When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

thinking that I would take care of him for the family, honor Michelle, that we would collectively raise this kid so we could all recover from the pain of losing the people we loved. But I’m all he’s going to have.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” I don’t know what I’m apologizing for but it’s all I can think of to say to Mrs. C. Or maybe I’m saying it to my baby.

“You girls want more coffee?” Mrs. C’s hand shakes on the handle of the Mr. Coffee pot. She speaks to us as though she hasn’t just said that she never wants to see my baby again. I don’t know what to do next but Sharon, reaching in her bag for some tissues, says, “Hey, Mrs. C, why don’t I sit with you for a minute and Gigi can go see Mr. C? Before we go? I think it would be good if she could do that.”

Mrs. C, unsure, thinks for a minute. We all have the same thought at the same time that we don’t say aloud. This will be the only time Mr. Costello will ever see his grandson. Mrs. C sighs. “OK, dear. He’s down the hall. He probably won’t recognize you. He’s confused, it’s the drugs he’s on. Just agree with whatever he says. Sharon, sweetheart, can you find me something stronger for this coffee in the kitchen?”

I walk with the baby down the hallway and find the open bedroom door. The room is cornflower blue. The midday sunlight reflects off the walls. Everything glows. Mr. Costello is lying on a hospital bed, gaunt, but the breadth of his shoulders, the length of him, are evidence that he was once strong as an ox. His milky eyes are open above his oxygen mask, searching the ceiling for something; a few gray hairs lie barely visible where there used to be a full head of lustrous black. Around his neck is a gold crucifix, identical to his wife’s. He’s so fragile, I’m afraid that the weight of it is crushing his chest.

I lean over and whisper, “Can you hear me, Mr. Costello? John?”

“Who’s this?” He turns his head to me with an effort. I’m not sure if he sees me.

“It’s me, Gigi.”

“Michelle? Is that you?” I stop still for a second, unsure what to say. I don’t want to upset him, I don’t know if he knows that Michelle’s gone, if he forgot, I don’t know what the right thing to say is, but he doesn’t give me a chance.

“Michelle, where the hell you been? Your mother’s been frantic. C’mere, let me see you.” I come closer. He moves his mask from his face. His eyes flicker when he sees the baby.

“Oh my God, Michelle! The baby! Oh, honey, I’m sorry, sweetheart, I forgot about the baby. I don’t feel too good, you know? C’mere, let me see him.” I come closer and sit on the edge of the bed. I lift Mr. C’s hand for him and place it on the baby’s face so he can feel the perfect skin. The baby babbles at him.

“Ha, ha, he’s beautiful, beautiful. Oh, Michelle, you did good, kid. I knew you’d be OK in the end. I always believed that. Your mother, well, you know your mother, but I believed in you, sweetheart. Look at this beautiful baby!”

Everything evaporates—the portrait, the coffee, Jimmy’s pictures, my brother in the locket, Mrs. C and the poison in her blood. This is how my baby’s life should have started. With his family happy to see him; loving him without having to be asked. All of the tragedy of our circumstances dissipates in Mr. C’s eyes, shining with pride for his daughter and his grandchild. I’m not the only one who loves him. Someday I’ll tell him that. That his grandfather loved him so much.

“What’s his name? It’s a boy, right? I don’t feel too good, you know? I forgot, I know you told me, but what’s his name?” Mr. Costello’s eyes sparkle from their hollows.

“Mic…” I start to say Michael, the name his foster mother gave him. On all the papers he was Baby Costello because Michelle didn’t give him a name, or if she did then no one knew it. I only used Michael at the doctor’s office, and I called him Little Guy most of the time. There was so much paperwork to do, so many things to figure out, I wanted his name to be meaningful, to give him strength and purpose after everything he’d survived. It felt so huge, naming a person. But after today I think Michael is his middle name. I look at Mr. C and I say, “John, his name is Johnny. I named him after you.”

A tear rolls down the old man’s face, his skin as thin as paper. “Oh! Johnny boy! Hey, Johnny! You were always such a good girl, Michelle. Oh my God, Johnny boy, here, Michelle, take this off me, it’s for Johnny, you give it to Johnny and you tell him that’s from his nonno.” He puts his hand to the gold crucifix and limply but frantically tries to take it off. I lift his head from the pillow. I remember a bird skull Frankie found in the park once, long ago on a summer day. How light it was, I think, as I help John get the chain over his head.

I put the baby next to him on the bed, holding him there with my hand as Mr. Costello gives his grandson the cross. Johnny mouths it, interested in the cold metal, how it catches the blue light of the room.

“Oh, is he beautiful! Oh, this kid is somethin’ else,” Mr. C says, and I see the baby look at him, a glimmer and a question in his little eye, like, Who are you? before he decides to smile for Nonno. Mr. C laughs and the baby plays with the cross. We sit together like this until the old