TheWall Street Journal’s online news feed broke the story. EA, the world’s largest maker of e-games, had made a formal offer to acquire Legend.
The next day, the news was everywhere.
Thirty-six hours later, Colin’s second investment became the hottest ticket in town. Two major corporations were vying to buy it outright. Bidding up the price. Two, three, four times beyond Colin’s most extravagant hopes.
Colin traveled down to Roland’s office by Uber. He stood there beside Lucretia’s desk watching her complete the sales. Almost afraid to ask her for the final prices. Both times scarcely able to breathe after she replied. The lady was in her sixties, grey-haired and caramel-skinned and so deadpan she spoke with a drum-like cadence no matter what thenews. Even when she had become another investor. Along with almost all of the other lawyers and secretaries working in Roland’s firm.
After the sales were completed, Aaron walked Colin back to the elevators, patted him on the back, and said, “Enjoy your hour in the sun. Remember this moment when things don’t go according to plan.”
He spent the next few weeks holding to his routine. July sped into August, and the southeastern United States entered another hurricane season. Only this year North Carolina’s coastal region remained locked in an unseasonable drought. Wildfires caused by lightning strikes erupted in the pine forests west of the city. Often on his dawn walks to the club, he could both smell the smoke and watch dark tendrils float in the sky overhead. Thankfully, the fires remained somewhat under control, and the city itself never came under threat.
He could feel his body gradually becoming stronger. The food, the walks, the almost daily swims, they all had an impact. He was moving easier inside his own skin. For the first time in his life, he actually enjoyed looking at himself in the mirror.
He knew his world was undergoing seismic shifts. It wasn’t just the money now sitting in the burgeoning fund, or how he would be starting university as a fully matriculated student in just a few weeks. In many respects, the nightmare fears he had known as a child were with him still. All the dark shadows simply did not vanish because his father had gone silent and the investments were paying off. Colin was changing. His world was different. And yet so very much remained exactly the same as it always had been.
The second week of August, he made two more investments. A week later he added another. He continued to scour the sources, input the data, search for clues. And yet it was all done at a safer distance. Late at night, when he wokeand lay staring at the ceiling, he felt as though the currents dominating his life had reached a single solitary quiet moment. But it was only a matter of time before they gripped him in another torrent of power and swept him back into the maelstrom. And throughout it all, the void at the center of his being remained the silent force it had always been.
Three days later, he went for an early dinner with Arnold and Sandrine. They took him to the Oceanic Restaurant in Wrightsville Beach, almost an hour’s drive in summertime traffic. The talk was mostly about inconsequential things, though at one point they asked a number of questions about his latest investments. From that it almost seemed natural to shift over to his plans for the future. Colin found himself thinking about Lenny as he replied. On one level, he heard himself explaining how much it meant to stay at Sojourn House, have a routine, be part of something familiar. Several times during the evening, Colin felt as though Lenny had become an invisible presence there at the table. Observing the simple pleasures that had never been his to claim.
When Colin arrived back at Sojourn House, he found Lenny seated in the television room, his laptop open on the sofa beside him. “What’s up?”
Lenny nodded slowly, like the question required great thought. “I’ve been wondering that exact same thing.”
Colin walked in and pulled over a chair. “You lost me.”
“You’ve been real nice to me.” Each word was carefully spaced out. Like the individual sounds required effort. “These lessons in math, I couldn’t have done them without you.”
Colin had no idea what to say.
Lenny nodded, as if he approved of Colin’s silence. “I’ve been sitting here thinking back. You know. Trying to find a time when I’ve been happier.” The youth looked up. “What I’m wanting to say …”
And just like that, the light went out of Lenny’s eyes.
Colin had no idea what had happened. The gentle shift, the silent transition, it left him unable to even breathe.
Lenny sighed once, and drifted over, landing on his side on the sofa. His shoulder struck the laptop, sending it tumbling to the floor.
“Lenny?”
But the child was gone.
CHAPTER25
When Sandrine and Arnold arrived, Colin had thrown up his meal into the bushes beside the kitchen door. Grant and Mrs. Fitzgerald were out front, along with the police and the EMT wagon now holding Lenny’s body.
The only time he almost lost it was when Sandrine wrapped her arms around him. Arnold kept patting his shoulder, speaking words that arrived from some vast telescopic distance. Finally, they pulled him forward and loaded him into Arnold’s SUV and drove him away. Colin turned around and watched until the flashing blue and red lights were cut off by the academy entrance. They entered the flow of normal nighttime traffic. They drove to Arnold’s town house. They bedded him down in the guest room. They spoke words, they offered comfort, they sheltered him the best they could.
The next morning, he woke up and lay there for hours. The sun traced its way across the floor. He must have dozed off again because the next thing he knew the sun’sangle had moved westward. He rose and dressed and drifted into the living room, feeling guilty over being hungry. Notes were there on the kitchen counter, but he couldn’t be bothered to read. He made a bowl of cereal and fruit, ate it standing by the front window. Then he pulled off the bedspread, carried it into the living room, lay down on the couch, and slept.
Colin attended the memorial service only because Sandrine and Arnold and Celeste ganged up on him. They did so with loving firmness. They spoke to him as friends. They pressured him into his new jacket and tie and trousers. One or another of them kept a hand on his shoulder, guiding him across the campus and into the chapel attached to the new building. The events washed over him in an arid sweep, carried by another wind pushing hard from the west, bearing the empty bitterness of a wasted life. The unfairness was an acidic dreg he took in with every breath. None of it made sense. The words people spoke to him, the caring nature of the trio who surrounded him, it was all filtered through the fog of sorrow. He heard Sandrine sniff from time to time, and watched from a distance as Celeste passed her a tissue. Colin spent most of the service wishing there was someone he could rage at. Scream his anger at all the mysteries that had stolen away his friend.
The day finally came into tight focus when Lenny’s father approached him. He was a bulky man, dark and uncomfortable in a suit he probably had bought just for this occasion. His hands were big, solid, like mallets attached to wrists as thick as Colin’s shins. “I heard from Lenny you been nice to my boy.”
Colin spoke the first words that day. “He was incredible. I mean …” That was as far as he got.
Even so, the man seemed to accept the words as enough. “I never did understand what he was going on about. It meanta lot to my boy, having a friend who accepted him for who he was.”
“It was more than that.” Colin felt the words clog in his throat. But they had to be spoken. It was important. “He taught me so much.”
