Lost Boys

15: New Year

This is how the Fletchers found their way to the end of 1983: They called the Lowes, who only had to hear two sentences before they came rushing to the house on Chinqua Penn. Mary Anne helped them pack what they'd need for the next few days while Harv telephoned the bishop and Sister Bigelow, who also came. Long after the Fletchers had been taken to the Lowes' house to spend the rest of that long Christmas Eve, the bishop and Sister Bigelow remained, gathering up all the presents that Step had pointed out to them, wrapping those that were still unwrapped, filling the stockings with the candy and gifts that Step and DeAnne had prepared, and then carrying it all to the Lowes' house before any of the little ones awoke. Step and DeAnne watched quietly as Harv and Mary Anne made the Fletcher children's Christmas a bright and happy time.

While they stayed home from church, the rest of the two Steuben wards gathered, and the much-fought-over Christmas program was scrapped on the spot. Instead the bishop, sleepless as he was, told the story of the innocents of Bethlehem, and then the story of Alma and Amulek as they watched the deaths of other innocents. And he said, "Such children of God will soon forget all pain and death, as they are greeted with rejoicing. It's those who are left behind who need our help and comfort now."

Help and comfort took many forms in the next few days. A new but empty condominium was found, and the landlord, hearing a little of their story, let the Fletchers have it for the first month free. While the police line still barred most people from the house on Chinqua Penn, the elders quorum crossed the line to carry all the Fletchers' worldly goods to a U-Haul truck, which was shuttled back and forth until everything was in place in the Fletchers' new home. They never had to set foot again in the house where Stevie died.

Sister Bigelow stayed after all the others who helped with the move had left. "I found something," she said.

"I thought you should be alone when you got it." She set a brown paper sack on the table. "It was in the back of the closet." Then she hugged DeAnne and left.

They opened the bag. Inside were two odd-shaped Christmas presents, wrapped. DeAnne's was heavy. She opened it to find two stones glued together and painted to be a rabbit. One stone was the body, the little one was the head, and there were two constructionpaper ears glued on. On a 3 x 5 card Stevie had written, "The Yard Bunny." Step's present was much lighter, and harder to figure out at a glance. Stevie had taken a Cool Whip tub, glued a used-up plastic tape dispenser to the lid, and painted the whole thing bright red. On the card was a careful diagram showing a watch dangling from the arm of the tape dispenser, several pens sticking through the hole in the dispenser, and loose change in the Cool Whip tub. There were fifteen pennies in the tub to help him get started. It was a dresser caddy to hold the stuff he kept in his pockets.

They held hands across the table for a long time, the presents framed by their arms.

None of the parents broke the silence about what happened on that Christmas Eve, and Doug Douglas made sure that the jour nalists heard only the story of Bappy and his son, and a family that had kept the dark secret of the old molester until it was far too late. So it was only pictures of Bappy and his son that ran on the evening news and on the front pages. Doug Douglas would keep in touch with all the families over the years, even after he retired from the Steuben Police Department, but he never brought up the subject of that night or of the year that led to it; they all knew the nature of the threads that bound them together. They shared with him the friendship of people who have been on a long journey together, a journey that is now behind them but can never be forgotten for a single hour.

Doug Douglas called the Fletchers only once. In going back over the records of the case, just for his own peace of mind, he had come up with a correlation between the times their house had been strangely infested by insects or spiders and the nights that boys had died. They confirmed the dates for him. Stevie hadn't been the only one to sense how the world was being torn.

Step and DeAnne buried their oldest boy in a cemetery on the western edge of Steuben, surrounded by thick woods full of birds and animals, a living place. They both knew as they stood beside the grave that their days of wandering were through. They had been anchored now in Steuben, both by the living and by the dead.

Little Jeremy would enter Open Doors when the time came; flowers would be tended on this grave.

There were seven other funerals in Steuben during those few days between Christmas and the new year.

The bodies of those seven children were accompanied to the grave by the small gifts that had been found with them: A Hot Wheels racer, a fakeceramic dog, a harmonica, a ball of string, a Star Wars button, a squirt gun, a deck of cards.

Because life must go on and bills must be paid, Step finished the program he had been working on and sent it in, and Agamemnon would pay him and he would begin his next project for them because his family needed him to do it. Just as the family needed DeAnne to tend to Jeremy and Elizabeth and Robbie, the three who remained. It was their needs now that mattered, and she sup plied them, and Step too, as best they could.

On New Year's Day the family members who had flown from Utah to be with them all flew ho me. The ward members who had dropped all their regular concerns to help the Fletchers now picked them up again.

Gradually life settled back to normal for all of them.

Even for the Fletchers, life settled. Not back to normal, for there was no going back for them. Rather their life settled into a new way, a new road. There was always in Step's mind a sense of someone watching, as if he could always turn at the moment of some triumph and say, See that? Pretty good, hey? And the one who watched would say, Neat. Neat, Dad.

In DeAnne's mind she saw him as a light in the distance, a beacon. If I always look toward that light, she thought, if I always walk straight toward it, then someday, even though it's very far away, I'll reach that goal.

They remembered Stevie on his birthday every year, and told stories about him until Robbie and Elizabeth could almost recite them all from memory. Every now and then Robbie would refer to the Christmas when Stevie's friends came, though the family never actually talked about that night.

One other thing was lost, too, that Christmas Eve. Step no longer called Robbie "Robot" or "Road Bug"; Betsy became Elizabeth to him; and Jeremy was Jeremy. With Step not using them, the nicknames soon died out, except when Robbie now and then teased Elizabeth by saying, "We used to call you Betsy Wetsy, you know." As the children grew up they lost all memory of their parents calling each other Junk Man and Fish Lady. They wouldn't have believed it if you told them; no one told them.

It wasn't that Step or DeAnne actually decided that the nicknames ought to stop. It's just that those names were part of a set, and it didn't feel right to use any of them unless you could use them all. But someday they would use them, they knew. Someday they would use all those old names, when Door Man met them on the other side.