Okay for Now

During the dead of winter, Doug’s route became rather hard. Despite all the warm drinks and soup the neighbors offered him, he was freezing and exhausted from trying to lug groceries through the snow on a sled. Still, he finished each workday by eating soup with Lil and making a trip to the library. The picture of the Snowy Heron was sold recently to pay for the town’s plows. Doug could not help but feel discouraged by this development, which meant that five of the 100 original drawings in the book were now missing. Mr. Powell used a drawing of some Fork-tailed Petrels to teach Doug “gesture” (233). He told Doug that in order to create gesture, he needed to think beyond the immediate picture and incorporate the moment before the image and after the image as well. The concept sounded difficult, but Doug was determined to try. 

While things were looking up in every single subject at school for Doug, things continued looking down for Lucas. Their father refused to drive him to the doctor if there was ample snow, forcing their mom to take on the role of mother and nurse. Yet no matter what she did, Lucas remained resolutely sad and silent, telling them it was impossible to talk about his problems with them because they could never understand. If they mentioned anything that involved using their legs Lucas was sure to remind them that he didn’t have any, causing a cast of silence to fall over the house.

After months of Lucas’s negativity, Doug finally snapped. He was celebrating his success at capturing “the gesture” of one of Audubon’s birds, when Lucas chimed in to remind Doug about his missing legs (238). Doug told him to “Shut up” and then said that if Lucas wanted everyone’s pity that he at least needed to “try” (239). Christopher and his mother both spoke up, agreeing with Doug and his desire for Lucas to try. Lucas insisted it was pointless since he was blind. At that point, Doug ripped the bandages off Lucas’s eyes, causing their mom to cry. Both Christopher and Doug kept challenging Lucas to try and fight them, to try to exert his strength, but Lucas did none of those things. Instead, he looked in the direction of his mother and said, “I think I see you” (240). 

After that, Lucas started being friendly and dutifully attending his doctor’s appointments again. He soon found out that there was a very good chance he would eventually be able to see.

At school, Doug recently partnered up with another boy named James Russell, and the partnership turned out to be fate. James revealed to Doug that his father, the First Flutist for the New York Philharmonic, was in possession of Audubon’s drawings of the puffins. He invited Doug over to see for himself, though he made him promise to keep his dad’s career a secret. James’s father was “huge” and happily played the flute for Doug, who enjoyed the mini concert more than he thought he would (244). James then led Doug up the stairs so he could see where his father had hung the puffins. Doug thought they looked “beautiful,” but James thought they looked “dumb-looking” so Doug decided to say the same (245). He went over to James’s house again a few days later, and they looked at the puffins again before playing chess and some other games Doug wasn’t very good at.

The following day, Doug stayed after school to help the gym teacher track the student’s stats, and to his great joy the teacher asked about Lucas. Doug said Lucas still suffered from the same nightmares, then asked his teacher if he had similar dreams. His teacher admitted that he did, though they always centered around the same three people: an old man, a little girl, and a little boy. Doug suggested their recurrence may be a sign that they want his teacher to “help someone” (248).

On an especially blustery Saturday, Doug discovered a manuscript version of Aaron Copeland’s Autobiography among the books stacked up all around Mrs. Windermere’s. He asked her about the book, since he remembered Mr. Russell playing some of Copeland’s work on the flute, and it almost made her tear up, as it reminded her of her husband. However, she personally did not care for Copeland and was happy to let Doug keep the copy, especially when he told her his plan for it. Doug then headed for the library, where he hung out with Lil, and where, much to his joy, she “put her hand on [Doug’s] arm and squeezed” (253).

The next day, he went over to James’s house, where Copeland was playing on the stereo, and James’s mom tried to serve them banana bread. After a humorous moment where they all admitted they didn’t even like banana bread, Doug brought the Copeland book over to Mr. Russell and handed it to him. Mr. Russell was shocked both by Doug’s heartfelt present and by the fact that he found it at miserable Mrs. Windermere’s. Doug then used the book to convince Mr. Russell to return the painting of the puffins to the library.

All week long, Doug’s secret burned inside of him. Then, finally, on the following Saturday, Doug presented Mr. Powell with the picture of the puffins he was able to get back from Mr. Russell. Mr. Powell danced, and tried to get Mrs. Merriman to dance, but she resisted, though Doug suspected he saw her smile.

A few days later, Lucas asked to go see the picture of the puffins that Doug was so jazzed about. He and Christopher brought him to the library shortly after dinner, and though they struggled getting his wheelchair inside and up onto the next floor, they did it. Not without an interruption from Mrs. Merriman, though. As soon as she saw them wheel Lucas in, she took off her glasses and come over to express her gratitude to Lucas for his service and to ask him several questions about his tour. She asked if he knew Lieutenant Leonard Merriman, but he said he didn’t. Upstairs, Lucas revealed that the man she asked about was MIA. He realized in that moment how lucky he was to be home at all.