Rescue

apparently singing his heart out, the broad outlines of events in Little Mercy’s courtyard becoming clear from leaks via his official interrogators, the constant replaying of our audiotape from the boom box, and the reverent treatment, even by the media, of Denny and his two friends. So far, I was just “a man we didn’t know who helped us,“ because I’d hit Clark before he’d seen me, and everyone else there that night was long past identifying me. I hoped it would stay that way, even as the hand-held cameras in the Compound showed more men and women with grim faces piling out of unmarked cars and vans, half a dozen federal and state acronyms emblazoned across their windbreakers.
    Doris came back into the living room with a Mickey Mouse mug. “You got enough to drink there?“
    “Fine.“
    A tired nod as she settled into the armchair across from me.
    “Doris, I hate to press, but we ought to discuss details before it may be too late to invent them.“
    A swig of coffee. “Go ahead.“
    “Howard’s death. How do you explain that?“
    She shrugged. “Weeks ago, we talked to one of the retired doctors down here—we’ve got three of them you could hit with a rock from where you’re sitting. One’s a cardiologist, used to be on staff at this fancy-shmancy hospital in Tampa. He told us any time Howard decided to... just end it, he’d sign the death certificate.“
    “Without a body?“
    “You’d be surprised, John, how many of us—the older old—just decide to sail off into the sunset. The doctor said, he signs the certificate, nobody’s going to question why there isn’t any funeral bill on the estate inventory.“
    I nodded. “You really did think this through.“
    “Maybe not this particular way, but other ways, yeah. We gave up the life insurance years ago, so there’ll be nobody to investigate, did my husband really die, and everything else is joint name. Howard’s business went well after the Marines, so a lawyer does a little paperwork, some judge waves a magic wand, and I have all I need for the rest of my life.“
    After another swig of coffee, Doris looked at me over the rim of the mug. “Speaking of what I need, I want to keep him, John.“
    I must have shown the confusion on my face, because she said, “Eddie. I want to take him north and raise him, for as long as I have left.“
    “Doris—“
    “You want him going back to his parents who gave him away to those monsters?“
    “No.“
    “You have a plan to look after him?“
    “No.“
    “Then it’s me or the state. Or I guess first the state of Florida, then maybe the state of New Hampshire, but then probably his parents again.“
    Nancy had said pretty much the same thing.
    Doris set down her mug. “He’s like a D.P., John.“
    “A Dee-Pee?“
    “ ‘Displaced Person.’ After the war, I read about what happened to the kids, the orphans the Nazis made in Europe. They wandered around, shell-shocked. They had this craving for sleep, because it was only when they were asleep that they felt safe, like Eddie in our... my guest room. There are ways to treat that, just like there’s that laser thing to treat his birthmark. I’m going to ask my sister in New York more about that, too.“
    I sipped the vodka. Crystal fire.
    Doris said, “Well, what do you think?“
    “Of your taking him?“
    She lifted her mug again. “Of course of me taking him“
    I rolled the cubes in my glass. “I think he could do a lot worse.“
    “Huh, you’re telling me?“

    “Eddie?“
    No response.
    I shook him gently at the shoulder. “Eddie?“
    His eyes came open before he focused on me sitting on the guest bed or Doris standing next to it, half-light filtering in from the hall the way it had into the bunk room back on Little Mercy. “No. No more, please? Please!“
    By the time he’d gotten to the last word, Doris had muscled me out of the way and was holding him, hugging his face against her breast, her chin resting on top of his head. “It’s okay, Eddie. It’s okay, it’s okay now.“
    And he started—haltingly, almost apologetically—to cry.
    I stood there, looking down at them, Eddie’s arms around her neck, the marks from the straps and other things still visible across his wrists. I couldn’t see there was any other decision to make.

    “They got roadblocks up.“
    Doris set the bag of groceries on the kitchen counter that Wednesday morning. Eddie and I had been watching television, both of us rising when we heard