The Pirate Queen (40 page)

“You look terrible. Ask Jim to order my release. Take me home, Saphora.”

“To Davidson.”

“Oriental. I want to sit with you by the Neuse. I’m running behind on my quota of sunrises.”

“You’re right. Let’s go,” said Saphora. She called for the nurse, Kew.

The Asian nurse came in, smiling. “Nice to see you again, Dr. Warren.”

Saphora asked, “Kew, could you help us run down Dr. Pennington?”

“Glad to. I’ll find him,” she said.

Jim bustled in about ten minutes later. Bender made his request known. Jim, although very forward thinking, was old school enough that he balked at first at Bender’s request. But he finally acquiesced since there was no point in arguing with Bender Warren. He signed the release orders. “As long as you ride to Oriental in an ambulance,” he told him.

Marcy drove Bender’s Lexus, keeping up pretty well with the ambulance. Gwennie rode shotgun with Marcy. Turner and Eddie drove behind them, bringing up the rear of the procession.

When the ambulance pulled into the driveway, Luke was pacing up and down, his phone to his ear. He closed up his phone and threw open the ambulance door and also his arms. “Welcome home, Dr. Warren.”

An Asian neighbor woman one driveway down from Luke sidled up the street in tiny inching steps, as if Saphora might run her off. Even though Saphora had never met her, she offered a steaming dish spicing the air around it, colors and swirls of vegetables that Saphora would not have the imagination to plait together. “For you and your family tonight. Pork, cabbage, and Chinese vegetables. It’s good for you, Dr. Warren.” She gave her casserole dish to Gwennie.

“Will you come back and have coffee?” asked Saphora.

“You say when,” she said. “I’m Liu.” Gwennie wrote her number on her daddy’s discharge papers.

By the time the sky was so thin on the horizon that every hue created a whole new collage by the second, Ramsey and Celeste barreled through the front door. Liam skittered across Saphora’s rug like a tadpole just finding its legs. He said to the adults, “Where is everybody?” as if the adults did not count.

“Eddie’s upstairs, Liam. But go outside and see your grandpa first,” said Saphora. Gwennie had walked her daddy outside so he could sit in the chair he liked best, the big, blue dolphin deck chair. Bender was weak, as if when he fell into his coma, he left the most robust parts of himself back in the dark crevices of that quiet world. He came out of the darkness part Bender and part the newly bewildered man causing his children and grandchildren to talk about him in whispered corners of the room.

He stole a bucket from under the deck, keeping it close by in case he was struck by the nausea that flooded his esophagus. He was too queasy, he said, for even a single lusty draw on a Cuban stogie.

The new routine was to get him out of bed for the sunrise since he meant what he said about seeing as many as possible. Turner helped
his mama and, between the two of them, they dressed Bender in a morning jacket, khaki trousers, and blue trouser socks. By the time the sun came up, Saphora wanted to go back to bed. But she sat with him for three mornings. She noticed him slipping away the third morning. She asked if he wanted a bacon omelet, to which he answered, “Wa-melon,” meaning, she thought, watermelon.

The sun was nearly fully up. The cool of the morning put him in a more amiable and stable attitude. He had taken to avoiding the hot afternoons baking in the deck chair.

Saphora talked to him about Eddie and Liam and the twins, not expecting him to answer. She said, “Have you thought about heaven and what it’s like over there?” Jamie was in her thoughts, but the kids had discussed the whole Jamie and Tobias debacle and decided their daddy best not know what none of them could change. “I’ve just been thinking about it.”

Bender lifted his hand. He pointed at the sun. “Light.”

“Did you like talking to Pastor John?”

“Toad.”

“Frog?”

“To-ad me good,” said Bender.

She took it to mean that Pastor John had told him good things.

Gwennie and Celeste burned a pancake. Gwennie had decided she should stay over and had called her office to rearrange her schedule. They opened the doors to air out the house. “The house phone’s been ringing. Are you answering the phone today?” asked Gwennie.

“Go ahead,” said Saphora. But the phone did not ring again. In the middle of helping Bender squeeze his walker across the door stoop into the den, the local sheriff came to call. It wasn’t even eight o’clock.

He was a big man, name of Cole Langford. Saphora had heard
about him. He acted as both the town dogcatcher and horse doctor and kept the homeless guys off the streets at night. “Mrs. Warren, can I talk with you?” he asked.

Saphora followed him out onto the walk.

“Wilmington cops called me this morning about a runaway kid. You know Tobias Linker?” he asked.

“I know him. He’s my grandson’s friend.”

“He was staying with an aunt at an RV park along the coast.”

“Dora, yes, she took him in when his mama passed on. He ran away?”

“She thought you might know something of his whereabouts. Mind if I take a look around?”

“Of course not, come inside,” she said, although she was somewhat resentful Dora would sic the sheriff on her.

Sheriff Langford walked into the house but, seeing the Warrens collected around the kitchen table for breakfast, excused himself. “Sorry to bother you.”

“What’s this?” asked Gwennie.

“Tobias has run away,” said Saphora.

“That boy’s got lots of medicines to take,” said Marcy. “This is some serious business, I hope you know.”

“Look, Sheriff, Tobias has not been in a good home. That Dora is not looking out for him like she ought,” said Gwennie, taking the opportunity to get in her legal digs on the woman.

“I’m not here to patch up family disputes. Just following a lead on a runaway.” He walked around the house. Satisfied that they were surprised at the boy’s disappearance, he gave Saphora his card. “Call me if he shows up, ma’am.”

“Will you take him back to Dora?” asked Saphora.

“Social services says he’s got to be returned to his legal guardian,” said Langford.

Saphora saw him out the door.

Gwennie was already running to dress. “I’ll get Luke. We’ll go out and look for him,” she said.

“Tobias might come out of hiding if he saw you,” said Saphora. “But Marcy’s spot-on. He can’t go long without his meds.” She tried to call Mel three times. But he did not pick up the phone.

Ramsey and Celeste stayed one more night. The next morning they loaded up the boys after they had each kissed their grandpa good-bye.

Eddie walked down the street, pushing his bike. He scarcely waved good-bye to his cousins as they pulled out of the neighborhood. Every few yards, he yelled, “Tobias! It’s Eddie! It’s safe to come out!”

Saphora could see him through the front-window sheers. Aunt Celeste had cut the legs off a pair of his jeans for his sudden beach wardrobe. He wiped his eyes with the back of his arm.

Turner walked Bender to the sofa and turned on an Eagles’ reunion tour on public television. Saphora checked his pulse as Jim had told her to do. When she looked up from his wrist, he was looking straight into her eyes. “Ja-mie. Tell,” he said.

“Not now,” she said.

“Now.”

“There was an accident,” she said. “Jamie didn’t make it. Tobias’s daddy sent him to live with Jamie’s sister, Dora. Now Tobias has run off, and we don’t know where he is.”

Bender turned his eyes on the Eagles. “Sad. Boy.”

“He’s very sad,” she said. She dabbed her eyes as it was painful telling Bender. He was still so aware of details even if he could not fully express himself.

The police looked for Tobias for two days. Saphora called the sheriff’s office once in the morning and again at the end of the day. But he would tell her only one thing: “You are not family. I can’t tell you anything. But if there were any news, I’d tell you at least that, Mrs. Warren. There’s no news about Tobias Linker.” She was put out with the man who had come asking for her help.

Gwennie came wheeling her suitcase out of the guest room. “I’m sorry I have to leave, Daddy. It’s my job,” she said to her father. “I’ve got a very important lead on my case that I’ve got to hunt down.”

“Call me when you land in New York,” said Saphora.

“I will.” She set aside her luggage and said, “Mama, when Luke and I drove out to Dora’s place, we found them all living in squalor in an RV. Not even a mobile home where they would at least have room. When I say she lives in a vacation park, I mean the kind where old people go. Her children run up and down the beach all day because they can’t stand to be cramped up in that orange juice can of a trailer,” she said, threading a colored ribbon through her suitcase handle.

“Where does Tobias sleep?” asked Saphora.

“Little Paul had a bed made from the kitchen table. It drops down into a makeshift bed. Tobias had to share it with him.”

“What was she like? Dora, I mean?”

“She’s Dora, you know. I think she thought she had to put on for the police. And—” She stopped. “Mama, is that Dora on TV?”

Saphora looked toward the television. “Oh my!” she said, turning up the sound.

Dora was looking straight into the camera. “This is the child of my dead sister. This is killing us. We can’t even make ends meet as it is and now this.” Dora’s face was contorted. She looked up at the sky. “God, help us.”

“She’s appealing for sympathy,” said Gwennie. “Like she’s asking for donations. What an exploiter that woman is!” She gathered up her things. “Keep me up on things, Mama.” She kissed her mother. Then she put her arms around her daddy. “I’ll be back next weekend.”

Saphora walked her to the door and exchanged I-love-yous with Gwennie.

Gwennie said, “You keep your prayers going up. Something’s got to break soon.”

“God hears,” said Bender, surprising them both.

That was a surprise.

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