Salvation city by Sigrid Nunez

Author:Sigrid Nunez [Sigrid Nunez]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Roman
ISBN: 9781594487668
Published: 2010-09-16T00:49:42+00:00

Warm bed, warm milk, the doctor’s deep warm voice. No, Cole wasn’t losing his mind again. Overexcitement. Nerves. Stress caused by traumatic memories. All that—a lot!—but nothing a day’s rest wouldn’t cure. And, of course, prayer. “Still the best medicine.”

(Instantly Cole’s thoughts flew to pretty, cat-faced Dr. Ming, his pediatrician in Chicago, who finished every exam by tickling his ribs and reminding him that laughter was the best medicine.)

Left alone, Cole lay in bed feeling very tired but not at all sleepy. It was the middle of the afternoon, and though the blinds were closed, bright sunlight leaked around them. He felt stifled under his covers, but as soon as he threw them off he was freezing. He turned round and round, like a rotisserie chicken, unable to get comfortable. His mind was racing. He thought back to a day when Pastor Wyatt had come to see him at the orphanage. Not the first time—not the rainy gray Saturday on which they had first met—but a later visit. They were sitting and talking in one of the common areas when PW dropped the word adoption—and even though Cole was already fond of PW and felt perfectly safe with him, a rush of fear had made him jump up and run away. It was the same kind of fear he had experienced years earlier, when he was around five or six and obsessed with the idea that if his mother let go of his hand when they were out in public, someone might try to snatch him.

Afterward he had been embarrassed, and he had felt bad for PW, whose feelings Cole was sure he’d hurt and whom he guessed he’d never see again. But in fact PW came again the very next day, and the first thing he said to Cole was, “We’ve got to get one thing straight. There can’t ever be any adoption without your consent.”

“What a place,” said PW, shaking his head.

It was three weeks later, and this time PW had come to Here Be Hope to take Cole away with him.

“Looks like they can’t find your stuff.”

He was referring to Cole’s few clothes and other belongings, which had been packed into a large cardboard box by one of the staff. That morning at Here Be Hope had been particularly chaotic; several children besides Cole were leaving for new homes the same day. PW thought maybe Cole’s box had been taken by someone else by mistake.

“In which case, they should return it. Anyway, we’re not going to sit around all day while they try to find it.”

There were some papers in the box, including Cole’s birth certificate and his medical records, but Cole barely gave those a thought. He was far too upset about his drawings, and about another item, one he never mentioned to PW or to anyone else and which he tried to forget once it appeared that the box was probably missing for good. Something he’d managed to bring with him from the house in Little Leap and hold on to throughout his long illness.

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