Free Two If by Sea by Jacquelyn Mitchard Page B

sharpish. I know he hears.”
    â€œMaybe he’s scared out of it. Now I think of it, his brother said he was special.”
    â€œSpecial?”
    â€œIn America, that means the kid’s got problems. Retarded. Something. They call them special.”
    This, Frank now remembered, was not what his brother had said at all. He had said the boy was important. The brother was just a good boy. Frank would have been the same if it had been his little sister. Life was not a statement of choice in the fucking good earth or whatever Cedric had said. Life was random as a pair of dice with ten sides.
    â€œHe can be here as long as you need, of course, Frank. We’re happy to have him. Until you’ve arranged for your way home.”
    â€œWhat about Kate?” Frank nodded toward the boy.
    Tura snorted. “To keep the child? Kate? That stupid sod she’s with will never marry her. She’s got her bloomers all up over him, now they’ve ‘gone through’ so much together.” Tura made phantom quote marks in the air with her fingers. Tura was a brick. How could she be ironic the day Miles was lost? How could Frank think it? Was this what you did? Trip over your life and have a cucumber sandwich? None of them was making sense. “Our Kate’s almost glad they weathered the tsunami in church together. Romantic.” She stopped. “I’m awfully sorry, Frank. I meant no harm in that.”
    â€œNo offense taken, Tura,” Frank said. “I’ll go have a look at Glory Bee.”
    â€œWait and have a cup.” Tura got up and began to clear off the dishes, and, as Frank watched in astonishment, began throwing the crockery away rather than scraping the beans into the trash.
    â€œTura?” he said.
    She glanced at him.
    â€œYou’re throwing your dishes away. Do you want to do that?”
    Tura almost laughed. “Look at me!” she said. The little boy, who was now awake, smiled, and did a funny thing with his hands: sweep, sweep. Tura said then, “Frank, I don’t want to be on about this. It’s a day we need to be ready for mourning in our house. I like to think of the child with you. Perhaps I mean you with him.”
    â€œTura, you know that if I did that, and I can’t do that, it would be kidnapping a child.”
    Tura was at her desk by then, her large binder open before her, pen in hand.
    â€œKidnapping?” she said. “That would only be a legal thing, surely?”
    There you go, Frank thought, she’s nuts. Perhaps she’d always been nuts. Frank threw down his tea and, in two bites, ate four of Tura’s cress-and-cream sandwiches, then walked out toward the stable. Halfway, he thought he might faint. A black band strapped his eyes. He sat down in the dust. What did Glory Bee matter? It was mad that the world had literally gone under and here Frank was on his way to check the swollen ankle of a fractious filly. Glory Bee had banged her hock badly during her murderous ballet on the morning before he left.
    As he approached, he thought Glory Bee looked a bit sulky. She was huge, eighteen hands, and muscled like a wrestler. Black as her soul, Cedric said. Nothing wrong with Glory Bee that a mallet to the temple couldn’t cure, he said. Glory Bee nickered softly and rolled her eyes. I’m not up to you today, lass, he thought. You’ll be staying in that box.
    Just outside her stall, Frank sat on a tack chest and tried to think through the angles. If he left in two weeks, could he host . . . host a funeral, do up papers, and find care for the boy? Could he leave in less? A week? This baked land was nothing to him anymore. The airport was already open. Planes were bringing in supplies, medicine, doctors, relief workers, and press, but what would they be taking out? He hadn’t even considered an airline. He had to replace his passport, if he had SCUBA gear to dive down to the U.S. embassy, which was