"I suppose not," I agreed, blowing on my cider to cool it.
"Gwen did say," he said slowly, staring out the window, "that she'd like to marry me if I'd come along with them."
"Marry you!" I laughed into my drink.
"That was what I thought. She's nice enough, and she thinks I'm nice, but that's not exactly a basis for commitment."
"Gwen loves easily," I said. "They might never stay in one place, but they're even closer to each other than we are in the village. If she wanted you to go with them, she wanted you to be securely fastened to someone. You could do worse."
"I'm not sure they actually wanted me for myself," he murmured, turning his water-glass around and around.
"You think they think you're a witch. The people in town do," I said.
"So I heard."
"You're not upset?"
He shrugged. "They leave me alone."
"Maybe, but they've been talking about you," I said. He didn't look up. "About the night you laid hands on the Harrison twins."
"That's a pretty dramatic way of putting it," he said.
"Well, that's the way they see it."
"And you?"
"I don't know what to think, to be honest," I said. Carmen returned with his soup and my sandwich, smoking hot, and gave Lucas an extra packet of crackers. He smiled a little and tapped them with his fingers.
I took a bite of the sandwich – Carmen was right, still pretty good – and then set it down. "Listen...it wasn't the time to ask, that night, but..."
"Yes?"
"How did you get them to be quiet like that? There must have been some kind of trick to it."
"I guess you could call it that." He was doing it again, drawing little spiral patterns in his soup, only now and then taking a taste.
"What was it?" I asked.
"I just thought..." he looked up at me. "There was probably a reason they were blamed. She died a couple of hours after they were born, not the minute they started breathing. And...I think a lot of people are scared of their children at first. You know, doing something wrong or whatever. But you're not supposed to be afraid, are you? So I'd find a reason, like the midwife dying."
"Yes, but...that doesn't explain what you did."
"They're only babies, they don't really understand emotion, they only know what they want," he continued. "Their parents are afraid of them, nobody else wants to go near them – just in case. Richard's pretty smart, that's why he called on you. He knew you'd say they were just babies."
"He knew I was a skeptic," I said, licking some sauce off my thumb.
"And you saying what you did probably would have worked, eventually, but it was easy enough to make them stop crying so that everyone would be sure."
"How'd you do it?"
"They want to be loved," he said quietly, setting down his spoon. "That was all I did, really. Just touched them without being afraid of them. They were just upset because everyone was scared of them. Now their mother thinks they've been blessed or cured or something. She thinks they're special."
I studied him as he took another bite of soup. "Psychology."
"What does it matter? They're safe now, as safe as anyone in the world is."
"Well, that's a point," I said. We were silent for a while as we ate.
"Christopher, I'd rather not lie to you," Lucas said suddenly. "That isn't the whole truth. It's just that I can't tell you the whole truth, not here. And not quite yet."
"Lie to me?" I asked. "About what?"
"Lies of omission, nothing more," he said hurriedly. "There's something I have to tell you, and I don't quite know how yet. If you can wait..."
"Well, I wouldn't even have known if you hadn't told me this much – yes, I can wait," I reassured him. He was starting to look truly anxious. "It's fine, Lucas. Really."
He nodded. "Good. That's good, then – and there's school letting out," he said, glancing out the window at the children who were beginning to wander down the street in little groups and gangs. "I should be going."
"So should I. I'll pay – you can buy next time," I said. He accepted awkwardly, as he always did when I paid, and wandered out into the street where the boy was leading a cadre of companions towards Dusk Books with an intent look in his eye. I hurried to pay the bill and open the shop once more while Lucas distracted them by, somewhat uncharacteristically, starting a snowball fight.
Watching him with the students, I wondered what in the world he could have been lying to me about. Lies of omission, something he hadn't told me...I didn't know what it could be but of course my mind immediately set to work coming up with possibilities. Something related to Abe and Noah Harrison, or to the church, or to the Friendly perhaps?
He had never spoken much about his parents or what he'd done in Chicago before coming to Low Ferry. I didn't know if he'd had a girlfriend or even a wife. I didn't know if he had children himself. I did wonder if that could be it – if his way with the Harrison babies had been because he was a father. But at the same time I couldn't imagine Lucas falling in love or marrying. I couldn't imagine him wanting children.
No, actually, I could imagine him wanting children, small helpless things that he could love, that wouldn't laugh at his awkwardness or expect him to act in ways he didn't understand. I just couldn't imagine him wanting them enough to find someone to have them with. And certainly I could never imagine him abandoning his children to come to Low Ferry and live in the middle of nowhere.
I am certain that the village as a whole must have noticed that I was distracted and aimless in the next few days, my thoughts always elsewhere than the task at hand. I think it likely that they chalked it up to bad health and didn't dare ask me for fear I'd collapse again. Lucas was too busy to come to the shop, tutoring the boy and, according to some of the students, two other children as well. Exams were coming up, and the boy wasn't the only one worried about his grades.
At any rate, this deep in winter the village had bigger problems to deal with. There was snow to be shoveled and pavement to be salted. We had to fill evening hours normally spent watching television, as the signal was still out, and make sure we could keep our homes warm during the blackouts that came with the high winds. Christmas was coming, and there were decorations to be hung on the street and in the stores, not to mention plenty of shopping.