It was a wonder to observe. But like I said, I love surprises.
When I turned my attention back to Billy, he was unwrapping a little package of tinfoil that he’d taken from his knapsack. From inside the tinfoil he carefully withdrew four cookies and put them on the table—one cookie in front of each chair.
—Well, well, well, I said. What do we have here?
—Chocolate chip cookies, said Billy. Sally made them.
While we chewed in silence, I noticed that Billy was staring rather shyly at the top of the table, as if he had something he wanted to ask.
—What’s on your mind, Billy?
—All for one and one for all, he said a little tentatively. That’s from The Three Musketeers, isn’t it?
—Exactly, mon ami.
Having successfully identified the source of the quotation, you might have imagined the kid would be pleased as punch, but he looked despondent. Positively despondent. And that’s despite the fact that the mere mention of The Three Musketeers usually puts a smile on a young boy’s face. So Billy’s disappointment rather mystified me. That is until I was about to take another bite, and I recalled the all-for-one-and-one-for-all arrangement of the cookies on the table.
I put my cookie down.
—Have you seen The Three Musketeers, Billy?
—No, he admitted, with a hint of the same despondency. But I have read it.
—Then you should know better than most just how misleading a title can be.
Billy looked up from the table.
—Why is that, Duchess?
—Because, in point of fact, The Three Musketeers is a story about four musketeers. Yes, it opens with the delightful camaraderie of Orthos and Pathos and Artemis.
—Athos, Porthos, and Aramis?
—Exactly. But the central business of the tale is the means by which the young adventurer . . .
—D’Artagnan.
— . . . by which D’Artagnan joins the ranks of the swashbuckling threesome. And by saving the honor of the queen, no less.
—That’s true, said Billy, sitting up in his chair. In point of fact, it is a story about four musketeers.
In honor of a job well done, I popped the rest of my cookie in my mouth and brushed the crumbs from my fingers. But Billy was staring at me with a new intensity.
—I sense that something else is on your mind, young William.
He leaned as far forward as the table would allow and spoke a little under his breath.
—Do you want to hear what I would do with fifty thousand dollars?
I leaned forward and spoke under my breath too.
—I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
—I would build a house in San Francisco, California. It would be a white house just like this one with a little porch and a kitchen and a front room. And upstairs, there would be three bedrooms. Only instead of a barn for the tractor, there would be a garage for Emmett’s car.
—I love it, Billy. But why San Francisco?
—Because that’s where our mother is.
I sat back in my chair.
—You don’t say.
Back at Salina, whenever Emmett mentioned his mother—which wasn’t very often, to be sure—he invariably used the past tense. But he didn’t use it in a manner suggesting that his mother had gone to California. He used it in a manner suggesting that she had gone to the great beyond.
—We’re leaving right after we take you and Woolly to the bus station, added Billy.
—Just like that, you’re going to pack up the house and move to California.
—No. We’re not going to pack up the house, Duchess. We’re going to take what little we can fit in a kit bag.
—Why would you do that?
—Because Emmett and Professor Abernathe agree that’s the best way to make a fresh start. We’re going to drive to San Francisco on the Lincoln Highway, and once we get there, we’ll find our mother and build our house.
I didn’t have the heart to tell the kid that if his mother didn’t want to live in a little white house in Nebraska, she wasn’t going to want to live in a little white house in California. But setting the vagaries of motherhood aside, I figured the kid’s dream was about forty thousand dollars under budget.
—I love your plan, Billy. It’s got the sort of specificity that a heartfelt scheme deserves. But are you sure you’re dreaming big enough? I mean, with fifty thousand dollars you could go a hell of a lot further. You could have a pool and a butler. You could have a four-car garage.
Billy shook his head with a serious look on his face.
—No, he said. I don’t think we will need a pool and a butler, Duchess.