Fortunate Son

“He just never grew into a man,” Mr. Peters said. “I hope that you can one day forgive him.”

Eric didn’t answer, but he felt no enmity toward Drew. He believed that it was his own inability to love Christie that had driven the lovers together, and then his attempt to make himself love her was what destroyed them both.

Eric moved back into his father’s house so that Ahn could help with Mona. He went to the hospital every day and sat next to his comatose brother.

Thomas was surrounded by an oxygen tent that was meant to help his punctured lung heal. The doctors didn’t have much hope for him, but Eric came each morning and sat for hours in silence at his brother’s side.

O ne morn i ng, a f te r Eric’s father went to work and Ahn and Mona had gone to the stone animal park, the doorbell rang. Eric was getting ready to go to the hospital. He was on leave from his classes and had no intention of going back to school.

He opened the door to find Raela standing there. She seemed taller and more beautiful than before. It was as if she had been a child when last he saw her, Eric thought, and now she was a woman. He wondered if she had grown or if he had diminished since losing Christie.

“Hi,” she said.

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Eric felt his heart skip and hated himself for an instant.

“I can’t know you, Raela,” he said.

“It’s too late for that now,” she replied, her bearing both solemn and serene.

She walked into the house, and he closed the door behind her.

She went into the living room as if she had always lived there. She sat and so did he.

“We killed them,” he said.

“We aren’t gods,” she retorted.

“I didn’t love her, but I asked her to marry me.”

“You had a child together. What else could you do?”

“I could have been a man and done what was right.”

“What’s right?” she asked him. “What can anybody do?”

“My brother did what was right,” Eric said with conviction.

“Maybe. But he’s special. You aren’t him.”

“I don’t love you, Raela.”

“I know that. I don’t care about love. I just know that we have to be together. We have to be. You know it.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I do.”

“What about Michael? What will happen with him?”

“He’s my brother and he loves me,” the raven-haired beauty answered. “Show me upstairs.”

Eric and Raela became lovers that afternoon. He wasn’t worried about getting into trouble. He wasn’t concerned that she was too young. Staying away from her had killed Drew and Christie. Maybe even Thomas would die because of his refusal to be with her.

Raela had felt alone for her entire life. Her stepmother was more like a servant than a relative. Her brother loved her, but he 2 2 6

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couldn’t comprehend what was in her heart. And Kronin was just a big bear who wanted her to pay attention to him. No one had ever gotten close to understanding her until she met Eric.

He too was alone and unable to love. His heart was as disconnected as hers. They could at least understand each other.

Maybe there could be more.

In the weeks that followed, Eric found himself laughing often and intrigued by the way the woman-child thought.

She beat him at swimming, though he was her master at tennis. She could sprint past him in any short race, but he could run for miles and she couldn’t or wouldn’t — he was never sure which.

After her last class in the afternoon, she would meet him in Thomas’s hospital room, and they’d sit together holding hands and waiting.

M eanwh i le, Th omas t rave le d among the dead. In the depths of his coma he convened with Tremont, the drug dealer, and Bruno, his best friend. The lost puppy, Skully, scampered about at his heels while Alicia (whom he had never known in life) made them all tea and biscuits served on her tomb in the alley valley that he always thought of as his one true home. They all spoke different languages and used signs to make themselves understood. Sometimes other guests would come. RayRay shambled in one day and asked — with wordless, elaborate apologies — Thomas to forgive him. Pedro climbed down from the fire escape and handed Thomas his gun. By this he meant that he would never kill himself again.

One day Thomas said good-bye to Tremont and Bruno.

Then he and Alicia started out on a walk to the far end of the 2 2 7

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alley valley. It seemed to Thomas that he had never gone to the absolute end. The valley stretched for miles and became very wide. Trees grew tall and full above them. There were strawberry fields and orange groves along the way. Skully brought them beautiful stones and fish and tools when they needed them.

Alicia and he made love in the evenings. It was the way it had been with Monique, only instead of Lily they had Skully the dog, and because they were the same age they could have sex. The sun was bright, but Thomas didn’t mind it. The valley seemed endless, but neither one of them cared.