The Understory (16 page)

David Payne had taken the day off to spend with Cooper, but not before he made a couple of stops—to the bookstore to pick out something brand new, then to McDonald’s for a big breakfast to go. After finishing their hotcakes and sausage, they retreated to Cooper’s room, and David read the title of the book—
Once Upon A Moonflower.

Cooper raised an eyebrow. “Is this a girl book?”

David asked his son, “Does surviving all by yourself in the rainforest sound like a girl book?”

Cooper, intrigued, shook his head and grinned. “Let’s pretend we’re in the rainforest!” With anyone else, Cooper wouldn’t have said it, but with his dad, it was different. Cooper always smiled when he thought of those games. Some were silly—
Let’s pretend the coffee table is a life raft and the living room carpet is a stormy ocean—
and required a footy pajama-wearing Cooper and his dad to sit, cross-legged, on top of the sturdy walnut table. Others were sillier—
Let’s pretend these wooden spoons are swords—
and required man and boy to duel each other while Claire made dinner. And other memories made his heart hurt—
Let’s pretend we’re superheroes, Dad—
which required Cooper to become larger than life. All his dad had to do was be himself.

“Totally,” David said, pointing to the green umbrella in Cooper’s closet. “We’ll need that in the rainforest.”

They snuggled next to each other on Cooper’s bed, underneath the opened umbrella, cracked open the crisp binding, and breathed in the new-book smell. After the title page, when the actual story began, David Payne didn’t use a girl voice, but instead created this strangely believable, animated persona. As he read to his son about Hope’s predicament, Cooper soaked it up like other stories he’d heard before, but when he heard the part about the magic treasure box, Cooper listened with genuine intensity, marveling at the concept of a magic box in the middle of the jungle. “Is it really magic, Dad?” A little embarrassed, Cooper added in his best adult voice, “I mean, it’s like, cursed or something, right?”

David scooted closer to Cooper, and when he said, “Of course, it’s magic,” he put his arm around Cooper, looked him in the eyes, and made the notion of magic not only acceptable, but desirable.

“Cool. Can we get one?” Cooper asked, sitting up.

“There’s only one, Coop,” he said, “and it’s in the middle of the Amazon.” David Payne used his serious voice. “Do you know how to use a machete?”

When Cooper said he did not, David shook his head, and said, “Wow. It’s gonna be a lot of hard work then.” And then, David Payne raised a finger, turned to his son, and said, “Maybe we’ll go find it together—”

“When?” Cooper blurted.

“Um, when you’re older,” David said.

Cooper asked, “When’s
older
?”

“Uh, when you’re . . . nine.” As Cooper stared with wonder, David said, “Yep. On your ninth birthday, we’ll go find it together.”

“Promise?” Cooper said, wide-eyed.

David Payne answered with a confident nod. “Promise.”

And so, one year later, everything in Cooper’s life hinged on that promise.

The irony was that David Payne had been known for following through on his promises. Cooper had listened to him tell stories about clients he’d defended, and because his dad had once explained it this way, Cooper thought of what his dad did at work in baseball terms. Here’s what Cooper knew. He knew that outside of baseball, it wasn’t right to steal, but if someone steals a loaf of bread for his family, it’s different than stealing a TV. He knew that his dad didn’t defend true bad guys because it was wrong, even if the bad guy was some sort of Most Valuable Player with an amazing record. His boss got mad at him for that. He knew that players who had struck out had used up their chances and needed, without question, to be benched for a while—sometimes forever. But he also knew—and this one seemed to be the most important thing—that his dad believed that a real home run was giving someone a second chance.

So on that ill-fated Monday morning, after he’d finished reading to Cooper, David Payne slipped out to a convenience store for an unexpected mid-morning ice cream treat and found himself face to face with danger. He didn’t see a man with a gun. He saw a boy with nothing to lose. And when the boy pointed the gun at the clerk and demanded money, it was a calm David Payne who convinced him to let everyone in the store—the clerk, two other women, and a mother and her son—go to the back room, where they’d be out of danger.

As the boy bagged the contents of the till, David, facedown on the floor, spoke to the boy of second chances, and how he could help him get one. After bagging the money, the boy called someone on his cell phone and had a disjointed conversation, all the while keeping the gun pointed at David, who was telling him the sentence would be much less if he gave up the gun. And it seemed as if the boy was listening, so David tried to get up with hands raised. He looked at the boy, who was red-faced, angry, and empty-eyed, and when David mentioned something about faith, the boy shot David Payne, point blank, in his heart.

After seeing his father’s name in newsprint, and touching it with his finger, Cooper put the article back where he found it and approached Sonny the bird. “I knew you’d do it,” he said. “I knew you’d keep your promise.” Sonny pecked at a hanging cluster of birdseed dangling from the cage top. Cooper smiled when he thought of him and his dad, together, running around the jungle, hunting for the magic treasure box. “And I know you’ll be there.” He put his finger up to the cage. “Somewhere.”

Sonny the bird hopped over to Cooper’s finger. He could not hug Cooper, nor could he leave his cage to accompany Cooper to a ballgame, so he did the only thing he could.

“Miss you,” Sonny said.

W
hen Story arrived home, it was after ten o’clock. She put on her pajamas, poured herself a glass of cabernet, and stared in amazement at the clue for Thirty-Eight Across.
Cooper’s mission.
She’d seen it before, but that was before Cooper, and she decided that seeing Cooper’s name on her crossword was uncanny, and beyond coincidence. So she downed her glass of wine and poured another. “Hmmm,
Cooper’s mission . . .
nine letters,” Story said aloud to her big, hard crossword puzzle—the best date she’d had in years.
What
is
Cooper’s mission? To avoid meatballs . . . to let go of his umbrella . . . to find the magic treasure box by his ninth birthday . . . to find Hope.

She took a break from her puzzle to watch the short footage she’d taken at Cooper’s house. When she sat down on her couch with the borrowed camcorder, she must have hit rewind by accident, because when it finally played, she didn’t see Hans, Cooper, or Claire, but a handsome man with dark hair and large, sapphire-blue eyes like Cooper’s.

As she let the replay run, the camera moved back and forth in sharp, abrupt motions, recording random shots—first the ceiling, then the den’s hardwood floor. And then she recognized Cooper’s giggle. “Stop tickling me, Dad!”

The camera then landed on David Payne, the interviewee, in his desk chair as he folded his hands and tried to look serious. On the desk in front of him sat two glasses of milk and a tower of Oreo cookies. “Okay. I’m ready. I don’t want you to flunk,” said David. “Go ahead. Ask me anything you want.”

Recording, Cooper said, “Question number one: Where were you born?”

“Chicago, Illinois.”

“Question two: What is your father’s name?”

“Michael Anthony Payne.” David smiled. “Gramps to you.”

Story could almost hear Cooper’s smile behind the camera. “Three: What is your profession?”

“I defend people who make mistakes.”

Taking a break from the interview, Cooper moved the camera for a moment and said, “Is that what Gramps does?”

David said, “Not exactly. Gramps, Uncle Peter, and Uncle Steven are prosecutors. They—”

“Get the bad guys,” Cooper interrupted. “That’s what Mom says.” Cooper focused the camera back on his dad. “When you get the bad guy, you’re a hero. Right, Dad?”

David Payne paused for a moment, but then said, “Right. Heroes get the bad guys.”

“Okay, question four: What is your favorite thing to do?”

“Eat Oreo cookies with my son,” he said without hesitation.

“That’s me!” Cooper said.

“Yes. You are my son,” he said, handing Cooper a cookie. Cooper’s hand emerged to grab it, but the camera stayed steady. “You are my favorite son.”

Cooper giggled, and then said, “We’re dunkers, aren’t we, Dad?”

“Yes, we prefer dunking our cookies. But not before we do this,” he said, dismantling his cookie by removing the top and eating the creamy middle. “See, it’s all about balance. In the beginning, we had dark and light, and now all we have is dark. But,” he said, with the dark cookies sandwiched between his thumb and index finger, “we must unite dark and light once again.” He dipped the small, black circles into the milk until they disappeared in a pool of white.

“Light,” Cooper said, “and dark.” His hand appeared again to dunk the cookie in his glass.

“Yes. Light and dark,” David said. “Each makes the other seem sweeter.”

“Last question,” Cooper said. The camera shook a little. “What is your favorite part of being a dad?”

Cooper experimented with the camera, pushing the zoom button until his dad’s faced filled the screen. David Payne looked straight into the camera, pointed, and mouthed, “You.”

Then the image turned to static.

Just as Story was about to turn it off, more footage appeared—footage maybe no one else ever saw. Story watched as David Payne, at his desk, stared at the camera lens, which was about five feet in front of him.

He ran his fingers through his hair, then leaned forward, and said, “I just came from upstairs, watching you sleep, and it occurred to me that maybe you didn’t get to ask all the questions you wanted to. And I know I could just tell you tomorrow, or the day after that, but this is more . . . unexpected. So I figure I’ll give you my best advice about life, while it’s still fresh in my brain—”

But then, right in the middle of a sentence, the battery died, and Story was left staring at a black screen. Story knew she’d uncovered something important, but she was more interested in David Payne’s message. He wasn’t peddling hope—he was selling faith. Anyone can hope for the best, but only the true superheroes can actually muster up faith, and when Story watched him look at his son, this is what she saw him saying with his eyes.

After walking over to her crossword wall, and staring at
Cooper’s mission
again, she decided she wasn’t going to figure it out, so she consulted the Internet. She spent fifteen minutes searching the name “Cooper” for anything that might fit, and on the twenty-fourth entry, she got her answer, and a chill crept through her body. Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr., American astronaut, circled Earth twenty-two times in 1963 in a Mercury spacecraft. The name of the mission summed up two important things for Cooper Payne. The first word was something he needed, and the second was, simply, an inevitable event.

FAITH NINE

I addressed the toucan in front of me. “Fly?” I said. “If you haven’t noticed, I don’t have any—”

“Hang on. We’ll be your wings.” And with that, the toucan, plus three other birds—a parrot, a green aracari, and an emerald toucanet—introduced themselves and, using their large beaks, latched on to my pajama shirt. Within seconds, they took flight, and so did I.

Flying in and out of trees, I said, “This place is growing on me!” as a gentle breeze wisped through my hair. The forest floor beneath me now looked like a mossy green carpet, and as we flew in between branches and giant leaves, ants raining down on me—gross—I asked the birds where we were going.

“What do you want?” they screeched in unison.

I actually had no idea. I missed home, and I worried about the nighttime that was surely on its way, but I was having an adventure, an authentic adventure I only ever found in books, and I wasn’t ready for it to end. “I need to find the magic treasure box,” I told my feathered friends.