Horace’s opponent let out a yap and raised his hands high. “I got you, Pork Chop, yes I did. Got you clean and fair. You surrendered to the overwhelming possibilities of my position.”
“Enjoy it,” said Horace as he stood. “It’s going to have to last you another twenty years.”
On the way out of the bar, Horace said to me, “This better be good.”
“Oh, it’s good,” I said.
My car was parked outside. Isabel Chandler, the Social Services caseworker, sat in the front passenger seat. And in the back, in a car seat Isabel had provided, sat Daniel Rose.
When Horace was seated beside Daniel, I leaned in the car door. “Horace, do you know Daniel?”
“I’ve seen the boy in the neighborhood,” said Horace. “How you doing there, son?”
“Okay,” said Daniel.
“I haven’t seen you around much lately,” said Horace.
“I’ve been living somewhere else,” said Daniel.
“Someplace good, I hope?”
“It’s okay.”
“Daniel, Mr. Grant’s the one responsible for arranging to have me be your lawyer.”
Daniel smiled at the old man. “Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure. And I like them teeth of yours, boy. It’s an improvement from what I remember.”
“They’re not real,” said Daniel proudly.
“Neither are mine,” said Horace.
“You were the one talking to my sister all the time.”
“I might just be,” said Horace.
“I remember.”
“Have you seen your sister?”
“Not for a while,” said Daniel.
“Okay, then. Well, it’s nice to finally say hello to you.”
Horace reached out his withered old mitt. Daniel slipped his small, pale hand inside, watched as it was swallowed whole. And then the gentle shake.
It wasn’t too long a drive. We hit the Cobbs Creek Parkway, followed that down to Haverford and then up toward the golf course. A left and a right and a left again, and then there we were, in the neighborhood of small brick row houses, of children playing in the yards, of families. The house I was looking for was easy enough to find, what with the balloons all tied up to the light beside the door.
“This is it,” I said as we stopped in front of it. “What do you think, Daniel?”
“It looks okay,” he said.
“The Hansons are very excited to meet you,” said Isabel. “This won’t be like the last place, a short-term thing. They’ve promised to take care of you as long as it’s required.”
“What about Mommy?”
“She’s working hard, Daniel,” said Isabel. “When she’s ready to take care of you the way you deserve, we’ll go before the judge and figure out what to do. But until then this will be your home.”
“I miss my mommy.”
“I know you do, Daniel,” I said.
The front door opened, and Mr. and Mrs. Hanson came out. They had big smiles on their faces, and they each held a wrapped present.
“Let’s go meet your new family,” said Isabel.
She got out of the car, bent over, and unhooked Daniel. The two of them walked slowly toward his new home.
“You want to get out?” I said to Horace.
“Nah, give the boy some time.”
“This is going to work out for him,” I said.
“It can’t be no worse than what he had.”
“You did a good thing for Daniel.”
“It was nothing nobody else wouldn’t have done.”
“Don’t bet on that,” I said as I got out of the car.
The Hansons were leaning forward, talking to the boy as he clutched hold of Isabel’s leg as if it were a life raft on a choppy sea. When they reached toward him, he shied away. When they tried to give him the gifts, he hid his face. God, it seemed so simple when Isabel and I were setting it up, it seemed so obvious. But it wasn’t working out, there was no joy or excitement in Daniel’s face. Just fear and disappointment, another stop on a train to nowhere.
“Daniel?”
We all looked up. Standing in the front doorway was Tanya Rose, dressed in her Sunday best, smiling nervously.
Daniel peeked at her from behind Isabel’s leg.
Tanya reached her arms out.
Daniel shouted, “Tanya,” and then ran to her.
Brother and sister, they hugged and jumped and fell into a heap and hugged some more, and suddenly Daniel couldn’t stop himself from laughing.
In a very real way, this tender moment was brought to us by Dr. Bob. He fixed Daniel’s teeth, he found for me Tanya’s new family, he taught me to do more than the expected, to find a way to make the exceptional the norm. And maybe for the first time, I felt the pull of what he had been trying to find all his life, the almost painful satisfaction that comes from trying to do something good and seeing it work out better than you could have hoped. Dr. Bob was the ultimate do-gooder, unwilling to let custom or law get in the way of his attempts to help.
Except without custom or law, where the hell are we?
But it wasn’t over, was it? Dr. Bob was still at large somewhere, never to answer the charges that could have been lodged against him: the burglary for sending Seamus Dent into Leesa Dubé’s apartment, felony murder for the way it turned out, conspiracy, obstruction of justice in the framing of François Dubé. Nor even the charge of kidnapping me. He was gone, and he wouldn’t be found. My guess was he had set up an office in the South of France, or in French Guiana, or in Martinique, someplace where he could practice his new language. Go ahead, take a walk, maybe in Pointe-à-Pitre, in one of the poorer sections of the town, and you’ll hear the tale of a dentist with gentle hands and a helpful temperament, a kind and brave soul who does magic tricks for the needy children whose teeth he treats for free, the mysterious Dr. Poivre.
But wherever he was, he was, beyond all else, a dangerous man. He liked to help, he said, but things often turned out wrong. Remember, Leesa Dubé was dead. And Seamus Dent, who killed her by accident, was also dead. Dr. Bob was living proof of the old adage about the road to hell. And, sad to say, my efforts to help had more often than not turned out badly, too. Julia Rose was left bereft, without her children, as she slipped deeper into a sad state of helplessness. And it only took a week for Kylie to abandon the treatment center where Father Kenneth had placed her. She was back on the street, still trying to kill herself, bound to succeed. And sadly, François Dubé had determined to seek custody of his young daughter. I had fought to get him out of jail, and in so doing, I feared, I had put his daughter in harm’s way.
It was almost enough to make me swear off helping in the future, almost enough to convince me that I had been right all along, that my surest path in this uncertain world is to mind my own damn business.
A car door slammed behind me. Horace T. Grant was out of the car, walking toward us, something in his eye.
Tanya Rose stopped her hugging and rolling. She stood up, took a hesitant step forward.
“Grandpa?” she said.
Only almost.