Father's Day by Simon van Booy Page B

“Just tell me what feels right.”
    Harvey looked out the window, pulling together all the words she would need. “Dad said that Jason protected him at school from the bad children who stole his lunch.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œAnd when Dad was sick, Jason had to get him better all by himself, but he was just a kid like me.”
    â€œHow’d he get him better?”
    â€œMy dad said he pretended to read the back of cereal boxes, but he couldn’t read—he was pretending, making up stories from his ’magination about why my dad was sick. They laughed about that.”
    â€œOh,” Wanda said, searching for a thread that might lead somewhere.
    â€œJason gave my dad his medicine from a special cup with rabbits on it. That was one cup that didn’t get broken, because Jason hid it and wouldn’t tell his father where it was. He liked to break stuff and put things on fire—their dad did—so it got saved. Jason used to get Dad better by letting him sip special juice made by rabbits in their home, in the dirt where they lived, in a hole. In a rabbit hole. That’s where it came from.”
    â€œHmm, I see. How special.”
    â€œRabbits made it and gave it to him in that cup to get my dad better.”
    â€œThat was nice of those rabbits,” Wanda said. “Were they the same ones Miss Bateman used to braid your hair?”
    â€œNo,” Harvey said. “Those ones are made up.”
    â€œAnd your father told you all this, Harvey?”
    â€œAnd Jason used to put notes in my dad’s lunch box saying he was a special boy.”
    â€œThat was very kind,” Wanda said. “I’m starting to like the sound of this guy.”
    â€œHe looked after my dad, so he could grow up and look after me, right?”
    Wanda started the car and waited for an opening in the traffic.
    â€œCan we go to his house, Wanda?”
    â€œI can’t promise that.”
    â€œDad said he only hurt bad people, like heroes on TV do. They only hurt bad people, right, Wanda?”
    â€œThat’s right,” Wanda said. “You got nothing to worry about if you have a good heart, nothing at all.”
    She would have to get an exception from the courts, convince her coworkers to play along, and of course find a way for the paperwork to slip through the system—legally, but undetected.
    Then again, if the judge said a flat no, that was it. Nothing could be done.
    The uncle might say no too. Or the uncle might say yes and not be suitable—or just be doing it for the monthly allowance.
    â€œCould we go there now?” Harvey said. “To my uncle’s house?”
    â€œIt’s not our decision, little lady, so I don’t want you to worry about it. But Wanda is going to do her best. For right now,” she told Harvey, “the only sure thing is that you’re going to get more love and spoiling than you can imagine.”
    One thing Wanda had learned in her thirty years on the job: Disappointment later on is better than no hope to begin with.

XVI
    W ANDA CALLED THE next day and asked what Jason thought of his niece.
    â€œI can’t take her,” he said, lighting a cigarette.
    â€œI’m not asking you to. I just wanted to know what you thought of her.”
    â€œDo I strike you as the fatherly type?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter what I think. Harvey’s grandparents are doing the adoption paperwork with their lawyer right now, so it’s not something you have to worry about.”
    Jason exhaled and pictured the Morgano grandparents bent over a table, filling in forms at some Social Security office on Hempstead Turnpike. “What are they like?”
    â€œThe Morganos?” Wanda said. “I don’t personally think they can handle a six-year-old, but that’s for the courts to figure out.”
    â€œBut they’re family, at least.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Wanda said.