Page 152 of String Boys

“You’re here,mijo.Got it back again. Now go to sleep. Agnes said you went through hell to get here. Tomorrow’s gonna really suck, okay?”

“What’s happening tomorrow?”

Kelly let out a long sigh. “My brother needs to talk to us. He says… he says this is the only gift he can give.”

Seth felt an unexpected grief bubbling up. “I’d rather have one of his Hot Wheels.”

Kelly started to giggle, but it turned to tears soon enough, and then he rolled over in Seth’s arms and they were holding each other, face-to-face, and crying.

That was how they fell asleep.

Children clutching each other in the storm.

WHEN HEwoke up in the morning, Kelly was still there.

“Seth, I hate to bother you, but I gotta pee.”

Seth relaxed his grip and let him up, then fell back asleep again, for he had no idea how long. He didn’t wake up again until Kelly came back into the room, a baby in one arm and a sandwich in his other hand.

“What’s the sandwich for?”

“The baby doesn’t faze you at all, does it?”

Seth heard the teasing note and let out a little smile. “I like babies. You know that.”

Kelly sobered. “Good. Here—you eat and let Mr. X here get a look at you. When you’re done, he might even let you hold him.”

The baby made that baby sound—a gurgle and a belch or something—and Seth agreed to terms.

“My dad says he’s real good,” Seth told him, digging into the sandwich. It was the first time he’d been hungry in six months.

“What your dad is leaving out, because he’s just as nuts about babies as you are, is that he’s soggy.”

Seth looked at the baby, who regarded him serenely back through green eyes that definitely weren’t Matty’s. “Cornstarch,” Seth said, smiling slowly to see if maybe this baby would respond. Mr. X chewed on his fist without a lot of enthusiasm and widened his eyes a little. Well, close. “Cornstarch for a soggy baby.”

Kelly dropped a kiss on top of Xavier’s head. “Not soggy that way. His muscles. Like that smile he’s not getting for you. He can barely lift his hands up to his mouth. He’s got some problems, Seth—”

“Like Chloe?”

“Well, yeah. But different problems.”

Seth smiled at the baby again. This time, he was sure he got a little smile back. “Not problems,” he said, completely lost in the baby. “Personality features.”

“Oh my God, Seth, you never listen—”

Seth scowled, realizing this could be the finale of the fight they should have had when he’d been in the hospital. “No. I listen. You’re trying to tell me that he’s a challenge. And that you’re going to be responsible for him after your brother dies. And that he’ll be my responsibility too, just like Chloe. I hear you, Kelly. Now I need you to hear me.”

Kelly gaped. “You don’t talk this much ever.”

Seth set down his sandwich, not hungry anymore. “The last six months, I didn’t have anyone who could hear my heart around me. I had to save it for the week, without talking to you in between times. And that’s my point. My whole life, you, my dad, your parents, they moved heaven and earth to know what was in my heart. To give me the things I didn’t know how to ask for. To help me in school when paperwork isn’t my best thing. And the whole time I was like, ‘But, uhm, I’m really not that special.’ You all told me I was. So why is taking these children in any different than that. No, they’re probably not going to solo in New York at twenty….” He stopped and tried to do the math.

“Five. You’re twenty-five, Seth.”

“Thank you. I keep thinking it’s twenty-two. I have no idea why. But my point is, they’re special too. I can move heaven and earth for their specialness, just like you all moved it for me. I got no problem with that. I got no problem being a dad at twenty-six—”

“Five.”

“Whatever! I got no problem with that. Yeah, it’s young—you think I don’t know Amara and Vince aren’t gonna wait ten more years? There’s people I play with not sure at forty? I get it. But I’m surenow.You’re surenow.Your family’s not a sinkhole, Kelly. Your family’s afamily.And I want to be a part of it. I want to be a part of it more than anything in the world,excepthow I want to be a part ofyou.” He swallowed, not sure if that came out right. “I want to be a part of your life more,” he clarified. “But the rest of the family is nice too. Agnes looks just like you at fifteen, did you know that? Her face is a little rounder, but it’s uncanny.”