Birthday Dinner Read online

Chapter 6

  That night over a dinner of pesto tossed on fettuccine and served with a salad of bibb lettuce and sliced tomatoes, Becca told Zach of her meeting with Trinia. “Everything’s falling into place,” she concluded.

  “Until the boy’s mother shows up.”

  Becca shrugged. “We’ll deal with that if it happens.”

  “Becca, it will happen, probably sooner than later; and when it does, there won’t be any dealing with it. She may be a lousy mother, but she is the boy’s mother. She has full legal control of his future, not you.”

  “Say his name.”

  “What?”

  “His name.”

  “Why?”

  “His name is Jonah. He’s not ‘the boy’ or a boy or a Social Services number or one more dusty case file on the stack piled to the ceiling on Becca’s desk. He’s Jonah Bingham, an eight-year-old boy with real feelings and real potential and real gifts if the world will just give him a chance.”

  “Why does he matter so much to you?”

  “You’re asking me? You put me in this job, remember?”

  “As a job—to earn money and get experience and buy you time to figure out what you really wanted to do. Not for you to try to save the world.”

  “I’m not trying to save the world.”

  “Then what? Is it a racial thing? Are you trying to make amends for centuries of injustice?”

  “You don’t get it, Zach. It’s not about saving the world or righting past wrongs. It’s about giving one child, regardless his race or social background, the same opportunity that I’ve had every minute of every day of my life.”

  “So it is about your privilege and his poverty.”

  “It’s about helping where I can, Zach—not on a cosmic scale or a global scale or even a community scale, but one person named Jonah Bingham at a watershed moment in his life. How can that be a bad thing? Why can’t you support me in this?”

  “It’s not a bad thing, Bec. It’s the most noble thing in the world. And I do support you, every step of the way. I’m just worried you’re putting too much of your heart on the line, and you’re going to get hurt.”

  “You never put your heart out there?”

  “I’ve never risked my heart to the world, and I doubt I ever will. I’ve risked my heart to you, pretty much one hundred percent—which is precisely why I care so much about protecting you.”

  “You don’t have to protect me, Zach; just love me and support me.”

  Zach stared at her across the table for several long seconds then nodded in resignation. “What do I need to pick up at the store for Sunday’s meal?” He rose from his seat to get an index card and pencil off the kitchen counter to make a list. As he passed Becca still in her seat, he leaned over and kissed the side of her head. “And I love you more every day, specifically because of your generous heart, however much I worry about it getting hurt.”

  Becca looked up at him with a smile. “You really do hurt when I hurt?”

  “Ten times more.”

  “I’ll be as careful as I can.”

  Zach nodded. “That’ll have to be good enough.” He went on to get the pencil and paper to start a grocery list.

  Later that night while in the pit of sleep and separated from Becca by more than a foot of empty mattress and the rumpled sheet that was their lone covering on the warm night (they had no air conditioning), Zach dreamt that he was walking in bright afternoon on the side of a sparsely vegetated hill—low brown grass, a sprinkling of dwarf pines and dense thorny bushes. He could see across a deep ravine to a parallel hillside that was more thickly covered in tall trees and low underbrush. At first he felt totally comfortable in the setting, enjoying the solitude and the warm sun. Then he noticed movement in the underbrush on the far hillside. He stared across the ravine and tried to make out what had caught his eye. There was definitely something in the brush over there, moving low and fast through the thickets and between the tree trunks; but he could never quite make out what it was. So he shouted across the ravine, tried to catch its attention, get whatever or whoever it was to respond. Then he knew it was Becca in the brush over there, didn’t know how or why he knew, just knew. So he called her name, asked her to stop, to come to the edge of the woods where he could see her. But she never revealed herself, never spoke in response to his pleas, just kept weaving in and out of the brush, giving him tantalizing but indistinct glimpses of a swatch of blue jeans here, a flash of blond hair there. He jogged along as the movement on the other side ran parallel the ravine. He kept shouting and waving his arms but to no avail. He was running fast now, trying to keep up with whatever it was on the other side that was getting farther and farther ahead. He couldn’t keep up. Suddenly he tripped on something and fell to the gritty soil. Sitting on the ground, panting hard, he looked back at what had tripped him. It was an infant wrapped in a pure white blanket, its eyes open and staring straight at him, smiling at him, its arms extended in his direction, its tiny hands, tiny fingers, reaching out to grasp him, only him.

  At the same time, locked in the same dense pit of sleep, Becca dreamed she was knocking on doors to dark-windowed houses. She’d knock at one door for what seemed an eternity then give up and walk a few yards and knock at the next door for what seemed forever, then move on to the next, then the next. She’d done this for ages and never a response; but her arm didn’t ache, her knuckles didn’t get chapped or bloody. She just moved along the endless row of endless doors knocking at each. She didn’t grow frustrated or weary. This was her job; this was her designated calling. But somewhere in that vast endless row of doors, one of them swung open at the first knock. She peeked around the edge of the door as it swung open. The light that rushed forth was blinding, swallowed her whole, ended the dream.