The Train of Small Mercies by David Rowell Page B

end. But she had dropped him, too. In most ways, it was like she didn’t exist anymore—no one had seen her, no one had heard from her. There was another guy from their high school who had gone off to Vietnam—Barry Yarborough, nose tackle on the football team, always singing Beach Boys songs, his little brother killed in a school bus accident—and as Jamie had heard it, no one knew whether he had been captured or killed, or whether he had simply run off. The last anyone had seen him, according to Sutton, he was with his platoon in Hue. Missing in action. That was how he thought of Claire now.

Pennsylvania
    D elores would meet her friends and possibly their husbands just a mile from Arch’s shop. Until then, Delores would have to entertain Rebecca in out-of-the-way places.
    Delores put her sign and Rebecca’s pictures in the backseat of their car. Rebecca sat in the passenger seat and clutched her one-eyed doll named Millie. Delores backed them out of the long driveway without knowing where they were going.
    â€œWas that fun?” she asked. “Did you like painting?”
    â€œYes,” Rebecca said.
    â€œWe’re good painters, aren’t we?” Rebecca nodded. “Your brothers used to like to paint, too. Now if it’s not a football or a BB gun, I can’t get them to touch it.” In the last six months Delores had lost all inclination to censor herself with Rebecca. She talked about how difficult Rebecca’s brothers had become, how intolerant Rebecca’s father could be of the things that Delores wanted to do or believed in. She even told Rebecca when she had insisted that Arch sleep on the couch, which on average was about once every couple of months. Once she told Rebecca that deep down her father was a good man, but that he could be oppressive, and then she explained what that word meant. On such occasions Rebecca had learned to arrange her face in some pensive expression, which Delores willed herself to see as sympathetic comprehension. Rebecca had learned to nod at the right moments, say, “Yes,” when Delores finished her thoughts by asking, “So do you see how that would make me feel?”
    Delores thumped her fingers against the rubber-covered steering wheel.
    â€œYou and I are going to see a train today, sugarplum. Would you like that?”
    Rebecca studied her mother. In truth, Rebecca had no particular fondness for trains—or for anything with wheels on it—but to her mother, and she shook her head vigorously.
    â€œWell, good. It’s going to be going really fast, and it’s not going to stop for us, but we can wave bye-bye to all the people on board, and maybe they’ll wave to us. But that’s not for a while. Not until after lunch. Meanwhile, we just have to decide what we want to do. Today everything we do is going to be our secret.”

New Jersey
    I n the days since he had been back, Ty, Daniel, and Walt had not asked Michael about his time with his father, since their parents had drummed it into them to treat Michael as if nothing unusual had happened. But they very much wanted to know the story. In the early days of his absence, they knew only that he was missing. From the way their parents shook their heads with concern while saying so little in front of them, the boys came to wonder if they would ever see their friend again. When their mothers said, “We just have to hope,” the boys took that to mean the situation was beyond hope.
    By the end of that first week, the tone of discussions had shifted. The rumor was that Michael’s father had taken him, and now when the subject of Michael came up at the dinner table, there was a brightness in their parents’ voices.
    â€œSooner or later, they’re going to find that father of his,” Ty’s mother had said. “And Michael will be just fine.”
    â€œI’ll bet Michael has no idea of all the trouble his father is