Noah's Compass

7

Early on the fifth of July, Louise phoned and asked Liam if he would babysit. “I know it’s short notice,” she said, “but my regular sitter has called in sick and I’ve got a doctor’s appointment just around the corner from you. I could drop Jonah off at your place on the way.”

“You mean, all by himself?” Liam asked.

“Why, yes.”

“But I don’t have any toys here. I have nothing to amuse him with.”

“We’ll bring some with us. Please? Ordinarily I would cancel, but this appointment means a lot to me.”

Liam supposed, from her phrasing, that it might be an obstetrician’s appointment. He didn’t want to seem nosy, though, so all he said was, “Well, okay, I guess.”

“Thanks, Dad. I appreciate this.”

He wondered why she hadn’t asked Barbara, who could pretty much arrange her own schedule in the summertime. Or why she didn’t just take Jonah along with her to the doctor’s office. Surely that was allowed, wasn’t it? Too bad Kitty had already left for work. He really had no idea what to do with a four-year-old.

They showed up at his door half an hour later-Louise out of breath and rushed-looking, wearing dressier clothes than usual and even a bit of lipstick. Jonah had on a T-shirt and what appeared to be swim trunks, orange Hawaiian-print nylon billowing around his toothpick shins. A knapsack almost bigger than he was loomed on his back. It was obvious from his expression that he would rather be somewhere else. He gazed up at Liam unsmilingly, his eyebrows two worried quirks. “Hi, there,” Liam told him.

Jonah didn’t answer.

Louise said, “I should be back in an hour or so. There’s a snack in Jonah’s bag if he gets hungry.” She planted a kiss on top of Jonah’s head and said, “Bye, sweetheart. Be a good boy.”

When the door had slammed shut behind her, there was an uneasy silence.

“So,” Liam said finally. He frowned down at Jonah.

Jonah frowned back at him.

“Where’s your grandmother?” Liam asked.

Jonah said, “Who?”

“Your Grandma Barbara. Is she working?”

Jonah shrugged. It was an artificial-looking shrug-his sharp little shoulders hitching themselves too high and then staying there too long, as if he had not quite perfected the technique.

“Hard to believe she would have a date so early in the day,” Liam mused.

Jonah said, “Deirdre is in deep, deep trouble.”

“Who’s Deirdre?”

“My sitter. We bet anything she’s not sick. We bet she’s off with her boyfriend someplace. Her boyfriend’s named Chicken Little.”

“He’s what?”

“Sometimes she brings him to my house to visit. Me and him play soccer together out in the backyard.”

“Is that a fact,” Liam said.

“Deirdre wears a jewel in her nose, and she’s got a chain around her wrist that’s really a tattoo.”

“This Deirdre sounds like quite a gal,” Liam said.

“Me and her are going to the State Fair in the fall.”

Was Liam supposed to be correcting Jonah’s grammatical errors? It seemed irresponsible just to let them slide past. On the other hand, he didn’t want to discourage this sudden chattiness.

“Let’s see what’s in your knapsack,” he said. “I hope you brought something to keep busy with.”

“I’ve got my Bible-stories coloring book.”

“Ah.”

“And my crayons.”

“Well, let’s see them.”

Jonah struggled out of his knapsack and laid it on the rug. Unzipping it took some doing-everything seemed to be such hard work, at this age-but eventually he brought forth a box of apple juice, a plastic bag of carrot sticks, a pack of crayons, and a coloring book entitled Bible Tales for Tots. “I just finished Abraham,” he told Liam.

“Abraham!”

Wasn’t that the man who’d been willing to slaughter his own son?

“Now I think I’ll do Joseph,” Jonah said. He started flipping through the coloring book.

“Could I see Abraham?” Liam asked him.

Jonah raised his head and gave him a level stare, as if he didn’t quite trust Liam’s motives.

“Just a peek?” Liam said.

Jonah turned back several pages to show a picture that had been covered over with jagged swaths of purple, nowhere near inside the lines. From what Liam could make out, it was a benign illustration of a man and a boy walking up a hill. Abraham obeys God’s command to deliver Isaac, the caption read.

“Thanks,” Liam said. “Very nice.”

Jonah resumed flipping pages, settling finally on one that read Joseph had a coat of many colors. The coat was a sort of bathrobe affair with wide vertical stripes.

“Do they have your story? Jonah and the whale?” Liam asked.

Jonah gave another of his effortful shrugs and dumped the pack of crayons out on the carpet. All of them seemed untouched except for the purple, which was worn down to a nubbin. “You’re supposed to tell about Joseph while I’m coloring,” he said.

“Who, me?”

Jonah nodded vigorously. He selected the purple crayon and started making wild horizontal marks across the coat. There was an extremely high probability that the purple would stray onto the carpet, but Liam was so relieved to have Jonah occupied that he didn’t intervene. He sat down in an armchair and said, “Okay. Joseph.”

Strange how unco

Liam couldn’t for the life of him remember the point of the Joseph story.

Still, he did his best. “Joseph,” he said, “had a coat of many colors that was a present from his father, and this made his brothers jealous.”

He wondered if the word jealous would be familiar to a four-year-old. It seemed doubtful. He tried to guess from Jonah’s expression, but Jonah was busily working away, his lower lip caught between his teeth.

“Joseph’s brothers were upset,” Liam clarified, “because they didn’t have any coats of many colors themselves.”

“Maybe Joseph could let them borrow his sometimes,” Jonah said.

“You would think so, wouldn’t you.”

“Did he?” Jonah persisted.

“Well, no, I don’t believe he did.”

Jonah shook his head and paused to peel more paper off his crayon. “That wasn’t very sharing of him,” he told Liam.

“No, it wasn’t,” Liam said. “You’re right. And also-” He was sneaking a look now at the caption on the facing page. “Also, he told his brothers about a dream he’d had where all of them were forced to bow down in front of him.”

Jonah made a clucking sound of disapproval.

He was coloring Joseph’s hair now (another splash of purple), and he seemed engrossed enough that Liam felt he could rise and go off to the kitchen to pour himself a mug of coffee. By the time he returned, Jonah had skipped ahead to Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery. Aha. “So Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery,” Liam said, settling into his chair again, “and then they went home and told their father he’d been killed.”

They had soaked Joseph’s coat in an animal’s blood to back up their claim, Liam seemed to recall. What a waste of the beautiful coat! he had thought as a child. Now it was no use to anyone! Evidently these things hung on in the memory longer than he would have supposed. He hadn’t considered that story in decades. His mother had been quite religious (or, at least, she had turned to her church for support after his father left them), but Liam himself had dropped out of Sunday school as soon as he was old enough to be allowed to stay home on his own.