"She's coming," Taylor said, trying to remain confident. "I know she is."
Early December snows had drifted over the ground, washing the world in lacy white. It was a week and a half after the boys had first come to stay with Dan and Nora, and Mary, the social worker, had arranged a visit with their mother.
Kathleen had agreed to attend a residential drug and alcohol treatment program and attend counseling and parenting classes. If she could get her life back together, it was decided, it would ultimately be better for everyone involved. Kathleen sounded like she was ready to make an effort, Dan thought, wondering how well she'd succeed. He didn't know. The visit had been scheduled for twelve thirty. . . it was one fifteen now.
The air in the tiny office was electric with anticipation. It was true, Dan realized, that kids really did harbor loyalty to their parents, no matter what kind of parents they had. He'd done a lot of reading, and several sources had examined the effects of abuse upon children. Often, they tended to transfer the blame from the perpetrators of the abuse to themselves, which, he realized, Isaac had done very strongly. Isaac. God. . . the kid had hardly said a word in the past few days. Who did he talk to? Taylor?
Dan grinned. He loved Taylor, but he doubted you could get much out of the kid that made any sense. A few days before he'd wandered past the boy's bedroom at night and peered through the door. Isaac and Zac were both asleep. Taylor was staring out the window, murmuring softly.
"What are you doing?" Dan had whispered.
Taylor looked up, not at all startled, and smiled at Dan. "The moon people," he said. "I'm singing to them."
That had prompted Dan to go over and feel Taylor's forehead, expecting to find the kid burning with fever and delirious. He wasn't, though. . . his skin was cooler than it had been in days and he seemed completely lucid, except for the bizarre things he was saying.
"The moon people like it when you sing to them," Taylor explained. "You have to sing the moon people song."
"How does that go?" Dan knelt next to the bed, wondering if the child was possessed.
"Moon people, moon people, moon people, moon people," Taylor sang. "Everybody go to sleep. Everybody go to sleep. It's night. It's late. Everybody go to sleep."
"I have friends who think the same way. . ." Dan was hesitant to admit that these friends often experienced bad LSD flashbacks.
"Everyone can see the moon people!" Taylor assured him. "You just have to look. But Ike doesn't. He tells me all the moon people fell off the moon, and they're dead."
Dan tried hard not to grin. "Why'd he tell you that?"
Taylor scratched his head. "I don't know. I woke him up in the middle of the night so he could see the moon people, and he said he'd rather sleep."
"Ike certainly has his priorities mixed up," Dan commented.
"He does not!" Taylor narrowed his eyes at Dan. "Ike is the best older brother I ever had in my whole entire life."
"He's very nice," Dan agreed. "But he doesn't want to see the moon people?"
"No." Taylor shook his head. "Even though I told him the moon people want to meet him." He smiled at Dan. "They wanted to meet you, too."
"Oh." Dan felt vaguely uncomfortable. "Hi, moon people!" He waited. "What are they saying?"
"They say they want you to sing to us," Taylor said. "The moon people song."
Dan nodded. "Okay. Let me remember it." He took a deep breath. "Moon people, moon people, moon people, moon people. Everybody go to sleep. Everybody got to sleep. It's night. It's late. Taylor had better go to sleep."
Taylor giggled. "No, I'm not tired."
"Well, you'd better go to sleep, or I'll do a little moon peopling of my own. . ." Dan had no idea what that meant, but decided it sounded sufficiently intimidating.
"Sing it again," Taylor prompted. Dan took a deep breath.
"Moon people, moon people. . ."
Jesus, Dan thought, looking at his watch. It was nearly one thirty. Zac had climbed into Mary's desk chair and was scribbling on a piece of paper. Isaac was sitting on the edge of his chair, his feet planted firmly on the floor and his hands clasped between his knees. Head down, he contemplated the carpet. Taylor was staring through the slats in the blinds, scanning the parking lot for any sign of his mother.
Dan and Mary exchanged a knowing glance. She wasn't coming.
"When's my mommy getting here?" Zac piped. He tried to remember what his mother looked like, but could only remember Nora. He wanted to see his mommy. He remembered that she had blond hair and sometimes she liked him. Sometimes she didn't like him. Zac bit his lip. "She said she would come, so where is she?"
"She's coming," Taylor said, hope rising in his voice. "I think I saw her in that car."
"Where?" Isaac, Mary, Dan and Zac all turned to face him at the same time. Taylor squinted out the window.
"It isn't her," he decided, his voice trailing off. "It isn't. . ."
"She never does what she says she's going to do," Isaac muttered. "She doesn't evened care enough to come and visit her own kids."
"Isaac. . ." Mary extended a sympathetic arm to him, but he backed away.
"Don't touch me. Please?"
Dan and Mary exchanged another glance. He wasn't going to be able to hold it in much longer. . .
"She's not coming?" Taylor's lower lip quivered. "You think she's not coming, Ike?"
"She's coming, don't worry." Zac turned around, concerned, and patted Taylor on the back. "She's coming, right Ike?"
"No," Isaac informed him, dourly.
"Don't listen to him," Zac told Taylor. "She's coming."
"No she's not!" Isaac's voice sounded dangerously close to breaking.
"Yes she is, too." Taylor defended, as Zac's eyes filled.
"Maybe she won't come! Maybe she forgot!"
"The three of you!" Dan interceded. "Maybe something happened to her. Maybe she ran out of gas. Maybe her car broke down. Maybe something happened and she couldn't call. I'm sure she wouldn't forget about you."
"I'm not," Isaac scowled. Dan had to admit that the kid had a point.
"My mommy hates us," Zac observed, his voice emotionless. Dan pulled him into his lap.
"She does not hate you."
"She does too." Zac rested his head against Dan's chest and put his thumb in his mouth. "She does too hate us."
"No she doesn't," Dan murmured. "No she doesn't."
"Maybe that's her. . ." Taylor began, his eyes darting hopefully toward a particular car.
"Taylor, she's not coming," Isaac told his younger brother.
"Yes she is! Don't say that!" Taylor clenched his hands into fists and scowled. "She is too!" He thought. "Maybe we should wave out the window or something for her. Maybe she wants to come in, but she can't see where the room is."
"Honey, I don't think so," Mary began, hesitantly.
"Well, maybe she doesn't want to come in," Taylor suggested. "Maybe she wants to stand in the parking lot and wave."
"She wouldn't take the time out of her busy schedule," Isaac scoffed. Dan found himself amazed by the kid. He was smart. . . you couldn't put anything past him. . . but he sensed a building desperation surrounding Isaac. . . he was someone who wasn't going to put up with much more, who couldn't put up with much more. He didn't know any eight year olds who knew so much about life, but what Isaac had seen hadn't impressed him much.
"She isn't going to come. I knew she wasn't." Isaac let out a long, shaky breath. "I didn't think that she'd come. I didn't ever believe it."
"But she said she would!" Taylor struggled not to cry. "She said she would come."
"She doesn't want to see us," Isaac told him. "We should know that."
"Taylor, Isaac. . ." Dan rested his chin on the top of Zac's head and wondered if there was anyway he could make this any easier, any less painful. "You know, I don't know what happened with your mother."
"Maybe she will call," Mary suggested. "We could always reschedule the visit. Would you excuse me a second? I have to go make a phone call. . ."
"See?" Dan asked, as soon as Mary left. "We can always reschedule the visit for another day."
"No we couldn't." Isaac set his jaw firmly. "Because I don't want to see her." The instant he said the words, he wished he could take them back, but he couldn't. "I don't want to see her..."
"You have to, Ike, it's Mommy!" There was a note of desperation in Taylor's voice. "It's Mommy!"
"Well, if she doesn't want to see me, I don't want to see her," Isaac insisted. "I don't."
"She isn't coming," Zac said, simply. "Mommy's not coming."
"See, he knows it," Isaac told Taylor. "He knows it, but you don't believe it."
"Mommy isn't coming?" Taylor drew in a deep, shaky breath. "She's not?"
"No," Isaac told him.
"Honey, it doesn't look that way," Dan began. "I wish I could tell you she was. . ."
Zac looked from Dan to Isaac. "Why do she say she's coming, and then not come?"
"Because she's a liar," Isaac told him. "You can't believe a single thing she says."
"You're a liar!" Taylor burst out. "And I don't believe a single thing you say."
Dan saw a flicker of deep pain in Isaac's eyes, but it disappeared so quickly he wondered if he was imagining things. "Go ahead. See if I care."
"And Mommy's not coming," Taylor said, his voice even, level and calculated, "because of you."
The room fell silent. "That isn't true," Dan said. "Taylor, that isn't true at all. . ."
Isaac stood up suddenly, and dashed out the door and down the hall. Carefully, Dan set Zac into the chair and started after him.
Zac turned to his brother. "Tay, you shouldn't have said that."
"I know!" Taylor wailed. He burst into tears.
"Isaac?" Dan pushed the door to the men's' room open. "Ike, are you in here?"
"I hate her, I hate her, I hate her I hate her, I hate her, I hate her, I hate her, I hate her. . ." Isaac was beating his fists against the tiled wall, taking his anger out on something that couldn't hit him back. He was seething.
"Ike, don't do that. You'll hurt yourself." Dan put his arms around Isaac to hold him away from the wall. Isaac fought against him with all the strength he could muster.
"Let me go, okay?" the tone of Isaac's voice bordered on hysterical. "Let me go!"
"Are you going to throw yourself against the wall again?" Dan asked.
"Yes," Isaac assured him.
"Sorry," Dan apologized. "I can't, in that case. You'll hurt yourself."
Isaac twisted around to face him. "Why do you care?"
Dan didn't pause. "Because I care about you. Calm down, you really will hurt yourself."
"You do not," Isaac told him. "You're lying too. Everybody lies!" He squeezed his eyes shut. Blood was trickling down his arm from where he'd scratched it on the tile. He tried to wrench out of Dan's grasp. "Just leave me alone, okay?"
"Leave you alone and let you do what, Ike? You can hit it and hit it, but you'll get hurt before the wall will." Dan's voice remained calm. "Now, what would you think of me if I let you do that?"
"I would be happy," Isaac told him. "At least I'd be dead, and I wouldn't have to see you anymore."
Dan almost grinned at that one, in spite of himself. "Yeah, that's true. Taylor and Zac would be out of luck, though."
"I don't care," Worn out, Isaac had long ago stopped trying to fight his way out of Dan's grasp. "Mom can take care of them. She only likes them."
"Taylor didn't mean that," Dan said, loosening his grip on Isaac, waiting to see if the kid were going to throw himself against the wall again.
"He did too." Clumsily, Isaac ran the back of his arm across his eyes, in a futile attempt to hide the fact that he was crying. "He did. . . because it's true."
"No it's not," Dan shook his head. "No it's not at all, Ike."
"Then why did she leave?" Isaac was standing against the wall, and Dan was kneeling on the floor, looking up at him. "Why did she leave? Why can't she just stick around and be like everybody else's mother?" His back against the wall, Isaac sank to the floor, shaking with the effort to hold back sobs that were threatening to overwhelm him. Dan sat down next to him.
"I wish I knew, Ike, I wish I knew. But it wasn't because of you. It didn't have anything to do with you."
Isaac looked up. "I should have stopped her."
Dan looked directly into his eyes. "How?"
"I should have," Isaac repeated. "I don't know how. . ."
"Yeah, because that's not your job," Dan told him, gently. "You can't be responsible for what your mother does, Ike, because she's a grown-up. She makes her own choices. And when she makes a bad choice, like she did when she left, and like she did today, you and Taylor and Zac are the ones who have to live with it. That isn't very responsible of her."
Isaac, who had curled into a ball with his knees drawn up to his chest and his chin resting on top of them, was listening intently, a faraway look in his eyes. This was the first time anyone had told him anything like this, told him that it wasn't his fault. He'd never even considered that his mother's behavior might not be his fault.
"Think about it, Ike. How easily can your mother make you do something?" Dan asked.
Isaac thought. "Pretty easy," he quavered.
"And how easily can you make her do something?" Dan asked him.
Isaac looked up. Tears were streaming down his face. "When she's drunk or high or something?"
Dan grimaced. This kid was going to break his heart. "Well, even then. Can you make her do anything you want?"
"No, not really." Isaac murmured, not lifting his head.
"So do you think you could have made her stay?"
Isaac drew in a deep breath. "If she loved us, she would have stayed. . ." That statement did him in. He broke down, the most completely alone human being Dan had ever seen.
"Ike, come here a second." Without even thinking, Dan put his arms around Isaac again, as easily as if he were Zac. This time, Isaac didn't struggle away. It was the one of the first times in a long time that someone had touched him with no intention of hurting him. . . except for Nora. Nora was different. She would always be different. . .
A lot of time passed, or maybe a little. No one came in to the bathroom, and so Dan let Isaac cry, deciding it was the best thing that he could do right now. The kid was eight years old, and, even if he acted like he were going on twenty, his emotions were those of a little boy.
Finally, Isaac calmed down, his sobs turning into long, shuddering breaths. He closed his eyes and rested against Dan, too tired to move. "I'm sorry. . ."
Dan brushed his hair back from his forehead. "What do you have to be sorry for?"
"For crying. . ." Isaac sounded matter of fact.
"Hey, it's unnatural for eight year olds not to cry," Dan noted. "Every eight year old cries."
"I didn't cry when I was seven," Isaac told him.
"Well, when I was eight I cried every day," Dan lied. "Sometimes all day."
"You did not," Isaac informed him.
"You know that for a fact?" Dan challenged.
Isaac thought. "Yes."
"Okay, so I didn't cry all day," Dan said. "But I did cry sometimes."
"Why did you cry?" Isaac asked him.
Dan thought. "I cried because. . . I cried because, sometimes, when you're a kid, crying's all that you can do."
"Yeah, I'll say," Isaac agreed, sighing. "Dan?"
"Uh huh?"
"Don't tell anyone, okay?" The question hung in the air between them, heavier than either of them imagined.
Dan answered immediately. "No, I won't tell."
Isaac sounded relieved. "Can I trust you on that?"
Dan was bemused. "Ike, you can always trust me."
"Okay. . ." Isaac nodded. And from that moment on, he decided that if he had to trust anybody, he would trust Dan. Or maybe Nora. But he'd trusted her from the beginning . . .