CHAPTER3
Celeste lived in a modest home on the outskirts of Mill Village, a historic neighborhood that had once held tenant houses rented to workers of the Tar River factories. The street was lined with older houses, mostly single story, and was crowded with old cars and workers’ vans. The yards were mostly neat and the porches were lined with flowers in hanging pots. Many were fenced in, and most of those held children playing and shouting. All the faces Colin saw were black.
She carried his little case up the front walk and through the door and into a room at the very end of a long hallway. There was no window and very little furniture, just a wooden chair and child’s desk and a pallet neatly made up on the floor. “You’ll be safe here,” Celeste declared, setting his case in the corner. “Now go wash up and come join me in the kitchen.”
When he emerged from the bathroom, Colin found a girl standing by the next door. She was a good head taller and watched him pass with a hard gaze. As he entered the kitchen,he heard her say, “Mama’s done brought home another stray. Skinny and white and scared like them others. At least this one don’t look all beat up.” And a boy’s voice replied, “Huh.”
It was just the four of them at dinner, Colin and the girl and her younger brother and Celeste. Her two children cast Colin unwelcoming looks, then ignored him entirely. The woman made no effort to break the silence. Colin did not mind. He had lived with silent meals all his life. The food was different from what he was used to, so spicy it made his mouth tingle. He realized the two kids were watching to see if he complained. He ate everything, then accepted a second portion. Her children seemed disappointed, but Celeste rewarded him with a pat on the head.
After dinner, when he started to help clear the table, Celeste gave her two children a very hard look. “Now isn’t that nice.” The sullen girl got the message and stood and carried her plate to the sink. The boy did a boneless slide off his chair, walked back down the hall, and slammed the door.
As the girl lifted the drying towel, Celeste pointed to the living room and told Colin, “There’s a few books in there. Go see if you can find something to read, then come back and keep us company.”
The room was spotless, the furniture old but well cared for. The entire rear wall was covered with shelves, and every shelf was crammed with books. Colin had never seen so many books outside the library. These were lined up like soldiers on parade, many of them hardbacks with titles he did not understand. He took one down at random and tried to make sense of the words:Signs of Arrested Development in Pre-teen Adolescents.He replaced it on the shelf and chose one from a line of leather-bound books, all of which held the same gold lettering. The titles shouted a silent symphony that made him shiver.
When he carried it back into the kitchen, Celeste turned from washing dishes and asked, “What you got there?” Thequestion turned the girl around as well. Celeste’s daughter looked at the book in his hands and her face grew harder still. It seemed everything he did made her angry. But Celeste merely turned back to her chore. “I bought all those books at a garage sale. ‘Novels That Shaped the World.’ Only made my way through half a dozen so far.”
The girl spoke for the first time since entering the kitchen. “What you going on about? That boy’s too little to know what he’s holding.”
Colin opened the cover. The title page was written in a script he had never seen before, with curling ends to the letters so that they flowed into each other. He thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. “What’s a musketeer?”
Celeste watched her daughter turn around, this time her anger tinted with something new. Surprise, perhaps. Celeste smiled and pronounced the word correctly, then said, “A musketeer was an old-timey soldier. That was in France, back when there were kings fighting the church for power.” She glanced at her daughter and continued, “The story is all about how love and honor can take you through the hardest of times.”
The book had a musty smell, like it too belonged in some distant era. A time set apart from days when a drunken father raged at people who shielded his own son. He turned the page and started reading.
The next morning Colin woke to discover the book on the pallet beside him. He had fallen asleep reading, and the pages where he left off were crimped from having been folded wrong. He sat up and ran his hand over and over the paper until he could no longer see the creases.
He used the bathroom, then dressed and walked down the hall. The house held a calm air, and Colin sensed the two children had already left. Celeste was talking on her cellphone, a trio of files open on the table before her. Colin listened as she talked about several names, something about reassigning appointments. Then she noticed him standing in the doorway and said, “I have to go. You know where to find me.” She cut the connection and smiled. “I was just coming to wake you. Do you like pancakes?”
After she started breakfast and had deposited a glass of milk on the table in front of Colin, Celeste left the kitchen and returned with his book. “Show me how far you’ve gotten.”
Colin was frightened she would be upset over the creased pages. But if Celeste noticed, she gave no sign. She studied the number at the bottom of the page. One hundred and sixty-five. “Did you understand everything you read?”
“Not all the words. But I like the story.”
“Did you now.”
He nodded. “A lot.”
She patted his head and moved to the stove. “Child, you’re a wonder.”
The pancakes were served with butter and a bright splash of cherry jam on the side. Then she placed a small bowl of fruit by his left hand. Another glass of milk. “I need to go shower and dress. Are you going to be all right here on your own?”
Colin slid the book over beside his plate and began eating. The pancakes stayed crisp and moist because there wasn’t syrup to make them soggy. He alternated bites, one with jam and the next with a bit of fruit. There was apple and blueberry and watermelon. He didn’t like the watermelon very much, but having something that wasn’t a favorite made all the other flavors taste better. The antics of the musketeers kept him company through the entire meal. It was the best breakfast he had ever eaten.
Celeste made him go shower, and when he entered his little room he found fresh underwear and socks and shirt andlong trousers laid out on his pallet. He didn’t like how the trousers felt on his legs, especially in the heat. But Colin dressed in them anyway. When he emerged, Celeste gave him a quick inspection and ordered, “Tuck in your shirt. Good.” She took a brush from her purse and passed it through his hair. He had never much cared for how it looked, half brown and half yellow with a hint of red stuck in as well. But Celeste said, “Your hair reminds me of autumn.” He liked anything that made this woman smile.
Celeste drove in silence for almost an hour, then turned in by what to Colin looked like a big-city hospital. It reminded Colin of where his father had taken him to see his own mother, Colin’s last remaining grandparent. The woman had been very old and very sick. She had examined him for a long moment, her eyes the only part of her that seemed alive. Then she had turned her face away. As if she had accomplished a bothersome chore. His father’s grip on Colin’s shoulder tightened momentarily, then he had steered his son out the door and down the hall and out to the car. His father had driven Colin home, as silent and expressionless as his own mother.
Celeste pulled into a parking space marked “Administration” and cut the motor. She took her phone from the cup holder between the seats and pressed a number. She said, “We’re here.” Celeste listened a moment, then, “No, Arnold. Have I ever wasted your time before? Don’t tell me—I know perfectly well how old he is.” Another pause, then, “We’ll give him another five minutes. If he doesn’t show up by then … Wait, I think I see him. And he’s got the lady from Sojourn with him, what’s her name, Fitzgerald.”
A car passed their spot and pulled into a visitor’s space farther down the line. A man with unkempt white hair rose from the car. He appeared to be in a great rush. Colin thought the woman who accompanied him looked angry. The manpulled a briefcase and jacket from the back seat, then made a mess of putting on his coat as together they rushed for the entrance.
Celeste said, “They’re heading in now. Try to smooth their ruffled feathers, will you? Yes, I’m coming.”
She stowed her phone in her purse, then said to Colin, “You remember what I told you yesterday?”
“I remember every word.”
