Chương 15
He had imagined Vanessa as a monster often enough.
Monsters were simple.
Vanessa was not.
She had saved Margaret after the crash.
Hidden Ethan from people who might have harmed him.
Fed him.
Raised him.
Lied to him.
Used him.
Frightened him.
Abducted him.
Protected him and endangered him until the difference collapsed.
“Yes,” Arthur said.
Ethan watched him.
“But that is mine to carry.”
The boy returned to the worms.
A year after the terminal, Ethan decided he wanted to see Vanessa.
Margaret opposed it.
Arthur opposed it more quietly.
The therapist did not recommend immediate refusal.
They discussed it for weeks.
Eventually Ethan was permitted a supervised video call.
Arthur waited outside the room.
Margaret stood beside him.
“You’re pacing.”
“I am walking.”
“In a twelve-foot hallway.”
Arthur stopped.
“Do you think this is a mistake?”
“Yes.”
“So do I.”
They looked at the closed door.
Margaret leaned against the wall.
“Still letting him do it.”
“Yes.”
“Look at you.”
“Don’t.”
She smiled.
Twenty minutes later Ethan came out.
His face was pale.
Arthur stood.
“How was it?”
Ethan shrugged.
Margaret asked, “Do you want to talk?”
“No.”
They respected that for almost four minutes.
Then Ethan said from the back seat of the car, “She said she’s sorry.”
Arthur looked in the mirror.
Margaret turned slightly.
“What did you say?”
“I said okay.”
Arthur waited.
Ethan stared out the window.
“I didn’t forgive her.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I might later.”
Arthur’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
Margaret noticed.
Ethan did too.
“Grandpa.”
“Yes?”
“That’s mine.”
Arthur looked at him in the mirror.
The words were simple.
They also sounded like Margaret’s letter.
He nodded.
“Yes.”
Ethan went back to watching traffic.
Arthur drove home.
Two years after the storm, the suspended cable-car terminal reopened after renovations.
Arthur received an invitation because Hale Meridian had quietly donated to the mountain rescue program following Ethan’s recovery.
He threw the invitation away.
Ethan found it in the recycling.
“Can we go?”
Arthur stared.
“No.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“I want to see it.”
“No.”
Ethan looked at Margaret.
She raised both hands.
“Not getting in the middle.”
Arthur glared.
“You are his mother.”
“And you are currently doing the thing from the letter.”
He went silent.
Ethan waited.
Arthur hated democracy in families.
“Why do you want to go?”
Ethan shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
“That is not a reason.”
“It is a reason. It’s just not a good one.”
Arthur almost smiled.
They went.
In daylight, without a blizzard, the terminal looked smaller.
Ethan was eight now.
Taller.
His hair remained impossible.
He wore both socks.
Arthur checked.
Ethan caught him.
“I have two.”
“I see that.”
The polished floor had been replaced with textured stone.
The platform doors had new locking systems.
A plaque thanked donors.
Arthur avoided reading it.
Ethan walked to the spot near the glass where he had fallen.
He stood there.
Margaret remained several yards back.
Arthur stayed beside her.
Neither approached.
Ethan looked outside.
The cable car moved steadily over the valley.
No swaying.
No alarms.
No red beacon.
After a minute he walked to the platform door.
Arthur’s body tightened.
Margaret touched his arm.
Ethan stepped outside.
Arthur followed at a distance.
The air was cold.
Clear.
Mountains stretched beneath a blue sky.
Ethan leaned on the railing.
“That’s where she kicked it.”
Arthur knew what he meant.
“The mitten?”
“Yes.”
Arthur nodded.
Ethan looked down toward the snowbank far below.
“You kept it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Arthur thought about lying.
Sentimental value.
Evidence.
Memory.
Instead he said, “I was afraid if I threw it away, I would be throwing away proof that I got to you in time.”
Ethan looked at him.
“You would still have got me.”
“I know.”
“You don’t need proof.”
Arthur smiled faintly.
“I’m learning.”
Ethan nodded.
They stood together.
After a while Margaret joined them.
Arthur looked at her.
She looked at Ethan.
No one said anything important.
A family behind them argued about whether they had enough time to reach the restaurant before a reservation.
A toddler dropped a cracker.
Someone’s phone rang.
The cable machinery hummed.
Ordinary life moved around the place where Ethan had once believed his life was ending.
He pulled off one glove.
Arthur immediately said, “Put that back on.”
Ethan groaned.
Margaret laughed.
“Some things never change.”
“They should when frostbite is involved.”
“It’s fifty degrees.”
“Mountain weather changes quickly.”
Ethan shoved the glove into his pocket.
Arthur opened his mouth.
Margaret raised one eyebrow.
Arthur closed it.
Ethan smiled.
They took the cable car down together.
Arthur hated every second.
He tried not to show it.
Halfway across the valley, the car rocked gently in a crosswind.
His hand tightened around the seat.
Ethan noticed.
“You scared?”
“No.”
Margaret looked at him.
Arthur sighed.
“Yes.”
Ethan slid closer.
Not onto his lap.
He was too old for that now, according to him.
He simply pressed his shoulder against Arthur’s arm.
Arthur looked out at the mountains.
Years earlier, he would have treated fear like a problem to eliminate.
A stronger cable.
A different route.
A private vehicle.
A wall around everything fragile.
Now he sat inside it.
The car swayed once more.
Ethan remained beside him.
Margaret sat across from them, alive, older, scarred, imperfect, occasionally infuriating.
Arthur thought of the funeral, the bracelet, the years nobody could return to them.
He thought of Vanessa in the terminal, saying Ethan was the mistake she had been paid to erase.
She had been wrong about almost everything contained in that sentence.
No one had paid her to erase Ethan.
Benton had eventually tried to recover evidence, not the child himself.
Ethan had never been a mistake.
And whether Arthur deserved the word grandfather had turned out to matter less than what he did after receiving it.
At the bottom station, the doors opened.
Ethan ran ahead.
Margaret called, “Walk.”
He slowed for approximately three seconds.
Then ran again.
Arthur smiled.
Margaret looked at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re doing the face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you pretend you’re not pleased.”
“I don’t have such a face.”
“You absolutely do.”
They stepped onto the platform.
Ethan waited by the exit, bouncing impatiently.
Outside, the afternoon sun reflected off patches of old snow.
Arthur walked toward him.
Halfway there, Ethan pulled the red mitten from his coat pocket.
Arthur stopped.
He had not known Ethan brought it.
The mitten was too small now.
Faded.
A little stiff from having once frozen solid.
Arthur had kept it in a drawer for two years.
Apparently Ethan had taken it.
He held it up.
“Can I?”
Arthur knew exactly what he meant.
His first instinct was no.
Keep it.
Preserve it.
Proof.
Then he looked at his grandson.
“Yes.”
Ethan opened the terminal door.
The mountain wind moved through his hair.
He threw the mitten.
Not violently.
Not far.
It landed ten feet away on clean snow.
Arthur’s chest tightened.
Ethan looked at it for a few seconds.
Then turned away.
“You’re not getting it?”
Arthur asked.
“No.”
“What if you want it later?”
Ethan shrugged.
“I already know what happened.”
Margaret stood behind Arthur.
Her hand touched his shoulder.
Ethan pushed through the next door into the sunlight.
Arthur looked once at the mitten lying alone on the snow.
For two years it had meant he reached the boy in time.
Now it meant something else.
Or perhaps it meant nothing.
Perhaps it was simply an old child’s mitten that no longer fit anyone.
May you like
Arthur let the door close.
Then he followed Ethan outside.
