Children of the Uprising Read online

  After Indonesia and Istanbul, Christopher had believed that he had outgrown the ability to be surprised. It had only taken him a couple of weeks to come to that conclusion, but that’s what happens when every day begins as if you’re peering over the edge of a roller-coaster car. So Christopher wasn’t surprised when the loading dock door opened to reveal an interior that looked nothing like an abandoned warehouse. He wasn’t surprised to see Brian standing behind the doors, waiting for them. “Welcome back,” Brian said to Christopher and Reggie, greeting them with a salesman’s smile. Brian approached Christopher first. He stretched out his hand for Christopher to shake. “We’ve heard amazing things,” Brian said to Christopher. “You’ve done so well, Christopher. Your father would be proud.” Christopher shook Brian’s hand without saying anything. “I hope you now believe that you did the right thing coming with me.”

  “I do,” Christopher finally conceded. “Have you heard anything about Evan and Addy?” He had avoided asking Reggie the question, knowing that there was nothing he could do about them when he was halfway across the world, but now he was back.

  Brian put his hand on Christopher’s shoulder. “Heard about them? They’re here,” Brian said, to Christopher’s relief. “They’re excited to see you.” Brian squeezed Christopher’s shoulder and gently guided him into the building. Once Christopher was over the threshold, Brian turned to Reggie. He shook Reggie’s hand too, leaning in toward him and whispering something in his ear. Seeing Reggie and Brian together for the first time, Christopher thought about how everything seemed to be tightening around him. He had once read somewhere that the difference between fear and paranoia was that fear was rational. He’d always wondered what good that was when the world was fucking crazy. Reggie nodded to Brian and whispered a reply in Brian’s ear.

  “Secrets?” Christopher said out loud, admonishing Brian and Reggie.

  “Nothing you won’t hear about soon enough,” Reggie promised him. Christopher wondered if Brian and Reggie would even know each other if it wasn’t for him and his birth parents.

  Christopher stepped into the building and wasn’t surprised to see the silent faces of two dozen people staring at him. Alejandro was there from Costa Rica. So was Simone from Rio de Janeiro. So were so many others. Yet even as Christopher’s world expanded, it seemed to be shrinking. His past was becoming part of his present, and his present seemed merely to be becoming a foil for whatever was in store for him in his future.

  “Brian’s going to take you to see Evan and Addy,” Reggie said to Christopher. “I have some things I need to take care of.”

  “Okay,” Christopher said, too eager to see his old friends to argue. He followed Brian up a flight of stairs and into a small, windowless room. The room was a stark white color, with a white conference table and white chairs.

  “Wait here,” Brian said to Christopher. Christopher nodded and Brian walked back out of the room. Christopher sat down in one of the chairs. He didn’t know why, but his heart was pounding in his chest. He felt like he could hear the sound of it beating as it echoed around the room. Of all the things to be nervous about, Christopher couldn’t understand why he was so nervous about seeing his friends again. They were alive. Brian had told Christopher that they were excited to see him. Christopher knew that, if what Brian said was true, Evan and Addy must have forgiven him for leaving them the way he did. None of the rationalizing Christopher was doing in his head had any impact on the beating of his heart. Reggie had been acting so strange. Something else was up, something that would test Christopher’s newfound immunity to surprises. The thing was, Christopher was pretty sure that he didn’t want to be surprised anymore.

  Fifty-four

  Maria stood alone on the roof of the warehouse, waiting for Reggie. Brian had brought her there. He told her that Reggie wanted to talk to her first. The roof was the only place Reggie knew that they could be alone. The roof wasn’t very high, but Maria was surprised by how much she could see from that vantage point. Everything in this part of the city was low. A warm wind blew around her, and she could hear the distant sounds of the city on the breeze. She walked over to the edge of the roof, looked down at the empty streets below her, and waited.

  Maria remembered the first letter she’d gotten in prison from Reggie. It was the first letter she got, period. The whole time she was in prison, eight years all told, nobody except Reggie wrote to her. Maria was nervous when she received that first letter. She was nervous that it would be from her father, nervous that her father might have found out what had become of her. But she never heard from her father. Her father never found out, and by the time Maria got out of prison, she didn’t have to worry about her father finding out anymore. He died in the middle of her prison sentence.

  Reggie didn’t put any details in that first letter. Maria didn’t even realize it was from him until she saw the name “Reggie,” with quotes around it, at the bottom of the page. At first she didn’t know how she felt about getting a letter from Reggie. After she had saved Christopher, she wanted to disassociate herself from the War. But she was so glad to find out that Reggie was alive and okay and so happy to have a connection to somebody. So she wrote Reggie back. They didn’t talk about much in their letters, either while Maria was in prison or after. They rarely mentioned the War or Christopher. They wrote to each other, from the vantage points of two people living idyllic, ordinary lives. It was a game, a pleasant distraction, a way for both of them to make the world seem bearable.

  The letters were almost entirely fictional, but sometimes some truth leaked through. Eventually Maria surmised from some of the hidden details in Reggie’s letters that Reggie was working with the Underground. So for one letter, Maria stopped playing the game. For one letter, she wrote as herself, as Christopher’s mother and as the woman who once saved Reggie’s life. She made one request of Reggie, a request that Reggie agreed to without hesitation. One request that Maria had been relying on ever since she made it.

  Maria heard the door on the roof open behind her. It was an old door with rust on its hinges and it squeaked as it swung open. She didn’t turn at first. She wanted to say something before she faced Reggie and lost her resolve. She heard Reggie take a few steps toward her. “You promised me that you’d protect him,” Maria said to Reggie without turning to face him. “You promised me that you’d keep him out of the War.”

  “I know,” Reggie said, and she remembered his voice. “I never should have made that promise. I had no right to make promises that I couldn’t keep. At the time I didn’t have any idea what Christopher would become, what either of you would become.”

  Maria turned to face Reggie now. She was shocked by how old he looked. She had half expected to turn around and see a teenage boy standing behind her. What she saw instead was a man, a strong but weathered man. “Christopher didn’t become anything,” Maria said to him. “He’s just a boy, Reggie.”

  Reggie shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong, Maria. Christopher is a boy, but he’s not just a boy. He’s so much more.”

  “You’re going to break him, Reggie. You’re all going to break him.”

  “I tried to keep him out of all this, Maria. You have to know that I tried.” Reggie stepped closer to Maria. They stood facing each other.

  “What do you mean you tried? You flew him around the world to convince people to join some sort of revolution. How is that trying to protect him? You used him, Reggie.”

  “Yeah,” Reggie admitted, “but at least it was me using him and not somebody else. I’m not going to waste him like other people would have. We’re actually going to do this, Maria. We’re actually going to end the War.”

  “And what if you don’t? What happens then?”

  “I gave him a chance to run, Maria. I put my best people on it. It didn’t take.” Reggie decided not to tell Maria about Max and about how Max died protecting Christopher. He couldn’t see what good
it would do. He was using Christopher. He wasn’t going to win the argument that way. “Did you ever imagine that your son would get to see the sunrise in Indonesia or eat dinner on a rooftop in Istanbul?”

  “No,” Maria admitted. “Do you think that’s worth it?”

  “You’ll have to ask Christopher that.”

  “But do you think it’s worth it?” Maria pressed.

  “No,” Reggie answered her, “but it’s something.”

  Maria thought about it for a second. “Do you still need him? Hasn’t he already played his part? Can’t you finish the rest without him?”

  Reggie nodded. “We can. Christopher already did his part. He did it miraculously. He needs to meet with people here tomorrow, but it’s only a formality. They’ve come from all over the Americas to see him—to see the legend with their own eyes. After that, if you can convince him to stop, he can stop.” Reggie paused for a moment. “But you’re not going to be able to convince him. I tried already. He wants to see this thing through.”

  “And if you can’t convince him, what chance do I have?” Maria said with only a tinge of sarcasm.

  Reggie shrugged off the sarcasm. “He’s stubborn,” Reggie said. “Like his mother.”

  “Where is he now?” Maria asked.

  “He’s downstairs, in a room, waiting. We wanted you and Addy and Evan to go in to see him together. We think it might help alleviate the shock.”

  “The shock?” Maria flinched. “Does he know about me? Does he even know that I’m alive?” Her voice suddenly got weak.

  “No,” Reggie said. “I managed to keep some of my promises.”

  Fifty-five

  Christopher waited in the white room for what felt like hours, though it was actually little more than forty minutes. Then, without warning, the door swung open and Evan walked into the room. Christopher looked at Evan. Evan looked healthy but older, older than he should have looked. Christopher took a small step toward Evan. Before he could make it any farther, Evan reached out and pulled Christopher into a massive hug. They didn’t say anything to each other. As the force of their hug subsided, Christopher looked up at the two other people who had walked through the door after Evan. He had expected to see Addy and Brian. Addy was there, her hair fading back toward its natural color but still with hints of the dark flame hue. But the person behind Addy wasn’t Brian. The person behind Addy was a ghost. Apparently, the ability to be surprised is not something that you can outgrow, not if the next surprise is bigger than the last one.

  Christopher couldn’t say how he recognized the woman standing behind Addy. He couldn’t remember ever seeing her before. Maybe it was because he had memories stored away that he didn’t know existed. Maybe these memories were so powerful that they could bring back the dead. Christopher let go of Evan and Evan moved aside. Addy walked up to Christopher next. Christopher stood there, frozen in shock. Addy didn’t try to break the spell. She simply stood on the tips of her toes and whispered to him, “We’re glad to have you back,” then gave him a gentle kiss on his cheek. Then she too stepped aside.

  Maria watched Christopher’s face. From the moment she’d entered the room, she couldn’t take her eyes off his face. She’d waited for this moment for a long time and then spent an even longer time trying, and failing, to make peace with the fact that this moment was never going to happen. Now the moment was here and Maria was so worried about what it might do to Christopher that she couldn’t enjoy it. All she really knew about her own son was what Evan had told her over the past two days. He looked so much like his father and still so much like his own person that it almost frightened Maria. And he looked so much like a man, so unlike the child that Maria had pictured in her head for all these years. When Christopher looked up at her, he didn’t look angry, and she was grateful for that, but she readied herself for the anger that she thought would come once the confusion wore off. She remembered what it had felt like holding him for the first time after she’d found him in California when he was only one year old. She remembered how he’d struggled and cried out for someone else. To say she remembered it wasn’t even really true because that implied that she’d stopped thinking about it. She’d never stopped thinking about it, but now she didn’t merely remember it, she felt it again—that same ache in her heart. Only this time, she wasn’t saving him. Addy stepped aside and Christopher’s eyes fell on Maria. “This is wrong,” Maria mumbled to Christopher. “I shouldn’t be doing this to you again.” Then she turned and headed for the door. A hand gripped her arm before she could reach the door handle. She knew it was Christopher. She could feel his father in his grip.

  Until Maria spoke, Christopher couldn’t move. He froze. He was staring at a ghost—both in his memory and in real life. Maria was dead. Max had told him that she was dead. Everyone knew that she was dead. Christopher didn’t even want to think about what it would mean if she was alive, if she’d been alive the whole time. He stared at her, and she stared back at him, and he didn’t know what to do or to say or to think. All he knew was that when he heard her voice, he didn’t want her to go. He needed her to stay. That part of Christopher’s memory that he hadn’t known existed exploded when he heard Maria’s voice. So when she turned toward the door, Christopher went after her. He reached for her and grabbed her arm before she could leave him again. His skin touched her skin. Unable to go forward, Maria turned back toward her son.

  Christopher wanted to be angry, but he’d run out of anger. He already had too many people to be angry with. When Maria turned back toward him, she saw what was left of his anger on his face. When someone is all out of anger, all that’s left is despair. Christopher no longer looked like a man to her. He looked like the child that she had once held in her arms. When Maria saw that child, her child, she had no choice but to go to him and spread her arms to him and try to comfort him.

  When Maria put her arms around Christopher, he collapsed into them. He didn’t want to be so vulnerable, but he didn’t have the will to stop himself. He was supposed to be a leader now. He was supposed to be a warrior. At least, that was what everyone else wanted him to be. That was the mask that they made him wear. But deep down, he didn’t believe that he was those things. Deep down, he had no idea who he was. At that moment, though, he was still a frightened child in the arms of a mother. It didn’t matter in that moment that this wasn’t his only mother. His body remembered what it felt like to be held by this woman, and it collapsed. And he wept like a child.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay,” Maria whispered to Christopher as she stroked his back.

  “They told me you were dead,” Christopher said between sobs.

  “I know,” Maria said, still gently rubbing his back, trying to soothe him. “I told them to. I’m sorry. I was trying to protect you. I never wanted to hurt you.” She would have cried too if she hadn’t realized that in that moment she needed to stay strong for her son. “You have your own family. Whether I’m alive or dead shouldn’t mean that much to you.”

  “But it does,” Christopher said, burying his teary eyes in the crook of Maria’s neck. “It does.”

  “I know,” Maria said again. She held his head against her so that she could absorb his tears. “I’m alive and I’m here with you now and I’m never going to leave you again.”

  “Promise?” Christopher said, sounding very much like a little boy who’d gotten separated from his mother in a department store.

  “I promise,” Maria said, stroking Christopher’s hair. Then she held him away from her and looked into his face. “We’ve probably got a lot to talk about. Evan? Addy? Can you give us some time alone?”

  “Of course,” Addy said. Addy and Evan began to walk out of the room, but before they left, Addy turned back to Christopher. “Are you okay, Christopher?” she asked, sounding almost as maternal as Maria.

  “Yeah,” an embarrassed Christopher assured her. “I’m okay.” So Evan and Addy
continued out the door. “Guys,” Christopher called out to them as they walked away. Both Addy and Evan turned toward him. “I’m happy to see you guys again. I’m happy you’re safe. We’ll talk when I’m done here, right?”

  “Of course,” Evan replied. “We’re good, Chris. Don’t worry about us.” Evan’s words meant everything to Christopher and Evan meant everything when he said them. Then Evan and Addy slipped out of the room, leaving Maria and Christopher alone, for the first time in more than seventeen years.

  “The last time I saw you,” Maria told Christopher, “you were still in diapers.” She remembered what Addy had told her that night in her basement in Quebec. Addy had said that there were still things Maria could teach Christopher. Whatever it was that she could teach him, she would.

  “Why?” Christopher asked, not knowing where to start. He could have been asking a million different questions, so Maria went with the one response that she knew could answer every one of them.

  “Because I loved you so much. Because I wanted you to be happy and I didn’t care how much it had to hurt me to help you be happy.”

  “Did you know my parents?” Christopher asked Maria.

  “Yes,” Maria told him. “I knew them when I was young. I knew that they would love you and that they would be wonderful to you. And I hoped that by giving you to them I was giving you a fresh start.”

  “There’s no such thing as a fresh start,” Christopher told his long-lost mother.

  “You don’t know that,” Maria said. “You only know that we haven’t found it yet.”

  “I have so many questions,” Christopher said. “Tell me about my father. Tell me about you. Tell me why you never came to find me. Tell me about the couple that I lived with in California. Tell me about everything.”

  “I don’t know what you’ve heard, good or bad. Your father was a decent man, trying to become a good man, and I loved him. And he loved you. Those are the things that really matter.”