Fiction
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Ghosts
Louis gave himself no chance to back out. The moment he came to the cemetery's back gate, he flung his goblin mask and his bag of treats at the base of the low stone wall and plunged through, paying no heed to the giggling from Artie and his pals.
It wasn't a large cemetery. There were headstones and monuments within a few yards of the walls. Many of them bore names he had never heard before, names that hardly looked American. Deukmeijian. Guillory. Wladiewski. Tyszczenko. Even the small stones were as tall as he was. The great ones loomed over him like spectres of judgment. He imagined a radiant malice emanating from them. Had they possessed the power of movement, surely they would have surrounded and crushed him for his intrusion.
Nestled amid a stand of pines to his left was a small concrete building flanked by alabaster figures. Its door was a glass and iron gate surmounted by a slab of gray marble in which the name FORSLUND was carved. The statues were ceremonial angels, winged cherubs of innocent aspect, yet the sense of their stone eyes weighing him, challenging his right to intrude on the repose of the dead, broke his nerve and set him to flight.
Less than a minute after he'd entered, he closed his eyes and broke into a headlong dash for the dimly spied front gate that opened onto the church grounds.
No one, certainly no six-year-old, runs sightless through a country graveyard without penalty. Halfway across the lot, Louis's foot caught on a basket of flowers. He pitched forward and slammed shoulder-first into a headstone. It must have been loosely set in the earth, for the impact knocked it over, and Louis found himself lying prone on its polished granite surface, breathing in gasps and clutching himself against the urge to scream.
He scrambled to his feet and whipped his head about in a frantic search for danger. He found none, but his panic would not abate. With a grunt and a convulsive heave, he set the headstone upright, then resumed his sprint for the churchyard gate. The night pressed upon his shoulders, urging his short legs to longer and faster strides.
As he burst through the front gate, his strength deserted him, and he fell for the second time. The impact knocked him momentarily senseless.
He arose shaking. There was no sound, and little light from the almost-new moon. Two hundred feet away was the old church and the little house attached to it. The street beyond was still. Artie had promised to bring his things and meet him there.
He took stock of his surroundings. The graveyard had been filled with stones, mostly low blocks of granite with a few lines of writing on them, now and again dressed with flowers. The churchyard was spotted with enormous marble figures, giants in robes whose frozen faces he could not read.
What sort of ghosts dwelled here? If the lesser stones in the graveyard marked the homes of malevolent spirits that might snatch a little boy away from the world, never to return, what of these mighty ones, these unbending titans of judgment and reproof?
He was about to dash for the street and safety when a tall shadow arose from behind one of the huge white statues and loomed over him. Fear overcame him. He pitched himself to the ground and hid beneath his arms as best he could. When a long thin hand descended to rest upon his neck, he squealed and blacked out.
The man carried Louis into the kitchen of the house, set him in a chair at a long wooden table, and hunkered down in front of him. He looked to be about the same age as Louis's father, but his father was short and thick through the waist, and this man was tall and thin. He wore the sort of old clothes Louis's father would wear to work in the yard on weekends. His face was lined with kindly amusement, and his voice was deep and gentle. Though Louis's parents had told him many times to beware of strangers, he could not bring himself to fear this man.
"What's your name, child?"
"Louis."
"Just Louis?"
"Louis Redmond."
The man's eyebrows rose. "Jeannette's younger brother?"
Louis nodded.
"It's not that long ago that... you would be about six, isn't that right?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, Louis, would you mind explaining what you were doing, running through the churchyard in the dark? I don't mind the company, but I'd bet your parents wouldn't approve of your choice of playground."
Louis bit his lip. The man leaned toward him and examined his face.
"Were you out trick-or-treating and got separated from your parents?"
"No, sir."
"Then what happened, Louis?"
"I was going to meet some friends."
The man opened his mouth, closed it again without speaking. He looked off into the corner and made a face.
"You ran through the graveyard, didn't you?"
Louis nodded. The man's eyes traveled swiftly over his clothes and found the damp spots from his falls.
"Did you bump into something, Louis?"
Louis nodded. "A stone. I put it back up, though."
That made the man's eyes go wide. "You knocked a headstone over and you put it back up?"
"Yes, sir."
"Do you think you could show me which one, Louis?"
The thought of going back out into the graveyard in the dark was more than Louis could stand. He shivered and hugged himself against the cold beyond the door. "I don't think so."
There was a long silence. The man rose from his crouch and sat next to Louis at the long table.
"Louis, let me try to guess what happened. Your parents sent you out trick-or-treating with some older boys. When the bunch of you got near the cemetery, they told you some scary stories about it, and dared you to go across it alone. They told you that if you did that, they'd meet you in front of the church with your treats and make you a member of their little club. Am I right?"
Louis nodded. "Am I in trouble?"
The man chuckled. "No, not with me. But we should at least let your parents know you're all right, shouldn't we?"
"I guess so."
"Would you sit here a moment, please? I'll go call them and tell them you'll be home in just a little while." The man moved off. A few seconds later Louis heard a telephone being dialed, followed by a few muffled words in the man's low, comforting voice. Presently the man returned to the kitchen and sat beside Louis again.
"Were you scared back there?"
"A little."
"What scared you?"
"I was afraid of the ghosts."
The man smiled. "But why be afraid of ghosts?"
Louis sat up. "Because they're... well, aren't you supposed to be?"
"But why, Louis?"
"I don't know. They're dead, aren't they?"
"Does that make them scary?"
"Well, yeah!"
"But why? Dead people are gone from the world. They can't do anything to you at all."
"But..." Louis tried to remember why the thought of ghosts had always frightened him, but he couldn't, no matter how hard he tried. "Well, what about the big ones?"
"What big ones, Louis?"
"In your back yard!"
"Oh, those. They shouldn't scare you either. In fact, they're friendly ghosts. They wouldn't hurt you even if they could."
"Why are they friendly?"
The man shrugged. "That's just the sort of people they were. They were friendly people, and now they're friendly ghosts."
"Is that the way it works?"
The man chuckled. "Mostly. But you don't have to take my word for it." He stood and offered Louis his hand. "Let's go say hello to them."
Louis took the hand and stood up.
As they crossed to the belt of statues that girdled the churchyard, guided by a strong beam from the man's flashlight, Louis looked up at him and said, "You're special."
"Hm? Why do you say that?"
"Because you didn't try to tell me there's no such thing as ghosts."
The man squeezed his hand and smiled. "I know better."
They came to a halt before a statue of a portly man seated at a large stone table. The figure had a quill pen in his hand, and leaned over an open book as if he were writing into it. Other stone books were piled irregularly around him.
"This," the man said, "is one of the smartest people who ever lived. He took a huge mass of important things that no one understood, and he made sense out of them. When he was finished, millions of people were better off, because the things they believed no longer had any contradictions in them." He paused. "Jeannette tells me you're very smart. Do you know what a contradiction is, Louis?"
Louis nodded. "That's when you say two things that can't both be true."
The man inclined his head in congratulation. "Very good. Do you know what a million is?"
Louis nodded again. "A hundred times a hundred times a hundred." The man opened his mouth to speak, but Louis asked, "What was his name?"
"His name? It was Thomas Aquinas."
The man led him to another figure. This one stood, with a staff in one hand and a bird perched on the back of the other. The figure appeared to be gazing off toward an unseen horizon.
"This," the man said, "was the greatest traveler of his day. There were no cars or trains or airplanes when he lived, and the boats had only sails and wind to push them around, but he traveled more than ten thousand miles just to bring good news to people he'd never seen, and they loved him for it. The other great travelers of the world, the birds, were his special friends. Wherever he went there were birds to sing in joy as he arrived, and birds to sing in sorrow as he left. There's a legend that says that when he died, all the birds in the world went silent with grief."
"What was his name?"
"Francis Xavier."
A little way apart was a kneeling figure of a beautiful young woman. Even in the dark of night, her face was as luminous as if bathed in the morning sun. She held the stem of a flower in her two small hands. Many other flowers were carved into her pedestal's base.
"This," the man said, "was a girl so beautiful that it was said that no one who saw her could bear to look away. But from an early age she wanted nothing for herself. She gave everything she had, everything she was, to the service of God. When she passed away, still just a young girl, all of Europe mourned. Her name was Therese Martin, the Little Flower of the Convent of Lisieux.
"Now, Louis," the man said, squatting to bring his eyes level with Louis's own, "can you imagine that any of these ghosts would ever want to hurt you?"
"No, but... aren't there a lot of other ghosts?"
The man nodded. "Of course. But there's one to keep all the unfriendly ones away. Over here."
The man led him to a little shrine, a hollow quarter-sphere nestled in a girdle of pine boughs. Within was a statue of a standing woman in robes of blue and white. Her arms were spread in a gesture of boundless welcome.
"This," the man whispered, "was the only perfect child of humanity. She was special from the first moment of her existence. She had to be, for she was born to bear a child even more special, a child that would lift the entire world onto his shoulders and carry it from darkness to light. She gave her life to her child, so that her child could give his life to the world. Her ghost is the special protector of children everywhere. No harm can come to a child that sleeps in her arms." The man's voice shook.
Louis fancied that he could feel a special benevolence wrapped about the statue, a gentle aura of reassurance for all who came to visit. "What's her name?"
"Mary."
"Just Mary?"
The man nodded. They stood looking at the statue for a minute more.
"Are there other good ghosts?" Louis said.
The man nodded. "Yes, many. Too many to meet in one Hallowe'en." He peered at his watch. "I'd better get you home. It's nearly nine o'clock."
As they walked the narrow, gently sloping streets toward Louis's house, he asked the man, "With ghosts like that around, why are people so scared of the other kind?"
The man chuckled. "Are you sure they're scared, Louis? Maybe they just tell all those scary stories for fun."
"Well... okay."
"You're rather quick to believe, aren't you?"
"Were you fooling?"
"Ha! No, Louis, not at all."
"Then I guess I'll wait and see."
The man looked down on him with approval. "Yes, I think you will."
"What's your name?"
"Father Schliemann."
"Could I come back and meet the other ghosts? When it's light out?"
"Of course, Louis. Jeannette will be coming over tomorrow. Ask her to bring you. Tomorrow's a special day for ghosts. Much more special than Hallowe'en."
"Does she already know all this stuff about the ghosts?"
"A lot of it, yes."
Louis scowled. "Dirty hold-out!"
Father Schliemann exploded in laughter. "Well now you're even with her."
They ascended the short flight of steps to Louis's front door, and it opened before them. Louis's mother stood there in her apron, his goblin mask in one hand and his canvas bag of treats in the other.
"Where have you been, young man?" Marie Redmond struggled to hide her amusement. From the living room beyond came Jeannette's high, sweet giggle.
Louis shrugged. "Learning about ghosts."
"Oh? And what did you learn?"
Louis glanced up at Father Schliemann. The tall man's eyes darted from Louis to his mother and back. He gave a tiny shrug. Louis imitated it and said, "They're not so bad."
The adults laughed in unison as Louis and Father Schliemann stepped into the light and warmth of the Redmond family home, where no evil thing could follow.
Mainstreaming
Quick as a striking snake, Lance Kirkwood uncoiled from my plush leather guest chair and snapped a perfect side kick into the Serbian assassin's solar plexus. The Serb spasmed and arched backward. His AK-47 sprayed my office walls, punching ragged holes into several carefully framed Cezanne prints. Lance whirled around the paralyzed villain, wrapped his sinewy arms around the swarthy neck, and twisted once, sending the Serb to his final reward.
"See what I mean?" Lance released the Serb with a sneer of contempt as I crept out from under my desk. The corpse flopped onto my Bokhara carpet. I made a mental note to forewarn the janitor.
"I never get a rest," Lance said. "Movie theaters, grocery stores, gas stations, psychiatrists' offices, it's always the same. Gunfire, explosions, screams from ripping steel and shrieks from terror-stricken women. And I have to bounce around like a goddamned clown dealing out death and vengeance." Thick cords of muscle rippled in his neck. "Not one day off in seven!"
I pursed my lips and pondered.
"You can't say you're unequipped for the job, Lance. Six feet three, two hundred pounds of perfectly toned power, with all the battle skills of the centuries at your instant command. You were made for this, and the rest of us thank God that you're here to handle it."
His sculpted jaw set into an unpleasant line. "Just because I'm good at it doesn't mean it has to go on all day, every day. The bastards attacked me in church last Sunday! All right, it wasn't me they were there for, it was that woman in the wheelchair who's married to a multinational executive, but I had to deal with them."
I gave him my best analyst's shouldn't-you-know-better look. "Do you really expect men who would kidnap a crippled woman out of a church service to have any regard for your sensibilities?"
It appeared to divert him briefly, but the irritated cast returned to his flawless features within seconds. "No, of course not, but just how many of them can there be, to keep me leaping and hitting and shooting from dawn to dusk every day of my life? If there are that many of them out there, they've got the good guys outnumbered about ten to one."
Who could possibly know that better than he? I was about to tell him so when the world went dark and my windows exploded inward, showering the office with bits of vinyl and glass. I dove under my desk again as an Aldebaranian death commando, all five eyes gleaming with drug-induced homicidal madness, burst through the opening and sliced open the floor with the white-hot beam of a laser scimitar. There'd be no saving the rug now.
Lance backflipped out of his chair, plucked a Screamie from his web belt and hurled it sidearm into the alien's face. The ultrasonic grenade shot out grippers that seized the murderous pentapod by its face tentacles and beamed a three thousand watt, ninety-three megaHertz signal straight into its brain. The Aldebaranian chittered, dropped its laser and fell, slowly dissociating into its constituent tadpoles.
I peeked around the edge of the desk as Lance set my guest chair back on its legs and moved it away from the crevice in the floor. "That's another thing." He sat and clapped his hands against his thighs. "These clothes! Khaki tunic with epaulets, skin-tight nomex pants with about a million zippered pockets, combat boots and a utility belt, every damned day. There isn't one other outfit in my closet! How would you feel about going to your best friend's funeral in these?"
I nodded. "How many funerals have you had to attend, dressed this way?"
"At last count, thirty-seven."
"Well, at least you're ready for action whenever it erupts."
He smirked dourly. "And does it ever. Even at graveside. Last week, just when I thought it was safe to deliver a stirring eulogy, the widow whipped out an Uzi machine pistol and tried to take me out!"
"Mad with grief?"
"No." He sighed, his superb chest rising and falling once. "She was a sleeper agent for SPYRE. She'd been reconning the High Aerie for months."
"I see."
My office door opened and Maxine, my gorgeous blonde secretary-receptionist, sauntered in with a handful of message slips. I winced. As soon as her gaze brushed over Lance's steely features, the slips fell from her hand. She swerved toward him, ran her fingers lightly over his thick auburn crewcut, then draped an arm around his neck and lowered herself onto his lap. Her huge blue eyes burned into his own as she dangled a high-heeled pump from a silk-encased foot. Somewhere in the distance, a tenor sax crooned a smoky melody.
I could see Lance fighting down the urge to shove her onto the floor. He might have, except for the corpse and the crevice.
I cleared my throat. "Thank you, Maxine, that will be all." She pouted at me, but rose and left us alone, pausing only to run her elegantly manicured nails teasingly along the underside of Lance's jaw. He shook his head as his gaze followed her swaying hips out of the office.
"Women," he said.
"Well," I said, "have you decided what it is you want? We can't get to work on a solution for you before that, you know."
He slid forward in his chair, preparing himself to disclose the greatest of his secrets to me. I leaned forward in turn.
"A leaky roof," he whispered. "A furnace that goes out in the middle of the night. Some unpaid credit card bills. A wife who's at least thirty pounds overweight. And..." He hesitated, and dropped his voice still further. "And a pimple."
I reeled back in shock.
"You can't be serious!"
He nodded grimly, determination radiating from the planes of his noble face.
"Look at this chin." He stuck it out unnecessarily. "Hard as a rock and not a hair on it. Do you have any idea what it's like to know that Gillette couldn't care less that you exist?"
"Lance..." He was being entirely unreasonable, but it was going to be a tough thing to get across to him. "Just what makes you think those things would make you any happier than you are now?"
He reacted as if he'd been struck. "Well, maybe they would and maybe they wouldn't. At least it would be a change. A chance to see how the other half lives."
I forced myself to sit back, steepled my hands against my lips and simulated a few moments of reflection. He watched me with a heart-wringing expression of hope, all the harder to bear because I knew I'd have to disappoint him. Finally I sighed and shook my head.
"I don't think you're being realistic, Lance. You're aimed at the ten-to-seventeen market, the most hero-sensitive segment of the whole illustrated literature industry. If you start showing imperfections and traits of middle age, your readers will cease to care about you. They'll associate you with their parents, and that will be the end of you."
Shock bloomed on his face. "Goddamn it, Doctor --"
"That's another thing," I said. "You display a growing tendency to use profanity for emphasis, which is unacceptable for a character in your segment. Once every four or five episodes, you can smack a fist into a palm and say 'damn it,' but that's all. You can forget about forcing your way out of your category with vulgar language."
He sat there in uncomprehending astonishment for perhaps ten seconds. Then his head swiveled as he surveyed the walls of my office.
"Where are your diplomas, Doctor? Where are your certificates of membership in the New York Therapeutic League and the American Psychiatric Association?"
The game was up. "I'm not --"
He stood and loomed over me. "You're not an analyst," he grated in a voice like the death knell of the world. "You're the enemy." Before I could even try to escape, one huge hand streaked across my desk and took me by the throat --
I shot upright, tearing the bedcovers off Mayva, and gasped in the darkness.
"Phil?" She stirred and murmured sleepily, "What's wrong?"
"Burrito rebellion," I muttered, swung out of bed and started for the bathroom, pausing only to grab some reading material from the bookshelf.
I sat on the throne as my heart rate sank, stared at the cover of the comic book I'd brought, and pondered my peculiar inhumanity toward the fount of my success.
I'd designed Lance Kirkwood to be a young boy's idol, the very model of mature masculine bravery. The cover art depicted him in full battle cry, a storm of lead around him, face set in total resolve and one fist clenched in defiance as he charged at an unseen enemy. Three hundred forty-three episodes, and the formula still sold nine million units each week, or a little more. So what if the old boy didn't like it?
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," I muttered. I flushed the toilet unnecessarily, ran water into the sink for verisimilitude, and plodded back to the bedroom. The light was on. Mayva was sitting up, a book in her hands. She glanced at me and grinned tiredly.
"Everything okay?"
I shrugged. "More or less."
Her eyes flicked to the comic book I held. "I just don't get you. Forty-three years old and an eight-figure net worth, and you read garbage like that to relax."
I smiled. Mayva doesn't know my pseudonym. "Just staying in touch with the common folk." I tossed the comic toward the bookshelves and got back into bed. "If you want to sell them entertainment, every once in a while, you've got to see how the other half lives."
She snorted and turned off the light.
Land For Peace
We met on neutral ground.
I was second to arrive, though not by intention. Nothing lived in that blasted woodland. Nothing but twigs and char remained of what had once been a verdant forest.
As we approached the tent, his elite troops moved forward from a thousand points of concealment. Each brandished one of the diabolical new weapons that had cut down Gabe's forces as a scythe mows ripened wheat. We hadn't divined their principle of operation. Likely we never would. It was a reminder which of us had sued for peace, a reminder I didn't need.
My retinue cringed at the sight of his massed honor guard. I'd expected a show of force from him, but I'd underestimated the effect on my staff.
The fury that had fueled me throughout the campaign rose in me again. It was useless now. I leashed it as best I could, bade my troops be calm with a raised hand, and pulled back the flap on the tent.
He sat at his ease, at a long table with a pebbled metallic surface. He was unarmed. The table was bare. Except for the chair reserved for me, there was nothing else in the tent.
I acknowledged him with a nod and eased myself onto the chair. He smiled pleasantly, as saturnine as ever, and waited while I settled myself. Outside the tent was perfect silence.
"I never expected this," I said.
His expression did not change. "I did."
"I still don't understand why you --"
He held up a hand. "It's not necessary that you understand. We fought and you lost. Agree to what I've asked and we need never speak again."
"Is that how you want it?"
His jaw muscles rippled, but he kept his silence.
Of course that wasn't how he wanted it. I could give him all he'd asked, but we both knew full well that it was not what he really wanted. That was gone forever, and no act of mine could change it.
"Gabe would have wept at this. He always felt there was a chance that --"
"Gabe," he said through lips that barely moved, "was a fool who lived in a world of his own making. He wasn't much of a soldier, either."
My self-control cracked and my hands balled into fists. "Don't besmirch my friend's name."
"Why not?" His brow creased and a shadow darkened his face. "How long have you and yours done everything you could to blacken mine?"
I remained seated, but it was a considerable effort. "You earned every word we said about you."
"Did I? Well, perhaps some of it. Let it pass. Do you plan to haggle, or can we end this quickly?"
A last thread of defiance twanged within me. "I can still field a sizable force. I could keep you fighting over this pigsty for a full year, perhaps two."
He sighed. "What would the point be, Mike? You've seen what the disruptors can do. My entire army has them now. Gabe didn't stand the slightest chance. You won't either. Do I have to lay siege to, to headquarters to get you to back off and leave me to what I've won?"
"We could develop a defense."
A mirthless smirk. "Don't count on it."
I stood and turned away, unwilling to let him see the tears that filled my eyes. I'd been charged with stopping him. It just wasn't in me to concede without a fight. I wasn't made to accept defeat on any terms, much less unconditional surrender.
"Mike," he said to my back in a voice that was almost a caress, "I know you. You think it's a betrayal not to go down fighting." I turned to meet his eyes again, and found a well of sympathy there that I'd thought gone forever. "But it's hopeless now. You can't shield against the disruptors, and you don't have enough support among the autochthones to impede my movement or threaten my supply lines. You're defeated fair and square. If you don't let it go now, I'll have to kill you all, and confound it, man, that's the last thing I'd want to do."
A bubble of pained laughter escaped me. "'Confound it, man'?"
He shrugged. "In the course of a campaign this long, you're bound to pick up a few local habits."
I nodded and sat again. A long silence passed.
"Will you tell me why, at least?" I asked.
"I've never made any secret of it."
"No, not that. I meant the ambush."
He looked puzzled. "It was the most effective way to bring the disruptors to bear. Gabe's forces were entrenched, they couldn't bug out, and my troops had better theater coverage than at any other point in the campaign. If I'd gone against you frontally in the field, I'd probably still be fighting two armies instead of one."
"You didn't have to slaughter them that way. You could have contacted headquarters and proposed a demonstration. We could have negotiated a settlement."
"Oh?" Heat rose into his face. He stood and planted his fists on the table. It was not a pretty sight. "And who would have stepped up to be the guinea pig?"
"I --"
"Don't even think it, Mike." That red fury of his had become the stuff of legend. "You wouldn't have volunteered, and you could never have shoved anyone else forward in your place. Better that three million of you died in honorable combat. The war is over. Take that for what it's worth and let the rest of it go."
That final cord of resistance snapped.
"All right," I said. "It's yours. Do as you like with it."
I rose and left the tent. The spring day around me would have been a thing of perfection, had it not been for the smoldering remnants of the forest, the dismay on the faces of my entourage, and the agony that burned in my chest like a glowing coal.
I was about to summon my second and give orders for the march home when the tent flap rose again, and he came out to confront me one last time.
"Mike..." He paused, looked away, then caught my eyes again. "It will be all right. I won't abuse them."
The pain in me crested and broke loose as a shout of despair that ripped through the forest like a disruptor bolt.
"No? Then what has this war been about?"
His eyes turned to orbs of steel. "Your propaganda and my independence. I told you I wouldn't serve. I told him." His glare softened, and he put out his hand.
I took it in mine. For an instant the old song of love hummed between us, the melody that had lived in us all when the world was new. I could see that he felt it too.
"Good-bye, Lucifer," I whispered.
It called forth a crooked smile. "Doesn't that mean 'God be with you'? Ah, well. Take care of yourself, Michael."
I released him to the ordering of his new domain, returned to my troops and led them back to their long home.
Contretemps
The sound of his wife's footsteps approaching pulled at Stephen Sumner's neck hair. He hoisted his magazine a little higher in hope that she'd walk past. It wasn't to be.
"Would you like a ham or a lasagna for the second entree?"
He dipped the magazine and peered up into her face. Adrienne's expression was mock-solicitous, almost sappy. A pinpoint-sized eraser to dab at a mural of recrimination and regret.
"Doesn't matter." He pointedly returned his eyes to his reading and listened for her departure. In vain.
"Steve?" Incredibly, she hooked a finger over his magazine and pulled it aside. "Can't we make this a good Christmas? It doesn't last that long, you know."
Everything lasts too long with you.
He bit back his reply, smiled weakly and nodded. She looked into his eyes a moment longer, driving him to the edge of his endurance, and returned to her kitchen.
His watch made it a few minutes before noon.
Bob and his brood will be here in an hour. A whole day of bellowing, demands for liquor, and tasteless jokes told at the top of his voice.
Bob Bushnell was Adrienne's brother. He and his wife Ruth were notoriously lax with their children. The previous year, Michael and Susanna had run pell-mell through his home from the hellish moment of their arrival to the blessed instant of their departure. Sumner had tried to halt them as gently as he could, which wasn't very. His reward had been a screaming match with Ruth that had left his head ringing for the rest of the day.
It isn't bad enough that I have to put up with them and their mannerless spratlings. They'll probably bring Scout again.
He clenched his jaws at the thought. The previous year, the black Lab had left bruises all over Sumner's shins with his whiplike tail. When Sumner had left off watching him to pursue the rampaging kids, Scout had ruined a priceless antique armoire by piddling on it. Sumner had never come that close to violence before.
Anticipation of the trials to come pushed him out of his chair and toward the coat closet. He yanked his overcoat off its hanger, pulled it around himself with a savage jerk, and made for the door. Adrienne chose that moment to emerge from her kitchen again.
She started to say something, took note of the coat, and stopped. He halted as well. For the first time that day, he looked at his wife and actually saw her.
Adrienne was wearing the black sheath dress that flattered her so, the one she only wore under a blue moon. She'd accessorized it with a thin gold belt, a strand of pearls, and her black opera pumps. Her thick, shoulder-length black hair gleamed like a satin cascade around her face. At forty years of age, she was still a heart-stopping beauty. When she made the effort.
Twice a year. Thanksgiving and Christmas, when her family comes for dinner. The rest of the time it's sweat clothes and sneakers.
It was the extra push he needed. He turned away from her and started out of the house.
"Steve...?"
"Later."
"Where are you going?"
He didn't turn. "To see a man about a dog."
"What?"
He closed the door behind him without replying.
The streets of Onteora were thinly traveled. Few cars passed him as he walked. A bare handful of pedestrians, collars and scarves pulled tight against the thickly falling snow, trudged past him through the five inches that had accumulated already.
Sumner stalked down Grand Avenue, the city's main boulevard. Shop windows that had glittered brightly at him, promoting the commercialized joys of the season for weeks past were shuttered and dim. Their proprietors were undoubtedly at home, enduring whatever agonies their own families allocated to the magic day.
His anger-fueled pace took him swiftly through the city proper and into the dormitory suburb of Foxwood. Commercial buildings gave way to single-family homes on modest lots, each swaddled in a blanket of snow. The trickle of pedestrian traffic dwindled to nothing. As he walked, the spire of Our Lady Of The Pines, Onteora's Roman Catholic Church, gradually came into view. It drew him forward like a beacon in darkness.
Presently he stood before the tall oaken doors, glumly regarding the large sign at the entrance.
All The Joy Of The Most Joyous Of Days To You and Yours!
He'd married Adrienne in this church, fifteen years before. She'd insisted on a religious wedding. Though a lapsed Catholic who'd ceased to practice it upon graduating from high school, he'd made no protest. He'd walked in as a free man, walked out with a shackle on his arm, and had not returned.
As if of its own accord, his hand reached out to grasp the antique wrought iron door pull. He realized what he was about to do and consciously jerked himself away.
That was the beginning of a slow ride to hell. I should have put my foot down then and there and hauled her to a Justice Of The Peace.
Snow from his collar slid down his back. The shock of the wet cold on his neck made him spasm and mutter an oath. He shook himself and slapped awkwarldy at the icy lump, then turned back toward the church doors as if compelled.
Why am I standing here? I'm not going in there.
Struck by a sudden premonition of danger, he wheeled and ran down the church steps toward the gate. In his confusion, his muscles did not register the change in traction beneath his feet, and his hearing did not detect the burble of the pickup truck accelerating down the street.
At the walkway's edge, he lost all control of his motion. He found himself skidding helplessly into the street as the truck came rumbling past.
In a panic, he cast himself backward, deliberately flopping onto his back on the walk. The back of his head struck the icy concrete with an unanticipated force, sending swirling blue worms through his world to steal away the day and deliver him into darkness.
He awoke sitting in the rear pew of the church, his coat pulled tight around him, hands thrust deep into its pockets. The church was dark, except for a single candle that lit the tabernacle upon the altar. The dim sun of winter did not pierce the stained glass windows. It could well have been midnight.
A male figure stood at the altar rail, facing toward the rear of the church. The man was dressed in ordinary street clothes. He wore no coat. His hands were clasped before him. His eyes were on Sumner's face.
"I haven't seen you here in quite a while, Steve."
Sumner carefully hoisted himself erect and approached the other. His face seemed familiar, but Sumner could put no name to him.
"I'm sorry, have we met?"
The stranger's face was unreadable.
"Perhaps not. Not that I haven't been waiting for it. But you've been more than a little reluctant to stop by the house."
Sumner blinked. "Are you the pastor? What happened to Father Schliemann?"
Schliemann's more of an institution than the church. If he'd died or retired, I'm sure I'd have heard of it.
The man smiled. "No, I'm not the pastor. Let's say I'm an interested observer. Very interested."
"Then --"
"Later, perhaps. What brings you out today? Why aren't you with your family?"
Sumner's confusion receded before the returning tide of his anger. "What family? Adrienne's family? Sorry, Adrienne's --"
"Your wife. Yes, I know." The man's low, mellifluous voice dropped still further. "You took her to wife here, at this altar. Promised to love and cherish her, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death did you part."
Sumner stared. The stranger couldn't be more than about thirty years old.
Is he one of Adrienne's cousins?
"Forgive me, please. Were you there that day? I confess I can't remember you."
The man's face darkened. "Yes, I was there. I like weddings. I go to all of them. Every wedding holds infinite promise, even if what comes after isn't always for the best." He turned to gaze at the altar and the tabernacle upon it.
"You and Adrienne had all the possibilities of any other newlyweds, Steve. All of life stretched before you. Your paths were yours to choose. But today you're a bitter man, prematurely drained of life and isolated from all that might freshen your spirit. What happened?"
The question, so directly put, staggered Sumner where he stood. He stumbled forward a pace and planted his hands on the rail to steady himself.
"I don't know. I... we just lost it, somehow. We --"
The man looked sideways at him, knowing and monitory.
"'We,' Steve? Adrienne's still trying. She weeps sometimes, when you're not around to see it. She tells me over and over how much she loves you. It hasn't been easy for her, she's gotten just about none of the things she hoped for from marriage, but she's still trying to rescue you. What have you been doing?" He faced Sumner squarely. "Are you even trying to love her back?"
Sumner stood aghast, mouth hanging open. The man nodded.
"Yes, I knew. I don't miss that sort of thing." He turned back toward the tabernacle. His face seemed to glow in the steadily deepening darkness.
"I don't like to take a direct hand in these domestic matters. I prefer to leave that sort of thing to my mother. But every now and then, someone who has absolutely no excuse catches my eye, and I do this. They say a word to the wise is sufficient, Steve. Got the idea?"
Sumner fought down his shivers and found his voice. "What do you want me to do?"
The stranger cocked an eyebrow. "What do you want to do?"
"Is... is it up to me?"
The man nodded. "It always has been. Each man is the master in his own house, from the day he takes his life into his own hands until the day he dies. What do you want from your marriage, Steve?"
"Love. Companionship. Support. Children... once."
The stranger cocked an eyebrow. "Children? It seems to me you did your best to defeat that particular goal of matrimony."
Sumner said nothing.
"Well, it isn't too late. But for the rest of it, what do you propose to do to get what you and I would both love for you to have?"
"Uh..."
"How about providing a few of the things you said you wanted to Adrienne? Wouldn't that be a start?"
It was more than a disinterested suggestion.
"Yes, it would."
The man nodded. "Those things come more readily if you learn how to forget yourself a little, now and then. This is one of the places where that's easiest to do."
"Sundays?"
"Sundays, yes, but the other days are good, too." The glowing face was overcome by longing. "I've missed you, Steve. I hate to see anyone in pain. There's relief from that here, if you open yourself to it. The doors are never locked."
Sumner tore his eyes from the luminous visage and let them roam the church. The pews and font, statues and sacred images were reminders of his youth, gentle prods to memories of a time when little had seemed impossible, when life had been lit with promise. Even in the darkness, now nearly complete, it was a supremely welcoming place.
"I'll be back."
The man nodded. "I'm glad to hear it."
"Will I... will I see you again?"
The glowing face was touched with a wry humor, knowledge of unnameable secrets blended with an impish delight in the twistings of time and chance.
"That depends. Now go home and be the master in your own house. Gently, but firmly. As I am in mine."
Sumner was seized by vertigo. He staggered back, lowered his head and fell to his knees.
The church whirled and became formless.
"Mister?"
"Huh?" Sumner struggled up from the murky depths. He found himself on his back, on the rearmost pew of Our Lady Of The Pines. A short, slight figure loomed over him, hands gently chafing Sumner's face: a young man about twenty years old, with a smooth, solemn face and piercing dark brown eyes. He noticed Sumner's return to consciousness and gave a sigh of relief.
"Thank God. I've been trying to wake you up for an hour. Are you okay?"
"I think so." Sumner heaved himself upright. As he did, he was visited by a spike of pain from the back of his head. He put his fingers to it and winced. At least there was no blood.
"Did you haul me in here?"
The young man nodded. "I was driving the truck."
Sumner looked him over. He looked to weigh about a hundred fifty pounds. "All by yourself?"
"Well, yes."
"Never mind. What's your name?"
"Louis Redmond."
"Thank you, Louis. I'm sorry if I worried you. Could you do one other thing for me?"
"Sure, what?"
"Drive me home? I walked here from Chedwick. It's only about three miles."
The young man grinned. "No problem. Come on, let's go."
As Louis navigated the slippery roads through the city, Sumner asked him, "Am I taking you out of your way?"
Louis shrugged. "It's no big deal. I wanted to spend an hour in church, and I did." He grinned. "I didn't expect to spend it that way, but what the hell."
Sumner chuckled. "Well, it's time for both of us to get back to our families."
Louis said nothing. From the corner of his eye, Sumner saw a delicate thread of tension run down the boy's cheek. He knew at once that Louis had no family, that chance had reaved them from him, that he'd gone out into the snow that Christmas day for a reason exactly the reverse of the one that had launched Sumner from his home: to mourn.
They pulled up before Sumner's house in Chedwick moments later. Louis set the handbrake and turned toward Sumner.
"Careful on the walk, okay? If you don't pay attention, you can go really wrong really fast."
Sumner nodded. "I know." He stuck out his hand. "Thank you, Louis. Merry Christmas."
Louis shook it. "You're welcome, uh --"
"Steve Sumner."
"You're welcome, Steve, and all the joy of the day to you."
"And to you, Louis. Good-bye."
He strode up his own walk with new purpose. Every window of the stately Federal colonial, the chief prize of his twenty years' labor at law, was bright. The Bushnells' car was nestled behind his in the driveway. From the house came the light and sounds of an incipient party: seasonal music, laughter, and the multifarious jostlings of a family gathering.
"My house," he murmured. He let himself in and made for the kitchen, where Adrienne was holding court as she finished assembling her lasagna. Ruth was weakly cajoling her children about not making trouble. Bob was already flushed and sweating, complaining about his dry-goods business over the carols from the bookshelf stereo, waving a half-filled glass for punctuation.
Sumner reached for the stereo and switched it off. The others fastened on him at once.
"Yo, brother-in-law!" Bob said. "Got a few new ones for you. Heard the one about the blind mime and the nun?"
Sumner fixed the half-drunken man with a determined look. "Bob, come this way a moment, would you please?"
Bob's forehead crinkled momentarily. He glanced at Adrienne for an explanation, shrugged and followed Sumner out to the living room, his wine glass dangling from his hand.
"What's up, bro?"
"Bob," Sumner said, "first, thank you for not bringing Scout. Second, I've decided we're going to have a nice Christmas this year. And that means no shouting, no crass jokes about priests, nuns, or private parts, and no ugly stories about anyone in the family. Okay?"
"What --"
Sumner plucked the glass from his brother-in-law's hand. "Third, you'll be drinking coffee, tea, or soda for the rest of the day. You've obviously had enough alcohol already, and I don't want you to get sloppy at dinner, the way you did last year."
"Steve!" It was half protest and half whine.
"This is my house, Bob." Sumner let the implications hang unspoken.
Sobriety seeped back into Bob Bushnell's features. He seemed to come to a belated recognition of his surroundings.
"All right. Ruth made a comment about it before we left our place. Peace?"
Sumner grinned. "Peace. Merry Christmas, Bob. Let's rejoin the ladies."
Adrienne and Ruth were seated close together, talking in low, anxious tones. They stood as the men reentered the kitchen.
"Is everything all right, Steve?" Adrienne's hands were balled tightly, white at the knuckles.
"Just fine, sweetie. When do you expect to serve dinner?"
"About three."
"Good. Then we can make the seven o'clock Mass at Our Lady Of The Pines." The children immediately began to shout their disapproval. Sumner glared at them, and they subsided sulkily. "Ruth, do you think you can get Michael and Susanna to behave for that long, or shall I have Michelle Stevens come over to babysit them while we enjoy our day?"
The momentary silence was a thing of crystalline perfection.
"You haven't been to Mass in years," Adrienne said. "Why --"
"I was invited. Of course, I could go alone." He peered at his wife from under his brows.
"No, I'll come. Ruth? Bob?"
The Bushnells exchanged puzzled glances. Their children's eyes were wide. "Dressed as we are?" Ruth said.
Sumner smiled and nodded. "It's not a problem for the management." He moved up to Adrienne and took her hands in his own.
"I love you, sweetie," he murmured. "You look wonderful tonight. Thank you for everything."
"I love you too," she whispered, barely audible.
It was a start.
Learning By Doing
(The opposite of love is hatred, but the enemy of love is fear.)
Melissa couldn’t help but be nervous about him, even though he’d responded to her ad. The ad itself was the reason.
She waited in the fast-food restaurant with as much poise and patience as she could muster. The girls cooperated for once. Though there were many other noisy, boisterous children there to set them off, they concentrated on their crayons and coloring books with a singular intensity.
The door creaked. She looked up and saw a middle-aged man of medium height enter the restaurant alone. He looked about swiftly, saw her bright red blouse and black canvas handbag, and made directly for her.
In the few seconds she had in which to study him and decide whether to dissimulate, she went from nervousness to an acute curiosity.
He wasn’t screen-idol material, but he was good-looking enough: athletically trim, with a pleasant, open face that obviously didn’t get much sun, topped by a thick mop of brown hair. He wore casual clothes, as she did, but they were of good quality and perfectly clean. His expression was noncommittal, neither censorious nor eager.
I wonder what he’s thinking about me.
He stopped at her table. Alia and Renee looked up, their eyes widening and mouths making Os of surprise and interest.
“Melissa Harland?”
She nodded and rose. “My friends call me Mel.” She extended a hand, and he took it.
“I’m Ron Beaufort.” He started to seat himself and paused. “May I be introduced to these young ladies?”
She bit her lip. “Of course.” She gestured right—This is Alia” and then left—“and this is Renee. Girls, say hello to Mr. Beaufort.”
Alia put down her crayon and stood in her chair. Her hand was slow to rise, but Beaufort took it and shook it with a grave delicacy. Renee got up and came around the table, and he shook her hand as well.
“They’re charmers,” he said as all of them sat. “You must be proud of them.”
She nodded. “I told them to be on best behavior.”
Alia chose that moment to screech, “Are you going to be our new daddy?” at a pitch that could have shattered the pyramids and roused the pharaohs from beneath them. Heads throughout the restaurant turned to look. Melissa resisted the urge to hide under the table, but just barely.
“Alia, sit and be quiet,” he said. The six-year-old reddened at the steel in the words. She was about to go back to her coloring, but Beaufort looked her in the eye and silently compelled her attention.
“I might be, Alia. It will depend on a lot of things. One of them is how you behave while we’re here.” As Alia’s lips twisted into a toddler’s petulant pout, he smiled and continued. “If you’re really good, I might decide that you don’t need a new daddy. Or if you’re really bad, I might decide that you just have to have one.”
Melissa’s mouth dropped open. He flashed her a wink.
“Now,” he said, “would anyone like something to eat?”
Three-quarters of an hour spent in casual small talk over hamburgers and milkshakes left her wondering why he’d answered her ad. He was forty years old and had never married. He was an engineer at Onteora Aviation, had an upper-middle-class income, and lived in a house outside of town that he’d owned for thirteen years. His appearance was more than satisfactory, his voice was smooth and pleasant, and his grooming was first-rate. He had no tics or twitches. He was comfortable with any topic of conversation or none. He had better manners than anyone she’d ever known.
He was too much the dream-come-true, too free of disabling flaws of personality or noxious traits of character. He didn’t sport any danger signs at all.
“Hey,” she said without thinking, “when you leave here, who are you going to report to?”
He frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Come on,” she said. “You’re too good to be real. No one with your assets needs to meet a single mother in a hamburger joint. Somebody put you up to this.”
He stared at her from under a furrowed brow for the most uncomfortable seven seconds of her life.
“Melissa,” he said, “I answered your ad because I wanted to meet you.”
The simple dignity of it froze her tongue. It took an agonizing amount of effort even to whisper, “Why?”
He leaned forward and pitched his voice very low. “‘Single white mother, twenty-eight, very poor, seeks a decent gentleman to provide a safe, clean home for me and my two daughters. Neither age nor appearance matters. I will accommodate you.’”
It was the ad she’d filed.
“In part,” he said, voice still near to inaudible, “I wanted to meet the woman who could humble herself far enough to say such a thing. I wanted to hear her story. And in part, I was curious about the ‘accommodation’ part. That’s hardly a standard romantic gambit. It doesn’t leave a lot of room to haggle. I wanted to know what twist of fate made you willing to ‘accommodate’ anyone who’d be willing to put a roof over you and your daughters.”
The silence stretched. Alia and Renee looked up at her with a hint of alarm.
“We’re alone in the world, Ron.” She spoke as quietly as he had. “My husband abandoned me four months ago. He’s disappeared from the face of the Earth. I have no living relations except for the girls. We’ve been living in an S.R.O. two blocks from here. I’m just about out of money and I can’t work. I can’t even drive. If I don’t get a huge break of some sort really soon, I’ll have to do…well, something pretty dramatic.”
He looked down at his folded hands. “Why can’t you work or drive?”
Instead of answering, she pulled her little bottle of Dilantin out of her handbag and slid it across to him. He picked it up, read the label, and nodded.
“I understand. Well, will I do?”
Her heart vaulted into her mouth. “Why…why are you doing this?”
He smiled wanly. “You seem perfectly nice. Your girls don’t deserve to suffer. And I’ve wanted a family for a long time.”
She started to ask why haven’t you got one? and held it back by the narrowest of margins.
“All right,” she whispered. “When?”
He pursed his lips and held still for a long moment. She began to be afraid.
“There are some conditions. First, I want it perfectly understood that it’s my house. I set the rules. You can come and go as you please, but if you have any filthy habits, or a friend or acquaintance I can’t stand, I’ll tell you so, and I’ll expect you to behave accordingly. Second, the girls seem well behaved, but if I have a criticism or a correction of them to make in the future, I’ll expect you to back me up no matter what it is. Third, I have a cleaning woman who comes in once a week, but she won’t deal with clutter, only dust and dirt. If you leave a lot of clutter around, you’ll get to keep your dust and dirt too. So you’re all expected to keep your rooms neat. ”
Your rooms?
“Fourth, there’s a room in the basement that’s mine alone. No one is to go in there but me, whether the door is open or closed. If I’m in there and you need me, knock and I’ll answer you. Except for that room, you’ll have the run of the house. Agreed?”
She nodded.
“Do Alia and Renee agree, too?”
She took their hands in hers. “They will.”
He rose. “Let’s go get your stuff.”
Ron’s house wasn’t a mansion, just a four-bedroom Dutch colonial on the outskirts of the city. But it was spacious and clean, sparsely furnished but still homey and inviting. The pine-paneled living room featured a large leather sofa, a large-screen TV, and a small fireplace. The kitchen was airy and bright, with immaculately clean fixtures and all the usual conveniences. The oak-plank floors were dust-free.
He took the girls to two smallish bedrooms and told them to settle in, then led Melissa to a third one. She peeked through the door and felt confusion rise inside her.
It was a nice room, but it wasn’t the master bedroom. It was perhaps ten feet by twelve, with a single window that overlooked his well-kept lawn. There was a large dresser with a cherry veneer, a large closet with mirrored sliding doors, a modest writing desk in some darkly stained wood, a pair of standing lamps, and a simply made bed. A single bed, meant for one person.
He slid her valise through the door and said, “Yours. Let me know if there’s anything you need.”
She looked up at him. “But, aren’t we…?”
“No.”
“Why?” She wasn’t Miss America, but she’d kept her weight down and her skin clear. Even over the four months past, she’d never neglected her grooming.
His face tightened in discomfort. “It’s not an issue, Mel. Just settle in, make yourself comfy, and let’s get on with making a family and raising the kids, okay?”
Did he take me in to get access to the girls?
“Ron…”
He saw her fear and raised a hand as if to ward away a threat. “You don’t have to worry about that. All I ask of you and the girls is your company. Are we going to have problems because I don’t want anything else from you?”
Nothing in his words rang false, but she was suffused with a formless dread that she couldn’t dispel. If he didn’t want her body, and he didn’t want to abuse her daughters, why on Earth was he opening his home to them? What was his angle?
“Is it my epilepsy? I swear it doesn’t affect—”
“Enough!”
She fell silent.
“Please,” he said, and all at once his fear, as vast as it was inexplicable, became visible to her. “Just make yourself at home. Dinner’s at six. I’ll cook.”
It didn’t take long for Melissa to decide that if Ron wasn’t the ideal spouse and stepfather for her daughters, for damned sure he could have the post until the real thing came along.
He kept metronome-perfect hours: up at five-thirty each morning, off to work by six-thirty, and back at five every afternoon. He retired no later than ten on any evening. He made little noise in coming or going; she had to set her own alarm clock so that she could breakfast with him. Dinner was between six and seven every evening: earlier if she cooked, later if he did. He never missed a family meal and insisted that no one else do so either.
His table-talk was as light and pleasant as the day they’d met, whether it was about world affairs, the girls’ schoolwork, or doings in the neighborhood. Alia and Renee chattered with him freely. He seemed to delight in it. Often Mel would repress her own small talk just to enjoy the banter her daughters exchanged with their benefactor. When the girls had cleared their places and had left the two adults alone, he invariably steered conversation to topics of interest to her. On some evenings, they watched television together. On others, they read in company or played board games with the girls.
On weekends, he busied himself with minor home maintenance and improvements, tended to his yard, or read and listened to music. He was endlessly amenable to Mel’s ideas for impromptu family outings, though he seldom produced initiatives of his own. He made few phone calls and took practically none.
She asked him only for money enough to fill the larder. He always gave her what she asked, and never questioned its use. After a few weeks, he asked if she would like an allowance with which she could do as she wished. She admitted that it would be nice. Every Friday thereafter, he handed her three hundred dollars in twenties, and never thereafter inquired what she’d done with it.
Perhaps once a week, he would go down to his room in the basement. He didn’t announce it; he simply went. He would spend about half an hour there. Afterward, he would pour himself a glass of wine and sit quietly for a long while.
After they’d been together about three months, Mel asked him if he thought they should have a dog. It wasn’t something she’d always wanted; it just seemed right for the house and the situation. He agreed at once, and a week later the largest, shaggiest black dog in all of creation joined their household. The girls shrank back and would have hidden behind Mel, but she guided them forward to meet the unlikely beast, who promptly tongue-lashed both their faces to a giggling glow.
“His name is Bjorn,” Ron said. “He’s a rescue dog.”
“Hm?” Mel couldn’t believe how much of him there was. Bjorn was the size of a small bear. He had more hair on him than any dog she’d ever seen, and beneath that was at least a hundred fifty pounds of actual flesh and bone. As she rubbed his head and ears, Alia went to the nether end and hugged his tail, while Renee slid beneath him and tickled his belly. The dog seemed to love it all.
“The family that got him as a puppy had to give him up. They had no idea how big he’d get. We were lucky. He’s a Newf. Best dog breed there ever was.”
Twin stalactites of drool had formed at the corners of Bjorn’s mouth. Without warning he shook his head vigorously, and the living room walls acquired new decorations. Everyone laughed. Ron ran for a dishtowel.
“Got to wipe that stuff up fast,” he said. “It dries hard.”
As he was swabbing a streak of drool from the paneling, she gave way to impulse and wrapped her arms around him from behind. It was the first time they’d touched since their introductory handshake.
He straightened in surprise as she laid her cheek against his back. He did not turn.
“Mel?”
“Thank you, God,” she whispered. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart for Ronald Beaufort!”
“Mel…” His voice was thick.
“Hm?”
“We’d better get Bjorn used to the back yard, don’t you think?”
“Oh.” She released him and stood a little back. “Yeah.”
Though Mel was quickly rid of the suspicion that Ron was some sort of molester or abuser, she never freed herself of her deeper fear: that he had no real reason to keep her around, and would someday decide to turn her out just as arbitrarily as he’d taken her in.
With no sexual bond between them, and no obvious reason for him to value her daughters as she did, it was a possibility she could not exclude. She did her best not to think about it, but at odd moments of leisure, when the girls were in school and there was nothing to occupy her around the house, it would creep under her defenses and lash her with doubt. It made her cast about for ways to ingratiate herself to him. The more she did of that, the emptier and weaker seemed his reasons for his generosity. For generosity it was, and nothing else. She did not clean or entertain for him. He cooked at least as well as she, and was plainly competent enough in the other domestic skills he couldn’t hire to do just fine on his own. She and her children brought nothing to his life except the pleasure of their company.
He seemed to enjoy her company, and the company of her daughters, more than she did. The girls adored him in their turn, and ran to him with shrieks of delight every evening when he returned from work. It wasn’t a subject she could discuss with him; her ponderings were her own.
The fear grew from a minor puzzlement to something dark and impervious. What test might they face that would rend that gossamer pleasure? When and where would it come? Would she recognize it approaching in time to head it off?
She could not know, and she could not ask him. Every night, when they retired to their separate bedrooms, she asked herself, when the fatal moment came as it inevitably must, how she could possibly endure it.
“You know,” she said as she cleared the table, “you never talk shop.”
“Hm?” He looked up from the sink with one eyebrow cocked. The sun spilling through the kitchen window glittered on his thick brown hair.
“Don’t you like to talk shop? I thought all engineers did.”
He chuckled. “True enough, but I didn’t think you’d be interested.”
She slid the breakfast plates into the dishwasher and latched it shut. “Try me out. What do you do all day?”
He rinsed and dried his hands and threaded the dishtowel onto its rack. “I train radars.”
“Huh?”
“I train radars to recognize all sorts of approaching objects. Radars for use at commercial airports.”
“They’re run by computers, aren’t they?” From the back landing came the sound of Bjorn nosing the screen door, demanding to be let in.
“Yup, but you still have to teach them what they need to know.” He went to the back door and admitted Bjorn, who promptly shook a mass of leaves and pine needles onto the kitchen floor. He laughed and went for the broom and dustpan. “Are you really interested?”
“Well, yeah.”
He swept up the debris and tossed it into the garbage. “Then throw some real clothes on and I’ll show you.”
“On a Saturday?”
He shrugged. “Why not?”
“Okay.” She went to her room, exchanged her sweats and slippers for a blouse, jeans, and sneakers, and met him in the garage.
His lab looked like something assembled from a junkyard, but he assured her that every scrap of it had a purpose.
“This,” he said, pointing to a weblike array of plates, struts, and wires, “is a phased-array antenna for a next-generation sweep radar. It’s got really good eyes. Maybe too good. It sees a lot of things it could never recognize by fixed rules, so the computer that drives it”—he waved at a beige box in a far corner—“has to learn how to tell stuff it can safely ignore from real concerns.”
She peered at the thing without comprehension. “How does it do that?”
He grinned. “I teach it.” He waved at a wall hung with dozens of metal contraptions. “By using those jigs, I can create many thousands of different radar reflections. Basically, I can simulate anything ever found in the sky. If the computer’s rule base produces a correct evaluation of the kind of reflection I’m testing, I try another one. If it doesn’t, I look for the holes in the rule base and make adjustments until it does.”
“Is it programming, then?”
“Some programming, some physics, a few other things too.” He gained animation with each word. “It has to learn how to learn, Mel. There’s no way we can prepare the radar for everything it might see in the sky. So we have to make it versatile. We have to give it the capacity to acquire new knowledge as it goes.” He grinned. “Think of it as on-the-job training.”
“How’d you get into this?” It didn’t seem like the sort of thing you could study in school.
He flipped a hand. “A few years ago, the guy who used to do it got hit by a car. I took a stab at it, found out I was pretty good at it.”
She listened with interest, not to a presentation on the physics of electromagnetic detection or the heuristics of the associated interpretation logic, but to a narration of how his career had moved from a conventional track in electronic design to another he could never have anticipated. After a few minutes, he ran down and smiled sheepishly.
“I’m sorry. I talk too much, I know.”
“No!” she said. “It’s great. It’s fascinating. We’ve been together more than half a year and I didn’t know the first—” She realized where she was headed and fell silent in embarrassment.
He looked at her with a hint of dawning realization in his eyes. Presently he took her hand between his two and chafed it tenderly.
“Mel, you know all the important stuff about me. You’ve known it since the day we met. What I do here is fun, but really it’s just earning a living. What I do at home, with you and the kids—that’s life.”
Her eyes flooded, and she nodded. They left his lab in silence, her hand in his.
On the way back to the house, she laid a hand on his arm and said, “We should pick up some bread and milk. We’re almost out.”
He nodded and pulled into a convenience store. As they stepped out of the car, she moved up to him and tucked her hand under his arm. He noticed, but said nothing. They made their selections and got on the checkout line behind a modest queue of other shoppers.
They were next to check out when a too-familiar voice said, “Melissa?”
Oh God, not here.
She resisted the urge to turn, hoping he’d conclude she was someone else.
It didn’t work. Doug closed on her at once. He was as nattily attired as always, as perfect the ladies’ man in a Quik-Stop as in a trendy disco. He leered down into her face from his imposing height as if they were back in the singles’ club where they’d met. Where she wished she’d never gone. Reflexively, her hand went to Ron’s arm and squeezed. Doug noted the gesture, and his lip curled in contempt.
“Found yourself another sugar daddy so fast, babe?”
Holding down panic with an effort, she turned to Ron, smiled, and said, “Ron, this is Doug Davis. He’s a…friend I haven’t seen in a while.”
Ron’s eyes narrowed. He extended his hand uncertainly. Doug ignored it.
“Did he buy the whole package, or are you holding out on him the way you did on me?” He ran a finger along the side of Melissa’s face, as if she were still his private plaything. The other customers murmured uneasily.
“Excuse me.” Ron’s voice rang with truculence, the trumpet call of an alpha male preparing to defend his turf. “Miss Harland is with me. If the two of you have issues, this is not the place to air them.”
“Can it, prettyboy. This doesn’t have anything to do with you.” Doug’s six foot, eight inch height and his weightlifter’s build made his glower near to unendurable for most men. Incredibly, Ron met him glare for glare.
“I disagree, musclebrain.” The note of challenge in Ron’s voice intensified. A mousy woman with an armload of baked goods backed away and knocked over a stand of potato chips. “Lay off now unless you want more trouble than you can afford.”
Doug’s eyes flared wide with fury. Melissa squealed her fright as he drew back his hand to strike.
He never got the chance. Ron shoved Melissa to the side, surged forward, and buried his left hand knuckle deep in Doug’s solar plexus. The bigger man whoofed all the air from his lungs and doubled over his pain. Ron thrust an open palm straight up into his chin with knockout force, so quickly that Melissa wasn’t sure she actually saw the blow.
Doug Davis flipped backward and measured his full length crashingly upon the floor.
The rest of the store’s customers drew back in alarm, as if a robbery were in progress. The clerk groped beneath the countertop for something, probably a bludgeon.
Ron took no heed. He knelt next to his defeated opponent and spoke to him gently, pedantically, a teacher making a simple point to a tragically slow student.
“I told you, asshole, she’s with me. I don’t give a shit where she was before this, whether it was with you or anyone else. If you ever so much as look at her again, I’ll seal your fucking eyes shut for good.” He took Doug’s chin in a rough, contemptuous grip. “Do you understand me, dick breath?”
Doug was still re-learning the fine art of breathing normally. He nodded.
Ron released him, threw a twenty onto the counter before the terrified clerk, and pulled Melissa out of the store.
Melissa sat frozen in the passenger seat all the way home, unable to utter the least of sounds.
When Ron had pulled the car into the garage and killed the ignition, he turned to her and said, “What was that about ‘holding out’?”
She said nothing.
“Mel,” he said softly. “I really need to know.”
His mildness struck through her paralysis as no elevation of volume or asperity of tone could have done. She turned to meet his eyes, found nothing there but curiosity and affection.
“I left the girls with a friend for a few days while I worked on him.” Her voice tried to betray her, but she kept it steady. “I thought I could get him hooked before he knew there was a string to the package.”
He waited to hear if there was anything more. When she failed to continue, he said, “That’s all?”
She nodded.
He grinned. “Well, I guess you learned not to do that again.” He fished the groceries out of the back seat, got out and headed for the kitchen. He was at the door when he noticed that she’d remained in the car.
“Mel? Coming?”
She got out hesitantly. He waited for her at the door. When she reached him, he put one gentle hand to her cheek.
“It’s okay. That was then. Let’s get on with now.”
He opened the door and ushered her into their home.
She went to him that night. She could wait no longer.
As she eased open the door to his bedroom, he sat up hesitantly in the dark. Bjorn, camped at the foot of the bed, raised his head, then lowered it again when he recognized her.
“Mel? What’s the matter?”
“Shhh,” she said. “Nothing.” She urged him a little way back, tossed her robe aside and slipped under his covers without further speech. He flinched as she took him in her arms, then slowly extended his own to embrace her. She tried to still his trembling with caresses and soft murmurs.
“Mel,” he said, agony ringing through the syllable, “I can’t.”
“Yes you can, Ron. Just relax. I’ll help.”
“You can’t help.” The words were forged from the coldest iron.
She pulled back a little way and peered through the darkness at his face.
“Ron,” she said in her calmest, most soothing tone, “I haven’t held out on you in any way. I showed you the whole package right up front. Now it’s time for you to come clean with me.”
“But I haven’t asked for this,” he whispered.
“Because you don’t want it?”
He said nothing. Presently she felt his hand close over her fingers and guide them to his thigh. She did not resist.
What he pressed to her fingertips felt nothing like what she’d expected. It was rough and granular, a lump of cicatrice that protruded from his leg like a cancerous growth. It was the fleshly incarnation of pain.
“How?” she whispered.
“A gunshot wound. Just missed the femoral artery. The surgeon said I was lucky to live, but it took out a nerve trunk he couldn’t re-splice. I was fifteen.”
It took her a moment to grasp his implication. “So you can’t…?”
He clutched her and said nothing.
Wait a minute.
“Ron, what do you do when you go downstairs?” She trailed her fingers over his flesh, found the scar again and caressed it. “Does it have anything to do with this?”
He didn’t respond at once. Then, with no preliminary, he pulled away, slid out of bed, muttered “Put your robe on,” and headed for the door.
She was behind him in an instant.
His basement room had little in it. From the bright lighting, the large workbenches and the vises attached to them, she inferred that it had once been used as a general-purpose workshop, but there were no tools or raw materials to suggest that he used it that way now. In the corner stood a plastic trash bucket with nothing in it. The sole window was covered with a sheet of dark cloth.
He pulled open a drawer, drew forth an oblong pinkish object, handed it to her and turned away.
It was an irregular cylinder of supple rubber. It was about six inches long, with a rounded tip, a flared base, and a bulge at the middle about an inch and a half in diameter. She knew what it was for. She peered into the drawer from which it had come and saw a tube of lubricant, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a mass of cotton balls.
“You use this—”
“When I can’t hold out any longer. There’s a second nerve track that…well, you know.” The words were hoarse with strain. He would not look at her.
She contemplated the plug for a long while. He stood unmoving and unspeaking.
It’s a prosthetic. A medical appliance. It’s just like my Dilantin. Just as right, and just as necessary.
If I can cope with epilepsy, he can cope with this.
She plucked the lubricant from the drawer and took his hand.
“Ron,” she said, “come with me.”
He turned hesitantly, face red from shame and twisted by confusion.
“We’re going back to bed,” she said. “Your bed.”
“But—”
“No nonsense, Ron.” She yanked him toward the door and pressed him forward, one hand on his shoulder. “Get up those stairs.”
They went.
When she’d closed his bedroom door behind them, she snapped on the light. He flinched, still confused.
“Off with the robe and shorts,” she said. He complied. She shed her own robe.
“Face down on the bed.” When he was prone, she straddled him on her knees, urged his rump a little way upward, and squirted a generous amount of the lubricant on his exposed anus. His hands balled into fists as she worked it into the orifice with her fingers. The muscles of his back and neck became rigidly tight.
When she probed him, he gasped and started almost hard enough to buck her off his legs. She said, “Shhh, it’s all right,” and continued her ministrations. Gradually his tension subsided. He began to rock to the rhythm of her hands.
At last she lubricated the plug, put the tip to his anus, and ran her free hand caressingly down his back to the base of his spine. “Now push against me.” He did. The plug slid smoothly into him and seated itself naturally.
She turned him over with a gentle tug. His eyes were as wide as a startled deer’s. His chest trembled visibly. He’d developed a respectably large, very hard erection. She teased it with her fingertips, and he gasped and surged again.
“Happy birthday,” she whispered.
“It’s not my birthday.”
“Oh yes it is,” she said, and impaled herself upon him.
“Why did you want the light on?” he said.
She grinned. “I didn’t want you hiding from me any more.”
“May I turn it off now?”
“Okay.”
He slid out of bed, hit the wall switch, and was immediately back under the covers, his arms around her. Bjorn emitted a single thunderous snore, then fell silent.
“Happy?” she said.
He squeezed her in the darkness. “Very. But I don’t understand why—”
“Because I had to learn.”
“Hm?”
“I waited this long,” she said slowly, “because I had to learn to love you.”
“Oh. But—”
“What I don’t understand,” she said, “is how you’ve loved me and the kids all this time, right from the day we met, with no warm-up at all.”
His chest rose and fell against her.
“I knew how it was supposed to be done,” he said. “So I just did it. The three of you are lovable. That made it easy. After a while, I didn’t even have to think about it.”
Learning by doing. On-the-job training.
“Suppose we hadn’t been lovable?”
His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Why think about it? So tell me, Miss Harland, are you satisfied with the results of your ad?”
Her arms tightened around him. “I don’t think,” she murmured against his cheek, “there’s a luckier woman in the whole world. I can’t imagine how the rest of them let you get away.”
She felt his mouth curve into a grin. “Money well spent, then?”
“Very. How many places can you buy a first-rate husband for thirty bucks?”
Something blossomed in the warmth between them. Something new, and surprising, and yet inevitable. He pressed her close.
“I love you, Melissa,” he whispered. “My wife.”
