In Kristoff Bjorgmans memory that one moment always held a magical quality—partly, perhaps, because it really was magical, but mostly because the rest of the evening was so wild. In the next three hours, neither peace nor magic made an appearance. Kristoff had stored the house keys away neatly (he was a neat and methodical man, was Kristoff Bjorgman in a small manila envelope which he had labeled "Ludlow House—keys received June 29." He had put the keys away in the Fairlane's glove compartment. He was absolutely sure of that. Now they weren't there. While he hunted for them, growing increasingly irritated, Anna hoisted Micheal
seats for the third time when his daughter screamed and then began to cry. "Kristoff!" Anna called. "She's cut herself." Maria had fallen from the tire swing and hit a rock with her knee. The cut was shallow, but she was screaming like someone who had just lost a leg, Kristoff thought (a bit ungenerously). He glanced at the house across the road, where a light burned in the living room. "All right, Maria," he said. "That's enough. Those people over there will think someone's being murdered." "But it hurrrrts!" Kristoff struggled with his temper and went silently back to the wagon. The keys were gone, but the first-aid kit was still in the glove compartment. He got it and came back.
When Maria saw it, she began to scream louder than ever. "No! Not the stingy stuff! I don't want the stingy stuff, Daddy! No—" "Maria, it's just Mercurochrome, and it doesn't sting—" "Be a big girl," Anna said. "It's just—" "No-no-no-no-no—" "You want to stop that or your ass will sting," Kristoff said. "She's tired, Kris," Anna said quietly. "Yeah, I know the feeling. Hold her leg out." Maria put Micheal down and held Maria's leg, which Kristoff painted with Mercurochrome in spite of her increasingly hysterical wails. "Someone just came out on the porch of that house across the street," Maria said. She picked Micheal up. He had started to crawl away through the grass.
Wonderful," Kristoff muttered. "Kris, she's—" "Tired, I know." He capped the Mercurochrome and looked grimly at his daughter. "There. And it really didn't hurt a bit. Fess up, Maria." "It does! It does hurt! It hurrrr—" His hand itched to slap her and he grabbed his leg hard. "Did you find the keys?" Anna asked. "Not yet," Kristoff said, snapping the first-aid kit closed and getting up. "I'll—" Micheal began to scream. He was not fussing or crying but really screaming, writhing in Anna's arms. "What's wrong with him?" Anna cried, thrusting him almost blindly at Kristoff. It was, he supposed, one of the advantages of having married a doctor—you could shove the kid at your husband whenever the kid seemed to be dying. "Kristoff! What's—"
The baby was grabbing frantically at his neck, screaming wildly. Kristoff flipped him over and saw an angry white knob rising on the side of Micheal's neck. And there was also something on the strap of his jumper, something fuzzy, squirming weakly. Maria, who had become quieter, began to scream again, "Bee! Bee! BEEEEEE!" She jumped back, tripped over the same protruding rock on which she had already come a cropper, sat down hard, and began to cry again in mingled pain, surprise, and fear. I'm going crazy, Kristoff thought wonderingly. Wheeeeee! "Do something, Kristoff! Can't you do something?" "Got to get the stinger out," a voice behind them drawled. "That's the ticket. Get the stinger out and put some baking soda on it. Bump'll go down." But the voice was so thick with Down East accent that for a
moment Kristoff's tired, confused mind refused to translate the dialect: Got t'get the stinga out 'n put some bakin soda on't. 'T'll go daown. He turned and saw an old man of perhaps seventy—a hale and healthy seventy—standing there on the grass. He wore a biballs over a blue chambray shirt that showed his thickly folded and wrinkled neck. His face was sunburned, and he was smoking an unfiltered cigarette. As Kristoff looked at him, the old man pinched the cigarette out between his thumb and forefinger and pocketed it neatly. He held out his hands and smiled crookedly . . . a smile Kristoff liked at once—and he was not a man who "took" to people. "Not to tell you y'business, Doc," he said. And that was how Kristoff met Kai Davidson, the man who should have been his father.