Fortunate Son

Tommy got up on his knees and put his arms around the doctor’s neck. He held tight but was no longer crying. They stayed like that, holding each other until the families began to arrive from the cemetery.

I ra Fontanot had closed the restaurant that day and catered a meal for the memory of his friend Branwyn Beerman. He set out fried chicken and potato salad and a special dish of the spicy catfish that Branwyn ate every time she sat at his kitchen table for a meal.

People were talking and eating and drinking throughout the restaurant and in the backyard.

It was a bright day, and the sun made Thomas squint. He found Eric talking to a little black girl who had come with one of Branwyn’s cousins. The girl’s name was Robin, and she wore all yellow clothes.

“Did you look at the body?” she asked Eric.

“Sure. I had to say good-bye,” he said, half proud and half sincere.

“An’ you too, Tommy?” Robin asked.

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Wa l t e r M o s l e y

Thomas felt the tears come up to his eyes, but before he could say anything, or not say anything, Eric spoke for him.

“Tommy went to sleep with her the night she died. He woke up in the bed with her and came in to tell my dad that she was dead.”

Robin, who was two inches shorter than Eric and two inches taller than Thomas, wrapped her arms around Branwyn’s son and cried, “Poor baby!”

Adults gathered around them and commented on how kind and loving children were.

Sometime soon after Robin hugged Thomas, Elton Trueblood came up to the boy.

“I guess after the wake you’ll be comin’ home with me,”

he said with not even a word of hello.

“I have to go home with Dr. Nolan and Eric,” Thomas told his father.

“Not no more,” Elton told him. “You’re my son, and you are coming home with me.”

“I live with Dr. Nolan,” Thomas said, fear gurgling in his stomach.

“Yeah,” Eric added. “Tommy’s my brother, and he lives with me.”

“Get outta my face, white boy,” Elton said. “This black child here is my blood. Mine. Maybe I couldn’t do nuthin’ to save his mother, but you better believe I’m gonna take care’a him.”

He reached out and took Thomas by the arm. The boy didn’t know what to do so he let his weight go and fell to the ground as he’d done when he was younger with his mother and Ahn. But Elton just heaved the tiny boy up in his arms and began walking toward the back door of the restaurant.

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F o r t u n a t e S o n

Elton hadn’t counted on two things. The first was Eric’s powerful lungs. The boy shouted so loudly that everyone stopped what they were doing to see what was happening.

The second mistake Elton made was trying to take Branwyn’s son from Ira Fontanot’s place.

Elton was a big man, six feet and a little more, but Ira was six foot seven in silk socks, and he had hands like catcher’s mitts and arms made (as he used to say) from four hundred years of hard labor. Ira grabbed Elton by one shoulder and squeezed so hard that the would-be mechanic went down on his knees.

“Let the boy go,” Ira commanded.

“He’s my son,” Elton hissed through the pain.

“I don’t care what he is to you; you put him down or I put you down.”

Elton released Thomas. He ran to Dr. Nolan, who had just come from inside the restaurant.

Fontanot released his grip, and Elton rose to his feet, rubbing the sore shoulder.

“He’s my son,” Elton said again.

“Then why he live up in the doctor’s house?” Ira asked.

“Why the doctor pay for his clothes and food?”

“He’s mine and he belongs with me.”

“The courts might agree, but you can’t take a boy from his mother’s funeral and not even let him settle his affairs. You gotta do somethin’ like that right, not like some wild fool just grab a child and run.”

Elton took a step toward Ira, shouting, “You don’t have the right to take my boy!”

“And you wouldn’t wanna make him a orphan,” Ira said softly. “Back down and do this right or I will break you in two.”

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Wa l t e r M o s l e y

Elton turned to Dr. Nolan and said, “This ain’t ovah by a long shot,” and then he walked away.

Thomas was holding on to Dr. Nolan’s leg.

“Is it okay, Daddy?” he asked his mother’s lover.

“Yes, son,” Dr. Nolan replied.

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4

For the next week Thomas spent all of his time on his knees in his room when he wasn’t at school or eating with Dr. Nolan, Ahn, and Eric. He’d close his eyes and think about becoming a part of the house, and he’d feel his mother’s presence. He couldn’t speak to her, but somehow he knew that if he kept his eyes closed she’d be standing there next to him, smiling.

One night Eric came into his room after everyone else was asleep.

“Tommy?” the big six-year-old said into the darkness.

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you awake?”

“Yeah.”

“What were you doin’?” Eric asked as he climbed up onto the bed.

“I was thinkin’ that Mama was standin’ in the corner makin’ sure that I was asleep, and so I had my eyes closed so that she would think that I was.”

“Do you think that she comes into my room too?” Eric asked.