The Missing

Chapter Thirty-six

ON A BLUSTERY JULY MORNING a west wind drove the Ambassador into a landing barge. There was no denying that it would have to limp down to Davenport for hull repair. Sam had been calling Linda and giving reports of how he was managing the children. He had discussed certain things with August. When told that the boat would be out of business for ten days, he loaded up August and Lily and took the train south, changing in Memphis and riding through the cinder-strewn heat and humidity down to New Orleans. The three of them showed up at his house sooty from two days on the rails, and his wife met them at the front door with a frown, the baby in her arms.

She thrust Christopher at Sam and examined August and Lily. “Are y’all Catholic?”

“Yes, ma’am.” August put down his suitcase. “But would it make a difference?”

She waved them into the house. “It sure makes it easier if we all go to the same place on Sundays.” She fixed everybody glasses of iced tea, then sat Lily next to her on the sofa and asked all of them questions for an hour, paying particular attention to her. Sam could tell she was trying to get a feel for how things might be.

That night, after the children were asleep, Linda crawled in next to him, and he could feel her whole body decompress toward rest.

“Well, what you think?” He hoped he knew, but with Linda, he could never say for sure.

“I never saw a four-year-old so glad to get into a bathtub.”

“I know we can’t afford another child.”

She laughed curtly. “Baby, we can hardly afford ourselves.”

“August will stay on the boat with me. He’s a real worker.”

“You know as well as me he can only work till September. He’s got to finish school.”

“But I’ll be back right after that at the end of the season. He can get pickup work in his spare time.”

“We’ll talk about this later. Just let me try to get used to them.” She put an arm around his neck. “Come here and let’s not talk about workin’ at something.”

HE SAW HER watch August during the week, how he practiced on the back porch and wrote in the margins of sheet music while tapping his foot to some rhythm winding inside his imagination. She took him along to the market and reported that he’d asked for things Lily liked to eat. Little potatoes, he said. She liked little red potatoes. At the house, August pulled grass along the walk, went after the weeds next to the street with a sling blade. He complained about the heat, the mosquitoes, but Linda didn’t hold that against him because she did the same.

The girl watched Linda as though she might evanesce at any moment, trailing behind her, showing no affection, her bright eyes searching and expectant.

On the day before he and August were to catch the train, Linda sidled up to him in the front room, catching his hand as he set the screen-door latch for the night and pushing him out onto the front porch.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to make sure you understood that things were all right. You know, as far as Lily’s concerned. August isn’t a problem. He can handle himself already.”

“I know we didn’t talk much.”

“Yeah, you just assumed things, as usual. Well, don’t worry, I think we can raise her. But she’s not normal.”

He looked over her head into the house. “What’s that mean?”

They could hear August talking to his sister. She squealed, and August went past the kitchen door with Lily riding his back.

“She’s kind of disco

He nodded and looked into the kitchen toward the sound of knees thumping the floor. “I’m trying not to teach her too much music. I’m scared she’ll get bored or just forget it. If I had to guess, I’d say she’ll be a lot better piano player than me.”

Linda put an arm around his waist. She seemed worried. “It’s like she’s waiting for something to happen.”

“Honey, she’s used to a lot of somethings happening to her.”

She shook her head. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe not.”

“I’ll bring in some money. I’ll make it work.”

“For her, you’ll have to.” She pulled open the screen and halfway into the room stopped and turned to him. “I know why you brought those kids into our home. Just don’t forget what they’ll mean for me.”

“Pretty lady, I won’t.”

“I want a house someday.”

“We’ll get one.”

“We don’t have a pe

“We’ll get one, you’ll see.”

THE REST OF THE SEASON the boat ran town to town, a different landing each night. The dance floor was worn to a dull brown abrasion, the outside paint an occlusion of soot despite repeated scrubbings, the paddlewheel a barewood rack of planks washed to splinters. The old boat was waterlogged, rain-wracked, and out of true, its hogchains and turnbuckles bleeding rust and the hull warped out of its proper curve. The whole crew was as weary as a thin-walled boiler, waiting for payoff and bonus and release.

The weather turned cool early and the Ambassador began to tramp south, chasing the receding summer. In mid-September the crowds thi

Mr. Brandywine raised a hand for the whistle ring and blew a landing signal. “I’m going straight in with her back to the blow.” It was unusual for him to a