—That’s true, Billy. We are on our way to San Francisco. But right now, the car is on its way to New York. . . .
When Emmett said this, Billy’s eyes opened wide with revelation.
—New York is where the Lincoln Highway begins, he said. After we take the train and find the Studebaker, we can drive to Times Square and start our journey from there.
Emmett looked to Sally for support.
She took a step forward and put a hand on Billy’s shoulder.
—Billy, she said in her no-nonsense tone, you are absolutely right.
Emmett closed his eyes.
Now it was Sally he was taking aside.
—Sally . . . , he began, but she cut him off.
—Emmett, you know that there is nothing I would rather do than keep Billy at my side for another three days. As God is my witness, I would be happy to keep him for another three years. But he has already spent fifteen months waiting for you to return from Salina. And in the meanwhile, he’s lost his father and his home. At this juncture, Billy’s place is at your side, and he knows it. And I imagine, by now, he thinks that you should know it too.
What Emmett actually knew was that he needed to get to New York and find Duchess as quickly as possible, and that having Billy along wasn’t going to make the job any easier.
But in one important respect, Billy had been right: They had already left Morgen. Having buried their father and packed their bags, they had put that part of their lives behind them. It would be something of a comfort for both of them to know that whatever happened next, they wouldn’t have to go back.
Emmett turned to his brother.
—All right, Billy. We’ll go to New York together.
Billy nodded in acknowledgment that this was the sensible thing to do.
After waiting for Billy to retighten the straps on his pack, Sally gave him a hug, reminding him to mind his manners and his brother. Then without giving a hug to Emmett, she climbed in her truck. But once she had turned the ignition, she beckoned him to her window.
—There’s one more thing, she said.
—What’s that?
—If you want to chase your car to New York that’s your own business. But I have no intention of spending the next few weeks waking up in the middle of the night in a state of worry. So a few days from now, you need to give me a call and let me know that you’re safe.
Emmett began to express the impracticality of Sally’s request—that once in New York, their focus would be on finding the car, that he didn’t know where they’d be staying, or whether they’d have access to a phone . . .
—You didn’t seem to have any trouble finding the means to call me at seven this morning so I could drop whatever I was doing and drive all the way to Lewis. I have no doubt that in a city as big as New York, you’ll be able to find another telephone and the time to use it.
—Okay, said Emmett. I’ll call.
—Good, said Sally. When?
—When what?
—When will you call?
—Sally, I don’t even—
—Friday then. You can call me on Friday at two thirty.
Before Emmett could respond, Sally put the truck in gear and pulled to the depot’s exit, where she idled, waiting for a break in the traffic.
* * *
? ? ?
Earlier that morning when they had been preparing to leave the orphanage, Sister Agnes had bestowed on Billy a pendant on a chain saying it was the medallion of Christopher, the patron saint of travelers. When she turned to Emmett, he worried that she was about to bestow a medallion on him too. Instead, she said there was something she wanted to ask him, but before doing so, she had another story to tell: the story of how Duchess had come into her care.
One afternoon in the summer of 1944, she said, a man of about fifty had appeared at the orphanage door with a scrawny little eight-year-old at his side. Once the man was alone with Sister Agnes in her office, he explained that his brother and sister-in-law had died in a car crash, and that he was the boy’s only surviving relative. Of course, he wanted nothing more than to care for his nephew, especially at such an impressionable age; but as an officer in the armed forces, he was due to ship out for France at the end of the week, and he didn’t know when he would return from the war or, for that matter, if he would return at all. . . .
—Now, I didn’t believe a word this man had to say. Never mind that his unkempt hair was hardly befitting an officer in the armed forces and that he had a lovely young girl waiting in the passenger seat of his convertible car. It was plain enough that he was the boy’s father. But it is not my calling to concern myself with the duplicity of unscrupulous men. It is my calling to concern myself with the welfare of forsaken boys. And let there be no doubt about it, Emmett, young Daniel was forsaken. Yes, his father reappeared two years later to reclaim Daniel, when it suited him to do so, but Daniel didn’t know to expect that. Most of the boys who come into our care are truly orphans. We have boys whose parents died together of influenza or in fires, whose mothers died in childbirth and fathers died at Normandy. And it is a terrible trial for these children who must come of age without the love of their parents. But imagine becoming an orphan not by calamity, but by your father’s preference—by his determination that you have become an inconvenience.