“He’ll be fine with me too, I promise. I want him to meet Matthias and Harry, and I’ll be plenty safe; you know how many people live in my house. If he’s a crazy ax murdering psycho you can be sure to tell me you told me so.”
“Not funny. I still think this is a very bad idea, Sonnet. You call me the minute you get home, you hear?”
“Yes, Jim, I hear,” I hug him tightly. “And I will.” Drat. That’ll mean a trip across to Gladys’ to use her phone. She’ll keep me all night, plying me with expired cookies, powdered lemonade, and pictures of her grandchildren. If anyone’s going to kidnap me for all eternity, it’s Gladys, not Bar.
When I collect Bar he is as quiet as ever. Silent as we leave the soup kitchen. Silent as we walk to the Blue Beast. Silent as I unlock the passenger side and open the door for him. Silent still as I get in myself and turn the key. Thank goodness for small favors, the van in front of me has moved and it’s an easy thing to pull away from the curb and onto the street.
“How long have you been here?” I ask, glancing sideways at my passenger. He sits nervously and stares straight ahead.
“Today. Just today,” he answers, tonelessly.
“I’ve been here two years. My family is Lost too. You’ll be safe with us.”
I don’t know what I was expecting as far as a reaction, but more silence wasn’t it. We drive on.
“My family was Lost as well,” he finally answers, softly. “But we didn’t travel last together. We were too far away from each other at the camp. I pray they traveled somewhere though, even if it is not with me. As long as they got out. That’s all that matters.”
“Yes,” I say, just as softly. I can barely hear myself. “Yes, that’s what matters.” Suddenly what has happened with Rose seems less important. I am not the only one to have lost someone they loved. And I have had fourteen years at least to come to grips with never seeing my sister again. This poor man has had one night and has lost his whole family. I know already that we will be his substitute; a pitiful one at best, but we will be his new family. For this is what the Lost do when we can do nothing else – we take each other in and understand one another. And so the circle continues: loss and the dawn of a new day, the holding of hands in a soup kitchen, the lies we tell everyone else. Oh, this is Bar, my cousin, I will say to Penny or to Micki or to Gladys. He’s with us now.
Chapter Ten
After parking the Blue Beast almost exactly where I had stolen it from my driveway, Bar helps me carry my laundry baskets up the steps and waits for me while I fumble for my house key. By the looks of things, no one is home, but no one ever looks home even when we are. The broken blinds block a surprising amount of light, and the dated (so I’ve been told) dark, faux wood paneling on the walls make the interior somewhat gloomy. Not to mention we are people who are used to going without electricity and so we sometimes forget to use the lights much at all. So I’m not exactly taken aback when we walk through the door and Matthias and Harry are home after all. The television is on, the only glow in the room, tuned to a game show, and my two favorite brothers in the history of the world are sitting side by side on the couch, eating microwave TV dinners. Prue would be appalled, but she doesn’t appear to be home.
“Boys,” I say, still in Italian. Matthias and Harry, of course, speak it fluently (of all in my house they speak the most languages at a solid and nearly flawless 20 between the two of them) and they look up at me, then at Bar, curiosity in their gazes. “Boys, this is Bar. He is Lost, has just come from Germany during the war sometime, and he’s with us now. Shove over a bit and share that disgusting- looking food.” I nod towards them as I look at Bar and smile. My nod is supposed to convey trust, a sort of ‘it’s okay, don’t be afraid’ kind of thing. It