The Time Keepers

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

T HE POLICEMAN ON THE OTHER END OF THE LINE PRESSED Grace for more details.

“Can we have a physical description? We’ll need to look into if the child’s been reported missing.”

“He’s maybe four foot three … and he’s quite skinny with dark eyes and straight black hair. Asian. He’s wearing an Incredible Hulk T-shirt and tennis shoes … if anyone’s reported a boy missing who’s wearing that …”

“You’ll have to bring him down to the precinct,” the officer instructed, his voice was flat and detached.

“I’d like to feed him before I bring him to you. I don’t know when he last ate, and I’d hate to him to go so long without a meal.”

“Fine. But bring him in as soon as you can.”

Tom rubbed her back as they waited for him to emerge from the washroom. “I bet his mother is worried sick.”

But something struck Grace as not being quite right. The scar on the boy’s wrist was still troubling her.

“He’s so little, Tom. He looks the same age as Molly—can you imagine her all alone out there like that?”

“No, I can’t.”

After a few minutes, the door unlocked, and the boy came out. The smudges on his face erased, his hair pushed out of his eyes.

“Are you hungry?” Grace tapped her belly.

He nodded and followed her toward the kitchen.

She made him scrambled eggs and a cup of warm black tea. It was something her own mother would have made her back in Ireland when she wasn’t feeling well or needed something mild to fill her stomach.

“This might be easier.” She reached into the drawer, replacing the fork she’d given him with a spoon. He took it and began shoveling the eggs into his mouth.

Grace glanced at her watch. Katie would be home from her friend’s house any minute now, and then she could leave the girls alone and go with Tom to the police station.

She was just putting the dishes away when Katie walked through the side door and went straight to the fridge, grabbing a Tupperware of cantaloupe from the shelf. Only when Katie turned around did she see the boy sitting at the table. “Who’s that, Mom?” she asked, raising a single downy eyebrow.

“A little boy …”

“I get that, but …”

“I found him alone this morning.…” She tried to find the right words to explain the situation. It seemed incredible to Grace that she could discover what looked to be a homeless child on the streets of Bellegrove. “Katie, we don’t know all the facts yet, but I think he’s lost.”

“Lost? He looks like he’s a long way from home, Mom.”

Grace gave her daughter a disapproving look, then untied the strings of her apron and called out to Tom.

“Honey, get your keys. We’re ready to go to the station now.”

The Goldens’ station wagon sagged from years of good use. It had shuttled Grace to her doctor appointments each time she was pregnant. It had withstood constant abuse from the girls eating crackers in their car seats, the windows smeared with drawings by sticky fingers, and the occasional bout of car sickness. Its trunk had been filled with countless suitcases and overnight bags for family vacations and sleepovers and brown paper grocery bags that over time could have sustained an army. Grace liked to think of the old Pontiac Catalina as their own little boat that could ferry the family anywhere, always ensuring their safety. It wasn’t fancy like some of their neighbors’ Oldsmobiles or Lincolns, but it was dependable and trustworthy, something Grace valued not just in her choice of cars, but the people she surrounded herself with, too.

When Grace opened the door so the little boy could get inside, he hesitated. The back seat, which never felt big enough for her two girls who were prone to pinching each other and bickering, seemed like it could swallow him whole.

“Would you like me to sit in the back with you?”

The boy stood quiet. So Grace slid in first, moving toward the window on the other side, one hand smoothing down the front of her dress and the other extending to draw him in.

Tom opened the front door and settled into the front seat, checking on both of them in his rearview mirror before he pulled out of the driveway.

“How ’bout some music?”

“Not now, Tom.”

She glanced over at the child, who was now staring out the window as they passed by a row of houses with white picket fences and manicured lawns before his eyes focused on a swath of dark clouds forming in the distance. He wore an expression that was all too familiar for her. One that could take over her as well—most often when the sky turned gray and the rain came down in heavy sheets. The bright flowers outside her front door could evaporate in an instant, and her mind pulled her back to her village across the ocean.