Chapter 8
8
ISAAC
I flip a few more pages. “Joe was there at the very start. From our first day dealing with the police. With social services. With finding somewhere better for Len than emergency accommodation. When he wasn’t around to help Len anymore, I drew him.”
Noah is easily as rough as Joe was. His glance comes with another high-velocity accusation. “He didn’t stick around when you needed help?”
“I would have.”
Only Joe and I know why he didn’t. I quickly flip to a page full of puppy pictures, and Noah makes an offer that must be unusual. Luke Lawson’s eyebrows shoot up as soon as Noah says, “Your brother likes dogs? I got some he could visit on my brother’s farm.”
Just as quickly, I have to decline and disappoint the man I’m here to impress. “Thanks, but I don’t think Len would enjoy that. I added these pictures to try to help him after the first time we got searched on a visit to Mum and he came face-to-face with security dogs.”
The padre almost sighs, “Little Lenny saw you get searched?”
“Saw it? Kids on prison visits get the same pat-downs as adults.” That makes sense in the abstract. Try watching it happen in real time. I’m as hot with anger now as then. “The dogs were the worst that first time because someone ahead of us set them all off barking. I didn’t know, so I didn’t prepare Len for what might happen. He was even smaller back then.” His eyes had been the same level as so many snapping jaws. “From then on, I started to draw Silver Man with a cloak so Lenny could close his eyes and pretend he was wrapped in it.”
I focus on saying this to the headmaster. I can’t avoid that Joe stares down at the table as if his head is heavy. “If I told this story to your kids, I wouldn’t scare them with those details. I’d tell them everything else Lenny’s hero helped with.” I flip back a few pages to the one holding the map. “Because every time Len made this journey, he followed clues like Joe suggested.” I open a flap. “He solved those clues and found Mum every single time.”
Those clues get passed along the table, little scraps of black card covered in silver writing. Luke Lawson reads one under his breath. “Find a bus sharing the same number as your brother’s age.”
Noah can’t know how old I am. He makes a guess based on our shared ex-address. “The twenty-four?”
I nod and pass him another clue.
“Get off at Southwark. March like a soldier for seven minutes. Get a ticket before you end up in the river.” He smiles for the first time, and wow, he looks years younger. “London Bridge station?”
“Yes. Each clue he solved got him closer to…” I touch a drawing of Lenny’s version of a prison complete with more of those black bars. “Joe was right. It did keep him busy, but gotta be honest, I hated making those journeys. Not looking forward to my next one.”
“You wouldn’t have to make it alone,” Joe states roughly. “And you won’t need a map. I know the way. I’d get you both there if you wanted.”
I never wanted more to believe him or to accept an offer. The reason why I can’t risk it is framed by the window behind him.
Outside this library, Lenny sits in sunshine, the tip of his tongue peeking out as he scribbles. I can picture what he’s drawing with that silver Sharpie, and I clench the map so tightly, it rips.
Luke Lawson notices. “Or you could finish what you started.” He nods at the torn page. “If you wanted, you could rip out that page completely. Put it in an envelope and put it behind you.”
I start that process. More paper rips, and Joe pulls exactly what I need next from his jacket pocket. I’m not alone in watching scarred fingers pass an envelope over, and when I fumble, he folds that torn map for me, helping me yet again.
I’ve tried so hard to stay strong without him, certain I’d never show Joe my one and only weakness. I do it today with more people than him watching.
“Lenny’s getting quieter and quieter,” I confess. “Lost his trust he’ll ever get his mum back. Lost his trust in me making that happen for him.”
Joe’s face tells its own sympathetic story. That’s still a lot to deal with, a mental shift that feels as risky as voicing this does.
“I don’t know how to help him.”
Luke Lawson closes the scrapbook.
He also comes to a decision.
“Then you better stay so we can find a way together.”
I soar at what sounds like an offer. Then I plummet as soon as Noah leaves the library to post my envelope for me in that time capsule and the headmaster reminds me of a condition.
“Do you remember what I asked you for, Isaac?”
Honesty.
“If there’s anything else you need to tell me, it’s now or never.”
Less than a week since our first meeting, what had felt impossible to admit spills out. “You need to know that Mum was arrested for possession and intent to supply Class A drugs. A lot of them. So many, she wasn’t bailed and is still being held on pre-trial remand. I’ve given up trying to find out why she’s been locked up way beyond the usual limit.”
Fuck knows a legal aid lawyer had no clear answers. I pull the scrapbook across the table to me and find a calendar that Lenny crosses through daily, and I keep speaking even though this chokes me.
“The maximum sentence is life.” My mouth is so dry it’s hard to keep speaking. “The minimum is seven years. Even if time served and time off for good behaviour cuts it in half, that’s a long time for Lenny to keep missing his mum, Mr. Lawson.”
“Luke, please. And it’s a long time for you to miss yours too,” he says softly.
I can’t answer.
Moments like these are the worst. I’m blindsided with no warning, and I didn’t imagine Joe being here to fill my silence but that’s who gives me a chance to get my shit together by saying, “Looks like you’ve kept yourself busy.” His feet find mine under the table and squeeze. “Like that library on wheels of yours.”
“Library on wheels?” Luke asks.
That’s so much easier to answer, a story with an actual happy ending. “The mobile library work I mentioned on my application is actually a community project.” I aim this at Joe. “That was down to you too.”
“Me?”
“You,” I confirm. “Because you said that Mum could keep telling Lenny bedtime stories if she wrote one by email. I had to find somewhere to print out each chapter to stick in here.” I flip to a page holding snippets of a story she’s spent a whole year writing. “I did that at a library, and that’s where a librarian saved me again.”
Joe looks as if he wants to ask when I needed saving a first time. The padre speaks before he can.
“How?”
“By running storytelling sessions for kids with parents in prison.”
“You went to them?”
“Every week last summer. Lenny got to meet kids like him. I got to meet other families like mine.” I cough around my throat thickening. “Too many of them. Pretty soon, I made a network.” I’ve pictured Joe’s face more than I should have since he walked away from me and Lenny. Today is the first time I can’t read his expression. “Then I put together a proposal for six months’ funding for my own community project. Bought a van. And six months later, it’s on its last legs, but it did the job.”
“Of?” Luke asks.
“Of getting books to kids dislocated from a parent. Of telling stories with them. For them. Supporting them right where they need it. I’d keep going if I could find more funding, and if it wasn’t for?—”
“Lenny,” Joe says, and I nod across the table at him.
“What about this?” Luke has found a flyer I wouldn’t have shared the first time I was here. Now I watch Joe take it, and saying this is easy.
“Joe left this with me to show Mum. It’s about a project that specialises in helping people like her understand how come their homes got invaded.”
That’s a polite term for dealers feathering their own nests by targeting softhearted people who don’t have extended family to defend them.
“She’s been busy as well, researching. Because she says she didn’t see it coming. Any of it. Had no idea what happened in her own home so quickly, and she can’t let anyone ever…” I use the phrase Mum always flinches while saying. “She can’t let anyone ever love-bomb their way between her and Lenny ever again.”
“Or between you,” the headmaster murmurs again, as if I’m a kid like my little brother.
For the first time in forever, that’s what Lenny looks like through that window—a kid, instead of someone with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’s still at the picnic bench, only with friendly giants on his mind—I hope—instead of men with machetes. And if that isn’t an incentive to get my shit together, I don’t know what is.
I face Luke and give him the honesty that drove me all the way here. “Mum has found a project that isn’t too far from here. It’s part of an approved scheme for prison leavers. And if she’s released without charge, like she should be, she still wants to go there because they specialise in a thing called pattern breaking.” I flip that flyer that explains how people don’t have to be dreamers like Mum to get fooled by manipulators. “She’d be so much closer if?—”
Joe finishes for me. “You and Lenny were based here?”
I nod. I also jump out of my skin when Luke Lawson says, “Right. I’ve heard enough.”
Shit.
I’ve said too much.
I have what I think is a silent and secret panic. A pair of feet find mine under the table again, and the last person in the world I would have ever expected to help does just that by grounding me to this moment. I can’t spiral into what-ifs when Joe’s warm gaze holds my complete attention until Luke makes a proposal.
“I suggest we have a trial.”
“A trial?”
Perhaps he sees that word choice isn’t a favourite. He rephrases quickly, his frown lines deepening. “A grace period for you and your brother to catch your breath. And for you to stop running on pure adrenaline before you decide.”
“Before I decide? Decide what?”
All those frown lines smooth out. “On whether you want to stay. Because the school would be on trial, Isaac. Not you. You’ve already proven yourself. Give a chance to someone this resourceful and creative?” He touches the cover of a scrapbook. “To someone as driven? I’d be stupid not to, but I’d also be asking for a lot from you in return. Maybe too much.” He passes some paperwork across the table. “Like studying for your degree while working. That will take time. So will you learning how to adapt to the needs of older students. Our sixth-form is significantly expanding, I know the pastoral workload has already doubled, and those older students don’t need stories. I’m talking about providing support with research. With finding the resources they need for their studies.”
“Yes—”
He mirrors a move Joe made earlier, both hands up. “Don’t decide now. Being a storyteller for the little ones while studying might be more than enough to keep you busy.” He gets up, as do the others around this table. “I don’t want your answer until you’re ready to give it. And whatever you decide, I’m still going to think about how best to help your brother. A period of play could be all he needs. It’s such a cure-all, and I have experts in that.” He stops at the doorway to thank Joe. “I know you have to get back to the city. Thank you for today and for sparing a little more time for Hugo. We both appreciate it.”
The door closes between me and that conversation, and I turn around at the sound of laughter. Lenny is on the other side of a windowpane, and I wish to fuck Mum could see him. He laughs again at something his tablemate tells him, which masks the sound of the door opening once more. I only know Joe’s behind me when he speaks.
“Told you that you wouldn’t need luck.” Like that kiss under a tree, this is rough yet soft at the same time. “You made your own.” He abruptly steps to the side, putting a bookshelf between him and the window. “Shit.” This worry confirms he’s on the same old caring wavelength I told myself I’d imagined. “You didn’t want Lenny to see me. Did he?”
I check. “No.”
Joe doesn’t try to take another peek at Len. I’m his sole focus, and I’d face all that intentness head-on to kiss him again if he didn’t say, “You’re a fucking hero.” I must look disbelieving, because this is even more insistent. “You are, Isaac, but tell me something, will you?”
I nod.
“The Silver Man in that story was me?”
I nod again.
“You never blamed me for walking away?”
“Not to Len.” The windowpane offers a faint reflection of my headshake. My brother is much more vivid. He concentrates on a drawing of his own, so engrossed that I know he can’t be scared of danger around every corner.
He’s gonna be safe.
That isn’t why my eyes blur.
I made it happen.
I blink fast, then blink again when Joe repeats, “You’re a hero. His hero.” I don’t get a chance to argue. He shows me what someone on that interview panel has left on the table.
A cape-wearing hero fills a sketchbook page, flying across the same London landmarks from the story I just told, and he isn’t alone. Lenny flies beside him, hand-in-hand with the man who always saves his day for him, and Joe was right.
It’s my face drawn with determination.
My hand Lenny clasps, instead of a scarred one I won’t get to see again now that Joe shoves his hands deep into his pockets.
“You never needed my help to be that for him.” He heads for the door just as Lenny laughs one more time, and I turn around to see him happy.
He’d be even happier to see Joe, even once.
I turn back a beat too late.
Joe’s gone before I can suggest it.