understanding of death … Absorbs emotions of others around her/him … May show signs of irritability … May exhibit changes in eating, crying, and in bowel and bladder movements …
James, looking over her shoulder, whispered in Ana’s ear: “That could be a description of me.” She didn’t smile, caught on the last line: Bowel movements. Ana wondered where they would put all the used diapers, the wads of wipes, if they would need to buy one of those pneumatic tube garbage cans. One time at Sarah’s there had been a perfect ball of a dirty diaper in the centre of the living room for the entire duration of Ana’s visit, distracting her, crying out for disposal. Finally, when Sarah left the room for a moment, Ana grabbed it. She had stuffed the slick mass in the kitchen garbage, then scrubbed her hands at the sink like a surgeon.
“We need to stop at the store,” said Ana, suddenly, to no one.
James was putting running shoes on Finn’s feet. They looked new, shiny black and cheap. Finn opened and closed the bus pop-up book, happy to let James Velcro him in.
“Finn take book home?” he asked. Mrs. Bailey crouched down and enveloped him in her arms, his body sinking into her endless chest. The word “home” rippled through every person in the room.
“Yes, sweetie. You take it.”
She stood, handing Ana a shopping bag. “A few clothes I had lying around.”
James and Ana backed out the door, murmuring thank-yous. Finn slipped between their bodies and ran down the hall quickly. Then, at the far end of the corridor where the light was dimmest, he stopped and looked back. His eyes scanned Ana, then James, taking in their nervous smiles. He looked, for a moment, as if he might back away, but he waited, puzzled and patient, until they caught up to him.
James put the car seat in the back while Finn walked around Ana’s legs, ducking through them from time to time, not laughing but with a great sense of purpose. She looked around uneasily. A group of black teen-aged boys leaned on the spoiler of a Honda sedan, talking loudly, laughing. One tossed a basketball back and forth in his hands. A woman in a hijab with a plastic grocery bag lightly banged against Ana and mumbled, eyes on the ground.
Suddenly, Finn sprinted into the parking lot, toward the group of men. That car is coming too fast, thought Ana. She looked first for James, who was bent over the back seat. “James, solve it,” she thought, but there was no time to say it before she was running, and as she ran, the tallest of the teen-agers looked up, saw two things: a blond boy running toward him, and the car aloft, somehow silent and soundless, Finn too small to be seen by the driver, the exact tiny size to fit between two wheels. The teenager, the stranger, stepped out into the path of the car, put his fingers in his mouth and whistled like a train. Others were shouting: “Stop! Man! Slow the fuck down! Fucking slow down!” And it did, the car slowed down, the sun too bright to see the eyes of the driver, just as Ana was upon Finn, had him by the shoulders, shaking him.
“Don’t do that! You can’t run away!” She was shouting. Finn looked up at her, his lips vibrating.
“Lady, you okay?” called one of the boys. She had Finn in front of her, her arms straight out, gripping his shoulders.
“Basketball,” he said, and started crying.
“Thank you,” called Ana, nodding to the boys, hoisting Finn to her hip. The boys watched her. One bounced the ball.
“I think it’s in,” announced James, uncoiling from the car, his forehead shining.
He rose to a puzzling image, Ana with the child clinging to her neck, crossing the parking lot, shadowed by a slow-moving silver car.
“What happened?” asked James. Ana shook her head, passed him Finn, who relaxed instantly into James’s arms, ceased his sobbing, shifting into a low purr.
Ana’s hands fluttered as she buckled herself in. In the back, James was cursing, trying to connect straps and buckles.
“Do you know how this works, Finny?” he asked. “What do you say? Can you help me?”
Ana gripped the dashboard.
“Can we go, please? Can we just go?”
James clicked the final latch and patted Finn’s head.
They drove out of the parking lot, under the collective glance of the teen-age boys, Ana hating herself for her judgment, her fear. She blamed her own