After dinner that evening, Scott and Barbara took Jonas into the kitchen alone.
"Charity told us what you said about the communities," Scott began. "Will they come after you?"
"They did," Jonas said, "but they've given up. They won't follow me here."
"Well, then the only thing to do is get you some papers," Scott said. "I hate to stoop to forgery, but if people find out where you're from, you'd never have any peace. The government would question you, the press would hound you...
"So we'll get you some papers and make you a citizen. I have cousins that are missionaries outside the country. I've already been in contact with them, and they've agreed to say that you and Gabriel are their sons, born overseas, whose papers were lost in a fire. They live in a very undeveloped country, so the government won't have trouble believing that. We'll say you came to live with us to be educated in America. My cousin and I have no other family than each other, so there's no one to question it. I don't know how we'll deal with their friends, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. So if anyone asks you, that's the story.
"As Gabriel grows up, I'm afraid we won't be able to tell him the truth—we'll have to tell him the story we tell everyone else, so he doesn't accidentally let the truth slip. We can tell him when he's ready. How does that sound?"
Jonas nodded, almost overcome. "I don't know how to thank you for taking us in," he said.
"Nonsense," said Barbara. "We couldn't just leave you to die on the doorstep, now could we?"

When Jonas went downstairs the next morning, Charity was alone in the kitchen.
"Good morning, Cuz. What would you like for breakfast? Bagel? Eggs? Toast?"
Jonas caught a word he knew. "Toast, please. And why did you call me 'Cuz'?"
"It's short for 'cousin'," she said.
He looked at her blankly. "Your father said that word last night. I didn't recognize it."
Charity looked at him strangely, then put slices of bread in the toaster. "I can see you've got a lot of catching up to do before you're ready for school," she said wryly.
As they ate breakfast, she explained family relationships to him—cousins, aunts, uncles, stepchildren, half-siblings and in-laws. Then she had to explain last names and middle names.
"So your full name is now Jonas Miller."
"No middle name."
"No. Do you want one? You could choose your own!" Her eyes shone. "That'd be so cool! Do you want to?"
Jonas smiled at her enthusiasm, and her use of the word 'cool'. "That would be interesting." In fact, the more he thought about it, the more the idea grew on him. I can start my new life in a world of choice with a choice that few get to make—I can make almost a new identity for myself. "I'd like that," he told her.
Charity went off to her bedroom and came back after a little while with dust in her hair and a book titled "Baby Names". Jonas reached up and brushed off some of the dust. Suddenly realizing what he had done, he stepped back quickly. He had forgotten how rude it was to touch anyone outside of one's own family. But Charity hadn't seemed to notice; she just laughed a little self-deprecatingly.
"It was under the bed," she said. "I really need to clean my room. I should probably warn you," she continued, sitting down and opening the book, "I just love names. If I get too crazy about this, just let me know."
The casual use of the word 'love' caught him off-guard. "Why do you like names so much?"
"They're just so interesting. The languages they come from, their meanings..."
Of course, this led to a digression when Jonas asked what she meant by languages, wasn't there just one? That led to a discussion of culture and geography. Jonas had never seen a map beyond the boundaries of the community, and was fascinated by the globe, and then charts of the solar system. It was after lunch by the time they managed to get back to names.
"I never knew names had meanings," Jonas aid, sitting on the floor with his back on the sofa, his bare feet out before him.
"Oh, yeah," Charity said, lying on her stomach. "For instance, it says here that your name is from the Hebrew name 'Yonah', meaning 'dove'. The dove is a bird that symbolizes hope and faith. Also, Jonah is the name of a man in the Bible who was swallowed by a whale for three days."
"Really? What does 'Gabriel' mean?"
Charity thumbed through the book. "It's from Hebrew too; it means 'strong man of God'. Gabriel is one of the four archangels in the Jewish tradition. He was the angel who brought news of Jesus' birth to Mary and John's to Zechariah, and he's supposed to blow his trumpet at the end of the world."
"What's a trumpet?"
"A kind of musical instrument."
"Music!"
"Yeah...?"
"We didn't have music in the community," Jonas said, excited. "I thought I heard soem coming from the house the night we came?"
"Yes, we were singing Christmas carols when you knocked on the door. Do you want to learn about music?"" Jonas paused. "Let's finish this first," he said. "What does 'Fiona' mean?"
"Fiona?" Charity flipped forward in the book. "'White'."
"What about 'Asher'"
"'Happy'."
"Yes." Jonas smiled. "That one's right. But Fiona should mean 'red'." Charity was looking at him with a puzzled expression. He shook his head. "Never mind."
For Gabriel, he chose the middle name 'David', meaning 'loved'. Jonas debated for a long time on his own name, and finally settled on 'Zachary'—"the Lord remembers". Even his new life would be determined by his old.
They spent the rest of the day talking about music and listening to it. by bedtime, Jonas could play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the piano.
Charity shook her head. "That's incredible. I can't believe how fast you pick all this up! I mean, this morning you had only heard music once, and now you can pick out a tune on an instrument. You picked up on everything I said about geography and astronomy..." She shook her head again. "Unbelievable. You might actually pull this off!"
"Pull what off of what?"
That made Charity laugh. "But we've still got a long way to go with the language. I meant, you'll actually be able to convince everybody that you've lived in the real world your whole life."
The real world. The name fits, Jonas thought.

Jonas lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. "Asher means happy," he said quietly. "Is he, anymore? And Fiona—"He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to see her face. He felt like his heart had dropped into his stomach.
There was a knock on the door. "Come in," he said.
Charity stuck her head in the door. "We're going to have some ice cream; do you want any?"
"No, thank you," Jonas answered.
Charity looked at him a moment as if she were deciding something. Then, instead of leaving, she stepped inside and shut the door behind her. She sat down next to him on the bed and pulled her knees up to her chin, meditating on the opposite wall.
"How do you do it?" she said after a minute. He turned his head and looked at her. "How do you learn so fast? And how is it that you know proper English, but you've never heard of Shakespeare? Or you understand science and biology so well, but you've never heard of planets or cats?" She turned to look at him, and her green eyes were puzzled and almost frightened. "I don't understand."
Jonas sighed. "The Communities defied reality—the reality you live in. They were a world where no one knew what death was, yet they died and killed each other. They had no sadness or real happiness, although they thought they did. They had government but no history and little future. There were no hills, no animals save fish, no sunlight, no rain, no snow, no clouds. Until last December, I didn't know that color, music or love even existed. And I didn't miss them, because I'd never experienced them.
He had Charity's complete attention now. Her green eyes searched his face. He laughed. "Your eyes are green. I didn't know people could have green eyes. Mine are gray, and that made me different—everyone else had black eyes."
"Gabriel's eyes are blue," Charity pointed out.
"Yes, and so were the Giver's eyes."
The story could not be stopped then. Jonas told her all about how he became the Receiver of Memory, how he learned about Elsewhere, and how and why he ran away. The telling of it took quite awhile.

"So... everyone you know, and one of the only two people you ever loved, are back there in the middle of chaos," Charity said when he had finished. "Wow."
They were silent a minute. From downstairs, the strains of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" were heard.
"Come on," Charity finally said, getting up with a smile. "Gabriel will be downstairs. And cookies and milk..." she said in a funny, tempting voice.
Jonas smiled. "And music. Let's go."

It was decided the next day that they would hold off on buying Jonas some new clothes.
"We have to put some flesh back on your bones first," Barbara said. "You look like a skeleton."
"Besides," Scott added, "we really should wait until we have your papers before we take you out in public."
So Charity and Jonas began to cover American history.
"The civil war was very bloody," Charity said. "In fact, one of the bloodiest battles was fought not far from here, Gettysburg." Charity handed him the encyclopedia and pointed to the page. "There's a painting of it."
Jonas looked at the picture. Young men in gray and blue lay sprawled across a smoke-enshrouded field; a horse reared in pain. Faintly, Jonas could feel the dregs of the Giver's memory of war—horses screamed, the grass was in the hair of the boy in gray, there was blood and pain and an agony that was not entirely physical. Jonas hands began to shake; the book slipped through his fingers, and he buried his face in his hands.
"Jonas?!" Charity put her hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong?"
Jonas shook his head and ran his hands through his hair. The memory had left as quickly as it had come.
"It's nothing," he said quietly. Charity looked unconvinced.
"You sure, Zach?" she said.
The name made Jonas smiled. "Yes, I'm fine."