Chapter Forty-Seven

Now that he didn’t have to wear the bandages any more, Isaac didn’t feel comfortable in a shirt. He didn’t like the way the fabric felt when it brushed against his skin. It felt like the scars. . . which were pretty much healed by now. . . were going to rip open.

Jim Farrigan told him it couldn’t happen. Nora told him it couldn’t happen. But both of them told him he didn’t have to wear a shirt, either. Not if he didn’t want to wear one.

Isaac wasn’t sure. He didn’t like to look at the scars on his stomach, because he knew what they were from. He didn’t really want other people to look at them, either. At the same time, he couldn’t even stand the feeling of a sheet directly over his stomach. . . it actually hurt, like someone was burning him, whenever he moved.

The scars didn’t hurt, really. At least, not because something was actually wrong. Dr. Farrigan had explained that to Isaac. “There’s nothing we can do to make it stop hurting, because there’s nothing. . . physically. . . that’s making it hurt. You’re not just imagining it hurts, either, because it actually does.” He’d searched Isaac’s eyes. “Are you following this?”

“You think I’m making it up?” Isaac had asked, puzzled.

Dr. Farrigan shook his head. “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. It’s just. . .” he couldn’t use the word ‘psychosomatic’ to a nine year old. “It will stop hurting eventually, but don’t worry that it means anything’s wrong.”

“Okay.” Isaac had nodded, absently chewing on his fingernail. “But. . . do you think it will. . . bother anybody. . . if I don’t have on a shirt? Because of. . . you know.”

Dr. Farrigan shook his head. “No,” he said, gently. “No, it won’t bother anybody. Do whatever makes you feel comfortable.”

Isaac nodded. “Okay.”

“So, it really hurts, but it’s all a mental thing?” Dan had asked Nora later.

Nora winced. The words “mental thing,” sounded very severe to her. “Yeah,” she admitted. “It’s actually a normal reaction to that kind of injury.” She met Dan’s eyes. “He’s worried that having to look at the scars will bother other people.”

Dan shook his head. “No,” he said. “I mean. . .” he shook his head. “My God. It is. . . hard to look at them, but only because I just. . . I mean, it sounds irrational, but I wish I had been. . .”

“There to stop it,” Nora finished. “I know.”

“And I feel so bad that he’d even think that.” Dan took a deep breath. “It’s just such a. . . a travesty.” He couldn’t find a better word. “How much do you think the scars will fade?”

Nora shook her head. “I don’t know. Eventually, probably a lot, but never completely, I don’t think.”

“Isn’t there anything they can do to minimize them?” Dan wanted to know. “I mean, obviously the biggest effect they have is on Isaac, as opposed to other people, and I know he’ll never forget what happened. . . but it just seems such a . . . constant reminder.”

“Well,” Nora said, “he is going to have to have a few more surgeries over the next few years, so maybe it’s better to wait.”

Dan thought about this for awhile. “Yeah,” he admitted, finally. “You’re right.”

At first, Zac didn’t like to look at the scars on Isaac’s stomach because he didn’t like to think about anyboy hurting his brother. At first, Taylor kept asking Isaac which ones were from the knife and which were from surgeries. At first, Isaac spent a lot of time sitting on the couch with his knees drawn up to his chest, so that nobody could see the scars. He even tried wearing a shirt, for a little while. Isaac found, however, that the incision that had been made during the last surgery, which hadn’t entirely closed over yet, opened up from the friction of material against it. It started bleeding again, just a few pinpoints of blood, but enough to make Isaac strip the shirt off where he was standing, shaking.

Mr. Lincoln, the only person besides Dan, Nora, Dr. Farrigan, Taylor and Zac who had seen the scars, didn’t seem to notice them at all. The first day Isaac hadn’t had a shirt off, Mr. Lincoln had observed, “I see you have the bandages off, Isaac,” and promptly asked if Isaac had finished the book he was supposed to read. Every week, Mr. Lincoln told Isaac to read a book, and then they’d talk about it. And then Isaac had to write a report about it.

In certain ways, Mr. Lincoln made Isaac do a lot more work than teachers usually made you do. At the same time, though, it was more fun than regular school. Mr. Lincoln, for his part, was the first teacher he’d ever had who wasn’t entirely frustrated by Isaac. In fact, he thoroughly enjoyed working with him.

One morning in early March, Zac and Dan were both upstairs when Mr. Lincoln came to the door. Isaac had been lying on the couch, finishing the book he’d been assigned that week. The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me, it was called, and it didn’t look like a long book, but it actually was. So far, Isaac had read it three times. It was a good book.

When the doorbell rang, Isaac put the book aside and got up to answer it. “Hi,” he said to Mr. Lincoln.

“Good morning,” Mr. Lincoln returned, raising his eyebrows at the pattering of small feet that suddenly thundered down the upstairs hall. “Good morning, young man!” he called to Zac.

“Good morning, old man!” As insolent as four year old Zac could be, he refused to talk in the presence of strangers unless he was well-hidden from them. Now, thrilled at his own daring, he scampered back down the hall to hide underneath Dan’s desk.

“Hi, Mr. Lincoln!” Dan yelled cheerfully, from upstairs.

“Good morning!” Mr. Lincoln called back. He grinned at Isaac and scanned the living room, taking stock of the nest of blankets on the couch. Usually Isaac wasn‘t tired in the morning; this must not be a ‘good day.’ “Where do you feel like working today?”

Isaac shrugged. “I don’t care very much. Anywhere is fine.”

“It looks like you were set up pretty well in there,” Mr. Lincoln observed, nodding toward the couch.

Isaac nodded. “Yeah, we could work in there, if you want.”

Mr. Lincoln shrugged. “It’s fine with me.”

“Let’s start off with the book,” Mr. Lincoln suggested. “Did you finish it?”

Isaac grinned. “Yeah. Three times.”

“Three times!” Mr. Lincoln was impressed. “You liked it, I guess?”

“Yep.” Isaac nodded. “Especially when the giraffe and the monkey and the pelican move into that old building, and they have to rip all the floors out, so they throw all the furniture out the window.” he paused. “Or maybe when the boy opens the candy store, and they’re talking about all the different kinds of candy he sells.”

“What kind of candy sounded the best to you?” Mr. Lincoln asked.

Isaac thought about this. “Well, at first I thought maybe that stuff that turns your teeth green for a month, because I wanted to give one to Tay and see if it’s true. But now I think maybe the stuff that lets you breathe fire.”

Mr. Lincoln laughed. “And what would you do if you could breathe fire?”

Isaac shook his head. “There wouldn’t be many places you could go, would there?”

“No,” Mr. Lincoln agreed. “I don’t think there would.”

“And I liked the opening,” Isaac volunteered. “When the camera crews came and the boy gave away free candy.”

“When my youngest daughter turned four,” Mr. Lincoln said, “my wife had a swimming party for her. We filled up the little wading pool, invited all her friends over, and instead of handing out treat bags, we put all the candy and prizes into bowls and let the kids pretend it was a candy store.”

“You made them pay?” Isaac was shocked. He pictured Mr. Lincoln in a bathing suit and bathing cap, forcing preschoolers to hand over their meager fistfuls of pennies in order to receive a diminuitive lollypop and some withered Tootsie-Rolls.

Mr. Lincoln laughed at that. “No,” he said. “They didn’t have to pay.”

“Okay.” Isaac was reassured. “How long ago was that?”

“Almost fourteen years ago,” Mr. Lincoln said, kind of sadly.

“1976,” Isaac mused. “Right?”

Mr. Lincoln smiled. “Right.”

Sometimes they would do math problems out of a third grade workbook, but that day Mr. Lincoln decided to teach Isaac about the rabbits.

“Say you have a mother and a father rabbit,” he said, drawing two deformed looking examples on a piece of looseleaf. “And the second month, they have two children. And the third month, each of the children has two children, and each of their children has two children the month after that.” Rapidly, his pen flew across the paper as he sketched a diagram. “Do you see a pattern?”

After a little while, Isaac nodded. “You just add up.”

“What?” Mr. Lincoln asked, puzzled.

“The first month you have two,” Isaac said, “and the second month you have four, and the next month you have six. And six is two and four. And the next number is ten, which is four and six. . .”

By the time Isaac was finished explaining, Mr. Lincoln was grinning hugely. “That’s exactly right,” he said. “It’s called a number sequence. You look for the patterns.”

That turned out to be Isaac’s homework, for math. He had to find the next number in a sequence. It was like a game. It was fun.

“Do you want to try any now?” Mr. Lincoln asked.

Isaac rubbed his eyes, yawning. “No, I think I’m okay with it.”

Mr. Lincoln nodded. “Do you feel like you want to keep working?”

Isaac swallowed. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m sorry I yawned.”

“That’s fine,” Mr. Lincoln said. “I know you’re tired-”

“I’m not tired,” Isaac interrupted.

“But if you don’t feel well, we don’t have to go on today.”

“No, I’m okay,” Isaac assured him. “I can keep going.”

“Stop me if you can’t,” directed Mr. Lincoln.

“I will,” Isaac promised. But he had no intention of doing it.

Mr. Lincoln sensed this. “What are you going to do when I leave?” he asked.

Isaac grinned. “Maybe take a nap.”

Mr. Lincoln laughed. “I thought so.”

Nora got off work early that day, so she brought Taylor home. Setting him up at the kitchen table with some cookies and a glass of milk, she went upstairs to look for Dan, wondering why the house was so quiet.

Dan was sitting in his studio, softly singing along with the song that was playing on his headphones. “See the girl with the diamond ring! She knows how to shake that that thing! All right, now-now-now. . .”

Nora giggled. She didn’t want to interrupt a good thing.

“Hey, hey!” With a heavy black marker, Dan outlined the marks he’d made in pencil on the paper. “Tell your mama! Tell your pa! I’m gonna send ya back to Arkansas...” Sensing someone’s eyes on him, he turned around, forgetting to stop singing. “Oh, yes ma’am-” Smiling guiltily, Dan removed the headphones. “Hi, Nor. . . . sorry.”

“Oh, no, I was enjoying it.” Nora grinned. “Don’t let me stop you.”

Dan changed the subject. “Your babies are asleep.”

Nora raised an eyebrow. “My babies?”

“In the other room,” Dan told her. “They were tired.”

Nora laughed. “I want to see.” She ducked out of the room.

Isaac and Zac were sprawled in the same bed, Zac clutching the stuffed dog he’d been carting around everywhere. For some reason, the dog’s name was Bear. Nora smiled, but tears formed at the corners of her eyes. She and Dan had started adoption proceedings, but what if they didn’t go through? She didn’t think she could tear herself away again.

She sat on the other bed for a little while, watching the boys sleep. Eventually, Zac kicked Isaac and Isaac muttered something incoherent. After a while, Zac yawned and sat up, blinking. Without taking his thumb out of his mouth, he crawled out of bed and came over and sat in Nora’s lap.

Nora wrapped her arms around him, inhaling. He smelled like baby shampoo, and a little bit like peanut butter and jelly. He rested his head against the crook of her elbow, closing his eyes again. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to go back to sleep, Nora carried him downstairs.

“Why are you carrying him?” Taylor asked. He had a milk mustache and chocolate all over his face.

“He’s tired,” Nora said.

“Why is he tired?” Taylor wanted to know.

Zac took his thumb out of his mouth. “Because I am tired,” he told Taylor. “Now, you shut up.” He replaced the thumb.

“Zachary, don’t tell your brother to shut up.” It was a mild reprimand, but Nora was startled to hear herself say it. She sounded like her mother.

“Yeah,” Taylor agreed. “Don’t tell me to shut up.”

Zac regarded his brother for a moment, quizzically. “Be quiet,” he said, finally. “Now.”

“Tay, he just got up,” Nora said. “He’s in a bad mood right now.”

“Yeah.” Taylor nodded. “I know.” He shook his head. “I’m never in a bad mood, right?”

Nora giggled. “Um. . .”

“Right?” Taylor persisted.

“Sometimes we all have bad days,” Nora replied.

“Not a bad day,” Zac piped up. “A bad mood.”

“Okay,” Nora said. “You’re not having a bad day, just a bad mood. Sometimes we all have them.”

“Not me.” Taylor shook his head emphatically. “Never.”

On a table in the downstairs hallway, Nora had a statue of the a lady dressed in blue, beneath which she kept a candle and a some flowers. After dinner that night, Taylor stood in front of it, examining the arrangement with an inquisitive expression. “Why is she wearing her sheets?” he wanted to know. “I want to know.”

“Those aren’t sheets, Tay. Those are her clothes.” Isaac tried to sound as if he knew what he was talking about, but he too had only a dim idea of the significance of the lady.

“Who is she?” Taylor asked.

“Some kind of god, I guess,” Isaac speculated. He didn’t want to get too deeply into this discussion, though, because it was way over his head. “Like that Nora has to make sacrifices to.”

“Sacafices?” Taylor repeated, puzzled.

“You know.” Isaac thought back to a history lesson he’d done with Mr. Lincoln a few weeks ago. “Like some people would bring their little kids to the top of a snowy mountain and leave’em there. Or these people in Mexico, the Aztecs, would rip each other’s hearts out in these temples-”

“Stop!” Taylor wailed, clapping his hands over his ears. “Don’t tell me that!”

Isaac grinned. “It could happen to you.” he threatened. “If you’re bad.”

Taylor’s lower lip jutted out. “I’m not bad.”

Isaac raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “Really.”

“I’m very good.” Taylor was solemn. “Everybody tells me it.”

“Well, don’t you think all those little kids that got killed were good, too?” Isaac wanted to know.

Taylor’s lower lip quivered. “I’m telling Nora!”

“Tay-” Isaac started off after his younger brother.

“He said-” Taylor was gulping back sobs as he buried his face in Nora’s skirt. “He said-”

“What did he say?” Nora raised her eyebrows as Isaac burst into the kitchen.

“Whatever he tells you it isn’t true!”

“What isn’t true?” Nora asked.

“I don’t want to be a sacafice!” Taylor wailed.

“A sacrifice?” Nora turned to Isaac. “What?”

Isaac shrugged. “It happened to Aztec kids. They’d go up to these temples, and the priests would get a big ax-”

“NO!” Taylor screeched. Nora stroked his hair.

“Honey, that will never happen to you. That was thousands of years ago.”

Taylor pointed at Isaac. “But he said-”

“Thousands of years ago?” Isaac was incredulous. “Then what do you have that god-thing for?”

“That what thing?” Nora repeated.

“On the table with the candle and the flowers,” Isaac told her.

“He said-” Taylor began.

“It’s a god, right?” Isaac bellowed, drowning his little brother out.

“Why are you yelling?” Nora wanted to know.”

Isaac played dumb. “Was I yelling? Oh, I must not have realized.” He nodded at Taylor. “He’s so loud.”

“I am not loud!” Taylor shrieked, at top volume.

“Both of you!” Nora exclaimed, shaking her head. “Talk at a normal level. Like people who lived in a house, not a. . . a. . .” she tried to think of someplace loud.

Innocently, Isaac clasped his hands behind his back. “A what, Nora?”

“A. . . helicopter landing pad!” Nora burst out. It was the first noisy place she’d been able to think of.

“I wish I lived in one of those!” Taylor wiped his eyes on the back of his hand and his nose on the back of his sleeve. “That would be cool!”

“Well, if you ever live in one, you can yell all you want,” Nora promised him.

Isaac was nonchalant. “So, when are you going to sacrifice him to that god in the hallway?”

“NO!” Taylor screamed, rattling the windowpanes.

“Isaac.” Nora took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

He grinned. “Sorry, Tay.”

The statue in the hall, Nora explained, wasn’t a god and she didn’t make sacrifices to it. Instead, it was “la Virgencita. The blessed mother.”

“La Virgin who?” Isaac asked.

“The blessed what?” Taylor wondered.

Nora thought for a moment. “Let me see,” she said. “How do I explain this?”

“Zac,” Taylor whispered that night, as soon as Dan had closed their bedroom door, “want to hear a story?”

“About me and Bear?” Zac took his thumb out of his mouth. “Mmmhmm.”

“No.” Taylor shook his head. “You’re not in it.”

“Why?” Zac asked.

Taylor wrinkled his forehead. “Because you’re not.”

“Did you make it up?” Zac asked.

“Nora told me it,” Taylor informed him. “And she told Ike, too. Didn’t she, Ike?”

“Yeah.” Isaac yawned. “If you’re thinking of the same story I’m thinking of.”

“Once upon a time,” Taylor began, “there was God.”

“God?” Zac repeated.

“God.” Taylor nodded. “And God wanted to have a kid.”

“Why?” asked Zac.

“Why?” Taylor asked Isaac.

“Because he did, I guess,” Isaac answered.

“Because he did, I guess,” Taylor told Zac. “Anyway, he couldn’t let a person with sins have his little boy.”

“What’s sins?” Zac wanted to know.

“Bad stuff what makes you go to hell,” Taylor explained. “Like being mean.”

“What’s hell?” Zac asked.

“The fireplace at God’s house,” Taylor explained. “He puts people’s in it and they get burned up.” Nora hadn’t told him this. He’d gleaned it from studying a “Far Side” cartoon taped above Dan’s desk. “God puts you in it and you burn up.”

“That’s how come God doesn’t have to pay the heating bill,” Isaac explained.

“God’s going to burn me up in a fire?” Zac asked, worried.

“Only if you do sins,” Taylor told him. “Like saying ‘shut up.’”

“Uh oh,” Zac whispered.

“Anyway, God needed to have somebody without any sins to have his little boy,” Taylor went on.

“Why?” Zac demanded.

“Because he didn’t want the mommy to beat the little boy up,” Taylor decided. “Or stick him with a knife.”

Isaac took a deep breath when he heard that. He blinked, swallowing hard.

“That’s sins?” Zac asked.

Taylor thought for a moment. “Well, it wasn’t very nice.”

“Could you please stop talking about it?” Isaac asked. “Please?”

“Mommy’s gonna go to hell?” Zac’s voice rose, nervously.

“Don’t talk about it anymore!” Isaac pulled the pillow over his head.

“Yeah, probably she will,” Taylor decided. “Anyway- Ike, I won’t talk about it anymore- God found this lady named Satan. . .”

“Saint Anne,” Isaac corrected.

“. . . This lady named Satan, and he said that her baby would never do sins,” Taylor continued. “So, Satan’s baby got to be the mommy of God’s baby. An angel came to her and told her it. Her name was Mary.”

“The angel?” Zac asked.

“No, the mommy. Mary, like ‘Merry Christmas,’” Taylor thought for a moment. “The angel’s name was Gabriella, like Gabriella on Sesame Street.”

“The angel’s name was Gabriel,” Isaac piped.

“That’s what I said,” Taylor agreed. “Gabriella. And Gabriella said to Mary, ‘have God’s baby and name it Jesus.’”

“Jesus?” Zac made a face. “Why’d she name it that?”

Taylor rolled his eyes. “I told you. The angel said that she had to.”

“She didn’t get to pick?” Zac asked.

Taylor shook his head. “No, the angel picked.”

“Don’t call him Jesus anymore,” Zac told Taylor. “Call him a different name.”

“But Jesus was his name!” Taylor protested.

“But I don’t like that name!” Zac exclaimed. “Call him Joe.”

“That was his father, not him.” Taylor explained. “His father was Joseph.”

“But you said his father was God,” Zac pointed out.

“His father was God,” Taylor agreed. “But so was Joseph.”

“No, he only had one father,” Zac insisted.

“How do you know?” Taylor asked.

Zac didn’t hesitate. “Because I said so.”

“You’re not telling the story!” Taylor protested. “I am!”

“You don’t tell it good,” Zac folded his arms across his chest.

“I do too!” Taylor turned to Isaac. “Don’t I tell it good, Ike?”

“You don’t tell it the way Nora told it,” Isaac pointed out.

Taylor sighed, wearily. “Ike, I’m telling it my way.”

“Fine.” Isaac sighed. “Whatever.”

“So, anyway, Jesus-”

“Joe,” Zac interjected.

“No!” Taylor was emphatic. “You can’t call him Joe just because you don’t like the name Jesus!”

“Why not?” Zac asked.

“Because what if I didn’t like the name Zac and called you something else instead?” Taylor demanded. “You would be mad.”

“No I wouldn’t,” Zac insisted. “I would be happy. Call me Spiderman.”

“No!” Taylor was trying very hard to be patient. “Now be quiet. I’m trying to tell the story, Zac.”

“Spiderman,” Zac corrected.

“Zac!” Taylor insisted.

“Spiderman,” Zac assented.

Taylor decided to drop the subject entirely. “Anyway, Mary and Joseph had to go to a city so that they could be counted.”

“Why?” Zac asked. “There were only two of them.”

Taylor bit his lip. “Yeah, well, maybe they couldn’t count. And while they were there, Mary got the baby.”

“Where’d she get it?” Zac asked.

“In a place where animals were,” Taylor explained. “Unstable.”

“Unstable?” Zac repeated.

“Unstable,” Taylor assured him. “Where babies come from.” He turned to Isaac. “Right, Ike?”

“No,” Isaac shook his head. “Babies don’t come from an unstable, they come from the mother.”

“How do they get in the mother?” Zac asked.

Isaac was quiet for a moment. Should he tell them?

“Sex,” Taylor answered, knowingly.

“Tay!” Isaac was shocked. “How do you know that?”

“All the kids in my class knows it,” Taylor answered. “The mother does sex with the father and the baby comes.”

“What’s sex?” Zac asked.

Taylor shrugged, nonchalant. “Kissing, I guess. So don’t kiss a girl, or you’ll have a baby.”

“Only girls can have babies,” Isaac interjected. He didn’t know whether to believe Taylor or not. Kissing was sex? He’d thought there was more to it than that. . . people kissed on TV all the time. . . but he guessed there wasn’t.

“No, I saw a guy at the store,” Taylor broke in, but he didn’t explicate. Instead, he took a deep breath. “Now, I will tell you the rest of my story. Okay?” It was clear that his brothers did not have the option of choosing not to listen. “They had the baby in Unstable, and they put him in the manager.”

“Manger,” Isaac corrected.

“Manager,” Taylor agreed. “The place where the animals ate.”

“They fed God’s baby to a bunch of animals?” Zac’s mouth dropped open.

“No!” Taylor shook his head. “They didn’t have a bed.”

“So they fed-” Zac began.

“No, they let him sleep in the manager. The animals didn’t eat him. And that’s Christmas,” Taylor finished.

“That’s not what Nora said-” Isaac broke in.

“This is my story and I’m telling it the way I want to!” Taylor exclaimed.

“Fine.” Isaac rolled his eyes. “Do whatever you want.”

“So, anyway,” Taylor added, “Nora has Jesus’s mother downstairs. She’s the virgin tree.”

“La virgencita,” Isaac corrected.

“Whoever she is, Nora’s got her on a table.” Taylor remained unperturbed. “With some flowers. And a candle.”

All three of them were quiet for a moment. “That’s scary,” Zac whispered. “Why does she have that?”

“Because if she doesn’t keep her there, she’ll come and sacafice you,” Taylor informed him.

“No,” Isaac shook his head. “That’s not true.” He was sick of the sacrificing threat, and didn’t want Zac to start crying.

“Why?” Zac asked again. “Really.”

Taylor sighed. “Because that’s what they do in the Drinkingman’s Repulpit.”

“The Dominican Republic,” Isaac corrected.

“The place where Nora lived before,” Taylor amended.

Zac sounded worried. “What if she comes upstairs and gets us?” he asked.

“It’s not real,” Isaac pointed out. “It’s just a statue.”

“Oh, and then the wisemen came!” Taylor remembered. “And they saw a star in the sky, and they got in their cars and followed it.”

“Their camels.” Isaac sighed. “Tay, they didn’t have cars back then.”

Taylor rolled his eyes. “Ike, nobody rides on camels. That’s really dumb.”

“You’re going to hell!” Zac exclaimed, gleefully. “You said ‘dumb!’”

“They did too ride on camels!” Isaac piped. “Nora said.”

“Camels are cigarettes,” Taylor announced. “Nobody can ride on them.”

Again, the room fell silent as all three boys considered this. “Maybe like a witch?” Zac proposed. “Maybe they could fly?”

“Well,” Isaac admitted, “they were really wise men. So maybe they knew how.”

“And they followed the star through the sky. . .” Taylor mused. “And so the three wise men flew on the camels through the sky and they gave the baby Jesus gold-”

“Why would a baby want gold?” Zac asked. “They shoulda buyed him a blankie or something.”

“Well, maybe they didn’t know what kind of blankie to pick out,” Taylor decided. “Maybe they wanted to get him a blankie with his name stamped on it, but they didn’t know his name, so they just gave his mommy and daddy some money.”

“But you said God maked the baby be named Jesus,” Zac pointed out.

“Well, maybe God didn’t tell them anything yet,” Taylor mused. “Or he forgot to tell the wiseguys.”

“Wise men.” Isaac was beginning to wonder why he bothered correcting Taylor at all.

“And they gave him frank sense,” Taylor went on. “And Mir.”

“What’s Mir?” Zac asked.

Isaac knew the answer to that. “A space station.”

“Maybe that’s what they saw in the sky!” Zac exclaimed.

“Oh, yeah!” Taylor’s eyes grew wide. “I didn’t think about that. You’re really smart, Zac.”

Zac didn’t skip a beat. “Spiderman.”

“That’s not your name!” Taylor was dismayed. “And a bad king was going to kill the baby. His name was Harold.”

“Herod.” Isaac yawned.

“Harold wanted to be the biggest king, but Jesus was bigger, so Harold wanted to get rid of him. But the angel came to Joseph in a dream and said to go to Egypt.”

“Where’s Egypt?” Zac asked.

“Down by Florida,” Taylor said.

“No it’s not!” Isaac shrieked.

“You’ve never been there,” Taylor pointed out.

“It is not by-” Isaac persisted.

“And they got to go to Egypt,” Taylor finished. “Wasn’t that a good story?”

“No.” Isaac shook his head. “You didn’t tell it right.”

“It was scary,” Zac affirmed.

Taylor paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. “Well,” he said, “I liked it.”

“Nora keeps a statue of la virgencita because that’s what a lot of people do in the Dominican Republic,” Isaac explained to Zac. “Her parents have one, and their parents did, and when Nora went to see her grandmother, her grandmother gave her the statue and Nora set it up. It’s just a statue, though. It can’t come up the stairs.”

“Oh.” Pacified, Zac put his thumb in his mouth and twined his fingers around Bear’s fur.

“I liked my story better,” Taylor said. “It was more interestinger.”

Chapter Forty-Eight?

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