CHAPTER 35
Grace rocked sedately, hoping that the dying boy resting on her chest would find the cadence soothing.
The child needed a real name. But what kind of name?
Muslim? Jewish? Orthodox? It bothered her not to know who the boy was.
What would his traditions have been? What language would he have spoken? What games would he have played?
It wasn’t right for a child to come and go and mean nothing in between. He should have been important already. Grace’s own son, Joseph Alden, had been wanted, envisioned even before conception. Grace had loved him as he grew in Aya’s belly, planned family events around him, dreamed dreams for him.
But this boy would die without a trace, unloved, unremembered.
The baby jerked and Grace felt a small patch of the warm spit-up seep through the front of her shirt.
“Shh,” she murmured, cupping the back of the baby’s head. “I’m right here with you, sweet baby.”
Brenna lifted her chin from her knees and sat up. Something was wrong.
Listen, an inner voice warned. Listen!
She pricked her ears, attentive as radar sweeping the horizon. She heard poom, poom, poom. Distantly, to the west. Distantly, to the east. But no artillery close by. The barrage had slowed, then stopped altogether, like background music that faded and didn’t resume.
And she hadn’t noticed.
“Oh, Christ.” She grabbed the camera. There was no time to waste.
No artillery meant one thing.
Nationalists. On their way.
Shelling was halted when tanks and men advanced through a given zone, so they wouldn’t be hit by friendly fire.
She scrambled to her feet, cursing her stupidity.
She ran down the hallway. She had to get Grace and the children out. She reached the nursery room door and froze. Squeak was in her crib, arms flailing in the air. Grub lay on her side, eyes wide open. Heckle and Jeckle’s heads bobbed, eyes wide and dark. Mr. Fierce swayed in his crib.
All of them, unnaturally silent.
Grace sat in the rocker, humming a somber dirge, running her cheek across the top of Dying Boy’s head.
She could have been any mother, humming, calmly stroking her son’s back as he fell asleep.
But the baby wasn’t warm or supple. He wasn’t making soft snorey noises in Mama’s arms.
He was inert, his color gone, no longer drawing breath.
“No,” Brenna whispered.
Grace was dazed, cheeks wet, lost in sorrow.
Brenna saw the moment through photographer’s eyes—a stunning study of tragedy and compassion.
The kind-hearted woman lost in the shadows, grieving for a child who wasn’t even hers.
She should capture this. Grace was in a stupor.
Brenna could get the shot before Grace realized she’d done it.
The impulse raced through her—and stalled. She knew what this was.
Another fucking Pulitzer.
She didn’t want it.
Not the prize.
But the image? It was breath-taking. She couldn’t not take it.
She lifted the camera, framed the image, pressed ‘Record’. Fingers delicately working the lens, she held the shot, even as the voice inside her urged: Hurry, run, the Nationalists are coming.
The problem was, Grace was in shock. Even if Brenna weren’t taking her picture, she couldn’t be rushed. She needed as gentle a transition as Brenna could give her.
With the flick of a finger, she stopped recording and set the camera aside.
She crouched in front of her, balancing on her toes. With a sinking heart, she noticed brown stains on Grace’s shirt, beneath the baby’s mouth and nose. The child hadn’t died easy.
While she had been fighting her own demons, Grace had coped alone with the baby’s final struggle. The toll it had taken was clear. She looked stricken. This was more than the loss of the child in her arms. This had conjured old grief. How long had she been frozen in this awful moment?
Brenna rested her hands on Grace’s knees, hoping that touch would help her return to physical reality. “Oh, honey,” she murmured. “I’m so sorry.” So sorry the child had died. So sorry she hadn’t been here to help. So sorry about Grace’s own son.
Grace tightened her arms around the boy, pressing her cheek closer to the little head that should have been warm and smelled of baby.
“You gave him a great gift,” Brenna whispered. “You loved him for the hard part.”
Grace’s eyes came into focus, looking surprised to see Brenna. The words seemed to sink in. She shook her head sadly. “It wasn’t enough,” she said, her voice desolate. “This city made his life insignificant.”
“He’s not insignificant. He’s in our hearts now, yours and mine. We keep him.”
“We don’t even know his name.”
“Well—what if we named him?”
“Like what?”
Brenna considered. “How about Kristjan? I always liked that name.”
“Like ‘Christian’?”
“Yeah, only European.”
“What if he’s Jewish?”
Grace’s concern touched Brenna. How like her to want the paperwork in order. “So, he gets to heaven and blames the goy.”
A corner of her mouth rose in a melancholy attempt at a smile. She considered her suggestion without hurry. “Kristjan is good.”
“Alright then, Kristjan it is,” she agreed. “Is there anything you want to do to mark his passing?”
She shook her head slowly. “I called the angels to him. He has a name. I don’t suppose there’s any way we could give him a proper burial.”
Brenna shook her head.
“All I have to do is let go,” she observed sadly.
Brenna eased her hands under the little boy and waited for Grace’s consent. “Let me take him.” Brenna whispered.
At length, Grace loosened her embrace.
Brenna wasn’t certain whether God existed—but if he did, she knew he didn’t intercede in human affairs.
When the shit hit the fan no amount of prayer changed the outcome.
Any victim of the holocaust knew that, any woman in Tel Aviv trying to reassemble the man she loved.
The purpose of prayer was not to beg for reprieve, but to ask for the grace with which to meet the inevitable.
She took Kristjan back to his crib, wrapped him in the bed sheet, and took him out to the front room. There, she placed him beside Roza. Brenna rested her hand on him for a moment. “Bye, Kristjan.”
Leaving the cocooned bundle, she went into the kitchen, dug through the backpack and jettisoned everything that wasn’t essential.
In the nursery, she ejected the memory cards from the camera and zipped them into her jacket.
In order to move the children, she was going to have to abandon the gear.
Next, Brenna went to Squeak’s crib and started pulling up the corners of the fitted sheet.
Grace appeared beside her and picked up Squeak. “Are we doing laundry?” Her voice lacked all color or inflection.
Brenna pulled the sheet free and tied its diagonal corners, then stripped the second crib. “We have to leave. I’m making slings to carry the children.”
“Why the sudden hurry?”
She hesitated, wondering how much to say. “There’s a break in the shelling.”
Grace cocked her ears. “You’re right. It got quiet so gradually, I didn’t notice.”
But I should have.
“Where will we take them? Back to Dr. J’s?”
“The airport. Luc can get them to the UN Refugee Agency from there.” The airport was less than a mile away. “If you can carry Mr. Fierce and Grub, I can stack Heckle, Jeckle, and Squeak in the other.”
“What about the camera?”
“I’m leaving it.”
Grace looked up sharply.
“Hey,” Brenna shrugged. “The documentary’s in the can.” She draped the first sling around Grace’s shoulders and settled Grub and Mr. Fierce inside it. Brenna lifted the second sling over her head and nestled Heckle inside, then Jeckle. Squeak, being the smallest and lightest, went in atop the boys.