Mirrors by Karl C Klontz Page B

the engine off and got out of the car.
    Only a year had passed since Eve and I had lunched with Danny’s parents in Half Moon Bay, yet the furrows on their faces now suggested decades had passed. It was such a contrast from how they looked a year earlier, and even more so from the day they left Wisconsin to move to California. After living in Wisconsin all their lives, they were ready for a change—ready to leave a community they felt had never truly accepted a lesbian couple for adopting a son. Half Moon Bay, on the other hand, offered a freer way of life, just as California had done for millions of pilgrims before them. Both Kristine Rogers and her partner, Emma, had found jobs there. They were eager to move on.
    Kristine took me in her arms. In Wisconsin, she had treated me like a second son, although I never felt I deserved such. She said I was a saint for treating Danny as kindly as I did, but I would have it no other way for he was a soul mate as much as a friend. While others teased him for being clumsy and for a stutter he struggled with, I found peace in his presence. We spent hours together after school each day, and he was the only one who helped me dissect road kill.
    I turned to Emma and embraced her, but it was a hug less engaging than the one with Kristine. If Kristine exuded spring and summer, Emma embodied fall and winter. Years earlier, while visiting their home during an early Wisconsin snowfall, Danny and I went outside to play. Big, wet flakes dropped like soggy corn chips. At the time, Danny had a cold and was dragging. As we put on our coats, Kristine called to Danny to bundle up so that he wouldn’t get sicker whereas Emma followed with a command: “Shovel the walk while you’re out there.” The forecast called for less than an inch to fall.
    Presently, Emma asked: “When did you get here?”
    “A while ago,” I replied. I said nothing of the visit to Danny’s cabin.
    Kristine turned from me. Her shoulders undulated from sobs.
    I put my arm around her. “I’m sorry about what happened.”
    “You can’t imagine what it means to lose Danny,” Emma said.
    I groaned.
    Emma again: “Why did they kill him with your protein?”
    It wasn’t
my
protein, I wanted to tell her. Discovery didn’t convey ownership, for if it did, oxygen belonged to Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Joseph Priestley, two inquisitive thinkers from the eighteenth century.
    “I don’t know,” I replied. I wanted to tell them that I, too, felt targeted but referring to myself would only demean Danny.
    “When Dr. Muñoz spoke to us by telephone last week,” Kristine said, “he told us the FBI was involved in the investigation.”
    “Yes,” I said, towing the party line.
    “What have you learned from them?”
    “Only that the investigation is ongoing.”
    “So, we
wait
?” Kristine asked.
    “Not me!” Emma proclaimed. She went to the beach.
    “Where are you going?” Kristine called.
    “Where Danny went! Are you coming?”
    I followed Kristine to the sand where I removed my shoes and socks. The retreating fog formed a silver bank now across the Pacific, allowing dawn to arrive with dignity. I savored the shifting tide of day as hints of warmth crept into the air.
    “Follow me,” Emma said.
    As we set out, I found myself sandwiched between the two women, our shoulders bumping every few steps.
    “Did we ever tell you how we adopted Danny?” Emma asked.
    “No,” I said, grateful for her olive branch.
    “We approached a number of agencies,” she began, synchronizing her steps with mine. “Many refused to deal with us because we weren’t a traditional couple. Remember, that was a different time.” Her face brightened. “Then, one day, a colleague at work told me about an orphanage that had just accepted a five-year-old boy whose parents had died in a car crash. He was unusual in that he’d been sheltered at home with practically no social contact—no daycare, no play groups, no classes for tots. His mother