A Measure of Blood by Kathleen George Page A

to feed you something. It’s tradition. Atithi Devo Bhava .” She smiled. “It means, ‘The guest is truly your god.’ ”
    â€œOh, dear.”
    â€œWe have okra in curry. And rice of course, and a chicken tandoori left over.”
    â€œOh, toast sounds awfully good to me.”
    â€œToast and an egg?”
    â€œPerfect.”
    They sat in the kitchen speaking quietly.
    â€œWas Margaret Brown unhappy, do you think?”
    â€œI don’t know. She didn’t tell me things. I worried about her.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œWorking two jobs or three and not too much money. Matt wants everything of course.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œHe wants everything he sees.” She got the egg on the stove in a small pot of water, waited till it boiled, then started the toaster doing its thing with a piece of white sandwich bread.
    Christie was totally grateful for the ordinary foods. “I have kids. I understand how they want things.”
    â€œYou said you have somebody in mind for Matt—”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWill they give him stability?”
    â€œI think so. It’s good of you to care.”
    â€œTo be honest, I worry that nobody will know what to do with Matt. Not even me.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œHe’s sweet, he definitely is sweet, but he never is content. Or lighthearted. Never.”
    â€œI’ll let you know if there is anything you can do. Maybe help the Morrises with the transition—if I manage to get him placed with them.”
    â€œYes, I’ll do that. Do they work, the Morrises?”
    â€œOh, heavens yes. They’re both professors. Robert—he goes by Arthur—teaches mostly poetry from what I understand. Not that I understand it. Janet is a theatre teacher. She teaches Shakespeare and things like that and she directs plays. In fact she’s directing one starting in a couple of days, a Shakespeare play that my wife is going to be in.”
    â€œI’ll have to see that.”
    â€œMy wife is a teacher at Pitt, too. But I knew these folks, even from before my wife got to know them. They’re kind and they want a child and they have two salaries.”
    â€œOh, good. Good. Are they young?”
    â€œNot too young. Why?”
    â€œI just wondered.”
    The water boiled and the toast popped. He ate his middle-of-the-night meal and left, and then took out his phone to make a call from his car.
    JAN AND ARTHUR ARE having coffee at the airport but in Jan’s mind she is halfway home. She is thinking, praying, that she will know how to love Matt, to help him through a trauma her mind can hardly contain.
    Her phone rings. She digs it out of her bag. “Christie again,” she says nervously.
    She listens to Christie tell about what has just happened. When she hangs up, she tells her husband the boy they want ran away to the hospital and scared everyone pretty badly for a couple of hours. She’s not surprised that his face is full of worry.
    It’s the middle of the night in Pittsburgh, she thinks, everyone involved with Matt strained, exhausted, and just going to bed. In France, all is coming alive, a new day. Soon they will be in the air, collapsing the time difference between the two places.
    In her mind, she is already there.
    On the plane an hour later, she closes her eyes as other passengers bump on, trying to stash their carry-ons.
    When the plane lifts, Arthur squeezes her hand. She falls into a half slumber to make up for last night, when she was too excited to sleep at all. Restless dreams toss her, images of the judge refusing to let them have Matt. Time leapfrogs all over the place and even in her half sleep, she can’t keep up.
    She wakes when they land in Frankfurt. Their flight is anything but direct. They are certainly not alone in that. Most people have to go out of their way to go where they want.
    â€œWe have an hour,” Arthur notes.
    The