The Wright Way

Chapter 23 - The Wright Way

"I still can't find the pill," says Sarah.

"It doesn't matter," says Uncle. "Couldn't give it to him, anyway. Now he has a bruise, and police would look into it. He must go with us." He looks around, businesslike. "Sarah, Batya, Joseph—clean the place up. Ethan—wash your face and get dressed. Barnaby, take him to the car." With that, he turns around and walks out of the room, paying no attention to me.

Barnaby's wide shoulders conceal Joshua from my view. He picks him up like a doll and puts him on his feet. Still dazed by my blow and the fall, Joshua manages to remain standing, albeit swaying a little. His eyes travel around the room with an absent expression of a man who gave up all hope of getting a hold of the situation.

Barnaby steps to the bed and shakes my pillow out of its case. Before Joshua wondering gaze can meet mine, Barnaby puts the pillowcase over his head. Joshua's hands fly up, grasping at the sudden cover, but Barnaby says, "Take it off and I'll knock you out", and the hands go down just as quickly. Barnaby grabs him by the arm, pulling him towards the corridor, and Joshua stumbles after him without a word.

I turn to the wardrobe, wiping the blood off my face with the shirt I'm wearing—it's stained already, anyway—and then pull it off. I retrieve a clean khaki T-shirt and put it on. Only then I dare to look back again, and when I do, neither Barnaby nor Joshua are in the room. All around me, people clean, arrange and rearrange things, paying me no mind.

I finish getting dressed. Sarah approaches me, takes the dirty shirt and pants from me and stuffs them into the black garbage bag that's already half filled with the other items she has considered contaminated enough to be removed from the apartment. Like the others, she makes no eye contact with me. They move around as if I were invisible, and it somehow feels worse than when they openly showed their anger. Yet no matter how they feel about me, Uncle didn't act angry, and they look up to him for the right conduct.

I stand there, not sure what to do with myself, feeling like a kid who messed up and is now watching his mother swiping away shards of broken glass or cleaning his vomit from the carpet, torn between the desire to redeem himself by offering help and the reluctance to draw attention.

The room looks empty again. Even the ridiculous Fireman Sam curtains are gone. Wordlessly, Batya pushes past me into the room, carrying a bucket with water and a mop. The others start leaving, pulling off their white robes on their way and folding them carefully into a rag bag that Josef is holding by the door.

I join them and exit the apartment, still feeling like a ghost. It's good to be with them, though, even if none of them acknowledge my presence. They're family, and they might still accept me, as damaged as I am.

We go down four flights of stairs, and emerge into the empty night street. We meet no one, and the few cars that pass us probably don't see anything particularly unusual about us. The hour is late, true, but we could be just a bunch of people returning from a pub.

We turn the corner, and a familiar gray van is waiting there, parked against a blind brick wall. The people with the garbage bags file into the back of the van. I hesitate, not quite ready to look inside and see Barnaby and the figure with a pillowcase over his head. Then Uncle appears and gestures at me.

"Come here, Ethan," he says. "Join me."

Relieved that I won't need to sit with the rest of the group I walk around the vehicle and climb into the front passenger seat. A tree-shaped air freshener is hanging from the rearview mirror, filling the space with a strong chemical smell. I shut the door and sit still, shell shocked, listening to the muffled voices outside as my uncle talks to the others. Then he opens the driver's door and takes his place behind the wheel.

"We'll wait for Batya," he says, looking in front of him. Then, he gives me a sideway glance. "Aren't you worried about your friend? Don't you want to ask what will become of him?"

"He is not my friend," I say. "And I think I know."

"Do you accept that?"

It feels different now, talking to him without the others, just him and me sitting in the shadows, the only light coming from the streetlamp outside.

"Will you accept me back if I do?"

His expression ripples for a moment, as if something else breaks momentarily through his composed mask. Then, he reaches out and cups my face with one hand.

"Blood is thicker than water," he says. "Of course, I'll accept you. I wish you spoke to me about your problem instead of plunging into this independent journey of yours. Living alone, working with people that despise our community..." He shakes his head. "Saving people in your own way, huh? You almost had me fooled. You, young people, always think you can solve the old problems in a new way. Yet all the questions have been asked and all the answers are known—you just need to turn to the right person to get them."

"Meaning you?"

"Did you ever doubt that?" He removes his hand and looks into the rearview mirror. "Here comes Batya."

A few moments later, there's a knock on his window, and Batya gives him a thumb-up. He nods at her and waits until the door slams shut at the back of the van. Then, he turns the key in the ignition and puts the car into drive.

"We'll figure it out, Ethan," he says. "After we're home, everything will be back to normal. We'll just have to make a short stop before we get there. You know that, don't you?"

Slowly, I nod.