From the Corner of His Eye

using the alphabet-which he saw as a system of math employing twenty-six digits instead of ten.
        Agnes discovered, from her research, that among child prodigies, Barty was not a wonder of wonders. Some math whizzes were absorbed by algebra and even by geometry before their third birthdays. Jascha Heifetz, became an accomplished violinist at three, and by six, he played the concertos of Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky; Ida Haendel performed them when she was five.
        Eventually Agnes came to suspect that for all the pleasure the boy took in math and for all his aptitude with numbers, his greatest gift and his deepest passion lay elsewhere. He was finding his way toward a destiny both more astonishing and stranger than the lives of any of the many prodigies about whom she'd read.
        Bartholomew's genius might have been intimidating, even off-putting, if he'd not been as much child as child genius. Likewise, he would have been wearisome if impressed by his own gifts.
        For all his brilliance, however, he was still a boy who loved to run and jump and tumble. Who swung from the backyard oak tree in a rope-and-tire swing. Who was thrilled when given a tricycle. Who giggled in delight while watching his uncle Jacob roll a shiny quarter end over-end across his knuckles and perform other simple coin tricks.
        And though Barty was not shy, neither was he a show-off. He didn't seek praise for his accomplishments, and in fact, they were little known outside of his immediate family. His satisfaction came entirely from learning, exploring, growing.
        And as he grew, the boy seemed content with his own company and that of his mother and his uncles. Yet Agnes worried that no children his age lived in their neighborhood. She thought he would be happier if he had a playmate or two.
        "Somewhere, I do," he assured her one night as she tucked him into bed.
        "Oh? And where are you keeping them-stuffed in the back of your closet? "
        "No, the monster lives in there," Barty said, which was a joke, because he'd never suffered night frights of that-or any-sort.
        "Ho, ho," she said, ruffling his hair. "I've got my own little Red Skelton."
        Barty, didn't watch much television. He'd been up late enough to see Red Skelton only a few times, but that comedian always drew gales of laughter from him.
        "Somewhere," he said, "there's kids next door."
        "Last time I looked, Miss Galloway lived to the south of us. Retired. Never married. No children."
        "Yeah, well, somewhere, she's a married lady with grandkids."
        "She has two lives, huh?"
        "Lots more than two."
        "Hundreds!"
        "Lots more."
        "Selma Galloway, woman of mystery."
        "Could be, sometimes."
        "Retired professor by day, Russian spy by night."
        "Probably not anywhere a spy."
        As early as this evening, here at her son's bedside, Agnes began dimly to sense that certain of these amusing conversations with Barty might not be as fanciful as they seemed, that he was expressing in a childlike way some truth that she had assumed was fantasy.
        "And to the north of us," Agnes said, drawing him out, "Janey Carter went off to college last year, and she's their only child."
        "The Carters don't always live there," he said.
        "Oh? Do they rent their house out to pirates with little pirate children, clowns with little clown children?"
        Barty giggled. "You're Red Skelton."
        "And you've got a big imagination."
        "Not really. I love you, Mommy." He yawned and dropped into sleep with a quickness that always amazed her. And then everything changed in one stunning moment. Changed profoundly and forever.
        The day before Christmas, along the California coast. Although sun gilded the morning, clouds gathered in the afternoon, but no snow would ease sled runners across these roofs.
        Pecan cakes, cinnamon custard pies boxed in insulated coolers, gifts wrapped with bright paper and glittery ribbons. Agnes Lampion made deliveries to those friends who were on her list of the needful, but also to friends who were blessed with plenty. The sight of each beloved face, each embrace, each kiss, each smile, each cheerfully spoken "Merry Christmas" at every stop fortified her heart for the sad task awaiting her when all gifts were given.
        Barty rode with his mother in her green Chevrolet station