out of my face while Henry clings to my leg. “My brother.”
    Tamara looks at me, nodding slowly as she figures it out. “Wow,” she says. “I guess you’ve had an exciting few weeks, huh?”
    “Never a dull moment. Where’s Sophie?”
    “Sleeping. Can you stay awhile?”
    “I would, but I have to get Henry home. It’s past his bedtime already.”
    She hugs me again and it’s one of our originals, a no-holds-barred, full-on, cut-through-the-crap embrace, and only her arms stop me from crumpling like a rag doll. Sometimes you don’t need to talk things out. Sometimes, with the right person, things just need some time to percolate on their own, without the messy lunge and parry of discussion to hinder them. “Come back later,” Tamara says meaningfully, her eyes wide and deep, her voice borne on the currents of the unspecified promise in which we’re suddenly, inexplicably floating.
    Henry and I step outside into the starry night and, pagan holiday or not, I would swear I can see heaven up there.

    Henry must be put to bed with two books, which, after being read to him, have to be left on the bed within arm’s reach as he falls asleep. The closet light is left on with the door ajar, casting a long rhombus of light onto his bed, his Thomas train clutched tightly in his fist, the creased photo of his lost and found brothers folded squarely and tucked under his pillow. He is a boy of careful ritual, given to creating order and predictability in whatever small ways he can, having found the greater world around him sorely lacking in this department. Only once all of these safeguards are in place do I kiss him good night and leave the room, making sure not to leave the door halfway open.
    My mother is sitting in the dark on the top stair, pairing little white socks from an ancient laundry bin. “You’re very good with him,” she says to me.
    “Thanks.”
    “You know, I’m too old to raise another child.”
    I sit down next to her on the stairs and pick a batch of socks out of the laundry bin. “I know, Mom,” I say.
    Our elbows connect softly as we work, sparking with static electricity from the carpet. “He’s a sweet boy,” she says. “And I’m here to help, but I’m too old to be his mother. He should have a normal life, maybe the first King boy in three generations to have a positive male role model.”
    She puts her head on my shoulder as I line up two white socks and roll them together into a tight ball, tossing them lightly into the bin. “I know, Mom,” I say.

Chapter 42
    Tamara hugs me fiercely when I step through the door, and we stand like that in her foyer for a long while, rocking slowly back and forth while things inside me twist and rotate on their axes like lock tumblers clicking into place.
    “I did choose you,” I tell her.
    “I know,” she says, smiling.