When Sonia comes down to deliver cold cuts and fairly stale bread for supper that night, Connor manages to talk to her alone, while Beau and the other kids are occupied scarfing down their sandwiches.
“You do realize that we need to get our hands on some of those stem cells you were talking about, and make sure the printer still works before we go public.”
“Fine,” says Sonia, glaring at him. “I’ll pick some up at Walmart tomorrow.” And when Connor doesn’t back down, Sonia sighs. “You’re right. But it won’t be easy. There are only a few research universities in the Midwest that still do that sort of research. Major organizations won’t fund it, because people think stem cell research has something to do with embryos, and people are terrified it might reignite Heartland War issues. Even the mention of it brings protests and negative publicity. Of course, adult pluripotent stem cells have nothing to do with embryonic stem cells, but facts never prevent the ignorant from jerking their knees into the groin of science.”
Connor grins. “Well, once we get this thing to work, and into the right hands, we can redirect that knee, hitting the Juvenile Authority and Proactive Citizenry where it counts!”
“I hope I live to see that day,” Sonia says, and pats him on the cheek like a grandmother might. Connor, usually a bit of a touch-me-not, finds it curiously comforting. “I’ll find us a place that has a supply of cells,” she tells him. “The tricky part will be getting them.”
• • •
“What the hell are you doing? Stop that! Do you have any idea what those are?”
Sonia has left the trapdoor open a bit longer than usual to help air out the basement, which has gotten noticeably rank. Connor, who takes every chance available to escape the cage, has come upstairs to find Grace at the old steamer trunk. She’s opened it and envelopes are spilling out everywhere.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it!” Grace frantically tries to put them back in, but the trunk is so full, they just topple out again. It’s like trying to get toothpaste back in the tube.
Connor immediately regrets having yelled at her. He kneels down beside her. “Calm down, Grace.”
“I just wanted to see what was inside, and they all started falling out. I didn’t mean it!”
“I know you didn’t. It’s all right. Go downstairs, and I’ll take care of it.”
Grace doesn’t need a second invitation. “I gotta stop touching things. Curiosity killed the cat. I gotta stop touching things.”
Grace bounds down the stairs away from the situation, leaving Connor once again alone with the trunk, only this time Pandora’s box is wide open. He has no idea where Sonia is, and what she’d say if she saw it like this.
There are hundreds upon hundreds of envelopes, many more than were there when Connor deposited his. The envelopes are mostly white and eggshell, but there is also the occasional colored one, as if Sonia got bored and started giving out brighter stationery to the kids. Each envelope is addressed by hand.
Now that he’s begun, Connor finds he can’t stop himself. He begins riffling through the sea of envelopes looking for a familiar address, in familiar handwriting. His envelope was simple white, and is hard to dig out of this snowstorm of correspondence.
“You’ll never find it in there,” Sonia says, coming up behind him, as he’s elbow-deep in the trunk.
He takes his hands out, feeling almost as guilty as Grace had, and sits back on the dusty floor. “Haven’t you mailed any of them?”
“Not a one,” Sonia says sadly. “Never had the heart to do it.”
“Did any kids who survived come to take their letter back?”
“Not a one,” Sonia says again. “Guess they had more pressing things to do. If any of them did survive.”
“A lot of them did,” Connor reassures her. “I know because I sent a lot of them on their way when they reached a safe age.”
“You sent them?” says Sonia. “I guess I should ask what you’ve been up to all this time, but I figure you’d rather not talk about it.”
Connor smiles. She’s got that right.
“You’re not mixed up with that awful Starkey person, are you?”
Connor grimaces and can’t hold her gaze. “He’s actually my fault. My own little wind-up psychopath.”
“Hmmph,” says Sonia, and mercifully doesn’t ask for details. “You may have wound him up, but he’s not following anyone’s marching orders but his own. We all have our accidental monsters.”
Connor looks back to the letter-filled trunk and finally understands why he’s still here. What’s been holding him back.
“Will you ever send them out?” he asks.
Sonia sits at her desk, leaning forward on her cane. “I suppose if the time is right to unveil the printer, the time might be right for a postal run.” Then she pauses, checks to see that no one is coming up from the basement, and proceeds to read Connor’s mind.
“But you don’t want me to mail yours, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Because you’re thinking you might deliver it yourself.”
Connor takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out. “Is that just me being self-destructive again?”
“I can’t say . . . but it would seem to me that wanting to bring closure is anything but self-destructive.”