The Wishing Game(86)
Lucy tugged gently on the back of his shirt. He looked up at her.
“Mama loves you,” she said.
He rolled his eyes and said, “I know.” But then he quickly leaned his head back against her, his way of saying he loved her too.
Lucy peered down the escalator and saw Hugo and Jack waiting for them. She smiled but didn’t wave or say anything to Christopher. She didn’t want him getting too excited and running down the moving stairs. Right now, he was chattering away about how crazy it was that he would be taking a boat to school every day when it started in a week. A boat! To school! Every day! He had never been on a boat in his life, and now he was taking A boat! To school! Every day!
Jack waved at her. Hugo was too busy messing around with a roll of what looked like white wrapping paper. She saw him slap Jack on the arm. What on earth were they doing? Then he and Hugo started walking apart from each other and unfurled a banner that was at least ten feet wide and three feet tall that read, WELCOME LUCY & CHRISTOPHER.
Obviously, Hugo had painted the banner. Their names were written inside the bellies of sharks. Hers was an elegant great white shark, and Christopher’s was a hammerhead. When Christopher saw the sign, his mouth dropped open. No stopping him now. He ran down the last few steps and toward the sign.
First, there were hugs for Hugo. And then Lucy got to do something she’d been dreaming about for weeks.
“Christopher,” she said as she took him by the shoulders and gently steered him forward. “This is Jack Masterson. Jack, this is Christopher.” She smiled and, with the greatest pride she had ever felt in her life, added, “My son.”
Christopher stared up at Jack, wide-eyed, silent with awe.
“Say hi,” Lucy prompted.
“Are you really the Mastermind?” Christopher asked.
“What has two hands,” Jack said, “but can’t scratch itself?”
Slowly a smile spread across Christopher’s face. “A clock!”
“Good job, my boy. You’ll do just fine on Clock Island. Let’s go, shall we? Mikey’s waiting with the car.”
When they reached the car, Christopher claimed the middle row with Jack while Lucy and Hugo sat in the back row all alone. As Jack got into the car, he gave them a wink.
For the drive to the dock, she and Hugo whispered to each other in the back while Christopher and Jack competed to see who could talk each other’s ears off first.
“I’ve never seen him so happy,” Hugo said. “Not in all the years…even before Autumn died.”
“Christopher’s on cloud nine, and we’re never going to get him down.”
“And you?” Hugo asked. “Happy?”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “He’s mine. Enough said.”
* * *
—
The past three months had been wild, the best three months of Lucy’s life. She’d arrived back in Redwood to a hero’s welcome from the kids at school. While she was gone, Jack had sent three hundred complete sets of Clock Island books—one set for each child at Redwood Elementary. Lucy spent the weekend doing interviews with national and local TV. Then on Monday morning, because school was out, she met with a local family law attorney who worked in conjunction with Ms. Hyde. It took two weeks—renting a small house in a safe neighborhood, filling it with furniture, leasing a car—but then Christopher was hers. She’d finally been approved to foster him.
Every day this summer, they’d gone on bike rides or to the library or for walks. Even roller-skating. And all the while, she and Ms. Vargas, the family law attorney, were working on Lucy’s adoption application. Every penny of it was bankrolled by Jack Masterson.
And Hugo thought money couldn’t buy happiness.
But the best part, though it was hard, was the first time Christopher had a tantrum over something Lucy asked him to do. She’d been waiting for that moment, the moment Christopher misbehaved with her. It meant he knew he was really her son, that she was really his mother, that he knew Lucy wasn’t going anywhere, even if he whined about putting his breakfast dishes in the dishwasher or refused to brush his teeth or pick up his LEGOs, which were literally strewn all over the entire house. Talk about a messy roommate.
“He’s driving me nuts today,” Lucy had told Theresa on a particularly rough evening.
“Congratulations,” Theresa had said, laughing. “Now you’re a real mama.”
There were harder times, nights when Christopher woke up sweating from old nightmares and crying for his parents. And there was nothing she could do then but hold him tight and talk to him or read to him until he fell asleep. Strangely, it was those hard heartbreaking nights when she felt most like a mother.
When the time came for Lucy to adopt Christopher officially, not only did Ms. Theresa and her whole family come, but Christopher’s teachers and his entire second-grade class attended. Even Mrs. Costa, the social worker, brought balloons for Lucy that said, It’s a boy. Lucy was happy to see her there. She’d been right, after all. It did take a village to raise a child. And Lucy was getting a brand-new village. Because that evening, Hugo stood before them in their rented living room and announced that, as a duly appointed representative of the Enchanted Kingdom of Clock Island, he was inviting Lucy and Christopher to become official citizens.