She touched the two dark freckles in line with Thomson’s left eye. Cold finger pads gripped Thomson’s cheek bones. She looked down her beak to meet the tall ten-year-old nose to nose and clasped her hands around his face. “Because of course she likes pretty little boys.” The Madame unfurled from her desk as the child was ushered toward her. “She’ll like you.” “How do you know?” Thomson’s hush wafted through the now open study. “Now why don’t we meet the Madame of the maison, hmm?” The matron’s hand guided Thomson to a tall door. A matron answered the policemen’s knocking and energetically signed the ruffled papers to enroll Thomson at St. The ten-year-old frantically tried to rub away the salty distress welling into his vision as the police car came to a halt in front of a serious facade. Now, the unfamiliar city blurred across the orphan’s eyes. They had arrived in Paris just two short weeks ago. They pooled their earnings and landed in Montmartre. His father lost his last job in the clutches of the United States’ recession, and he saw the cut strings as a chance to jump at his lifelong dream to live across seas. Perhaps a use for his mother’s language degree would finally present itself. The Epps had hoped for a new start on French ground. The policemen sneered about Americans over the drive to the international orphanage in the 18th District of Paris. The taxi cab still smoked a dwindling gray trail after the police car. ![]() Thomson leaned back into the seat bench as the car bumped down the street. Nicholas.” The plump policeman started up the shuttering engine. “All dead in America? And now polluting our soil…” The smoker wrinkled his nose at Thomson’s California sun-brushed hair. “You ‘ave any other family?” The smoker grunted. The two policemen twisted around from the front of the car to stare at the child alone in the backseat. As the window 2was rolled shut, Thomson could still make out the unmistakable smell of burnt rubber, smoked hair, and spilled gasoline. He flicked his thin cigarette out the window adding to the stench of the street. There was already another policeman settled in the front bench. Thomson slid onto the leather seat bench in the back of the car as the plump policeman climbed into the driver’s seat. The policeman walked Thomson too quickly to a boxy police car. The child staggered forward, growth spurt lengthened legs unsteady at their new height. Thomson’s knees scraped over the cement as the policeman lifted him upright. “Come on,” a plump policeman gripped Thomson’s shoulders as though he were a figurine and plucked him from the rubble. Soggy puzzle squares burned behind Thomson’s eyelids as the tears steadily fell. All that was left of the Epps family portrait were gaping holes in a cardboard carved picture. If his family had been a neatly constructed puzzle before, too many pieces were now plucked away. ![]() That was all the time needed to snap Thomson’s life into pieces. The accident had only been a matter of minutes. Sirens pounded Thomson’s head, and he squeezed his dark blue eyes shut. His breath raggedly burst from his chest. Only Thomson Epps, the child shielded between parents in the back seat, was identified as breathing. ![]() Her fingers laced disjointedly between the door frame and her son’s hand. The crushed body next to the child was the mother. Only his thick hair was salvaged from the smashed window beneath his head. The second man, the father bearing the last name Epps, fared no better in the back bench. The driver’s body snapped over the steering wheel upon impact. CW: Death The taxi driver incorrectly predicted the traffic behavior and crumpled the Taxi de la Marne into the heart of the intersection.
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