The Smell of Other People's Hou - Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock Page 0,35

click, click, someone has noticed us, two boys alone; click, click, someone sees us; click, someone cares; click, someone is turning out the lights for us. Click, click.

—

When I wake up alone in the play area, my first thought is that Jack has done a Sam—poof. Gone.

By the time I find Jack in the dining car playing cribbage with the night watchman, I’m too relieved to say anything. The cribbage board has ivory pegs made from walrus tusks—exactly like the one my father had. If he hadn’t left, maybe Sam would still be here, too.

It’s too hard trying to keep track of brothers who are full of their own ideas. They’re like helium balloons. At some point you just have to let go of the string and say, “Go on, then—good-bye, safe travels,” which has got to be easier than wondering whether you’re going to hold on too tight and pop the damn thing. Is that what happened to Sam?

I sit down across from the cribbage board. Jack won’t quite meet my eye.

“Have you learned to count your own points, then?” I ask, trying to sound casual, but my heart is still back in the play area, beating like a terrified rabbit.

“He’s never been able to quite get the hang of the points,” I say to the night watchman, when Jack doesn’t answer.

“He holds his own pretty well,” the man says.

His face is lined like a map; he’s worked outside on boats for so many years it’s creased in all the right places.

He smiles and holds out a wide, weathered hand for me to shake. “I’m Phil,” he says.

Then he goes back to the game.

Jack holds his cards in front of his face, as if he’s trying to make himself disappear. How long exactly has he been sneaking off, playing cribbage with Phil?

“Is that it, then?” I ask. “Are we in trouble?”

I’m so tired, if Jack wants to turn us in, then let’s get it over with so I can lie down and sleep right here under this booth. I just want to curl up with the scattered cold fries, empty wrappers, and smell of rubber boots and go to sleep for a million years.

Phil lays down a card, moves a peg, and does not look at me.

“Years ago I was the harbormaster in a little fishing town,” he says conversationally. “One night I went into the harbor bathroom and there was a brand-new little baby. Couldn’t have been more than a couple days old at most. She still had her little shrunken umbilical cord sticking out of her belly button; it hadn’t even fallen off. She was practically blue, naked, just lying in the stainless steel sink.”

Jack looks at me and raises an eyebrow, but I wonder where he’s going with this odd story.

“I wrapped her in paper towels and my raincoat—which wasn’t nearly warm enough—but she was so cold and I was just worried she might not make it; I guess I went on autopilot,” he says. “Maybe I was in shock or something. It’s not like you ever expect to find something like that.”

“Your turn,” he says to Jack, as if this is totally normal chitchat to have in the middle of a cribbage game.

“What happened?” I whisper, afraid that he’s going to tell us the baby died.

“Long story short, she was tough as nails and perked up pretty fast once I got her warm. There was, of course, a bunch of news attention and a search for who had left her, but no one ever turned up. She did wind up in a really nice family, moved up north,” he says. “She’s about your age now”—he nods at me—“maybe a little younger. She survived me being the first on the scene and knowing nothing about babies, and the scratchy woolen blanket that I finally found for her, and being abandoned. She was a little fireball.”

He looks at his watch. “I have to go make my rounds,” he tells Jack, “so we can just hold this hand if you want. No cheating while I’m gone.”

“Do you know her still?” Jack asks, and Phil sits back down.

“I lost touch,” he says, a note of sadness in his voice. “For her sake,” he adds, “in case she didn’t want to be reminded of the worst thing that ever happened to her.”

“Maybe you were the best thing that ever happened to her,” Jack says, unable to not be himself. But his optimism stabs me in the chest, reminding me again