Chapter 23

I couldn’t help but think how much the kids would enjoy this, and turned to Lefty and started to ask—and he knew exactly what I was thinking, so he darted back inside. When we drove off there were the four of us, and the three kids, all waving like kings and queens out the windows, the little one sitting on my lap. Then Ross served the kids sodas and champagne for him and Lefty, but since Sol and I were still on antibiotics, we got soda too. I didn’t care; I was thrilled. Watching the kids enjoy themselves was the best part of all.

What got to me, I think, was not so much the idea that they might have been dead if I had not done what I did, or if I had not been sent here in the terrible ‘joke’ that was played on me, but how it felt to have a child that innocent trust me completely. I can’t even begin to find the words for that.