—Gail Harmmon—
WHEN Eric met her after swim practice, Gail was pleased and puzzled at once. “Where’s Dad?” she asked her older brother as she bounced out of the gym.
“Still in line for gas, I guess.” Eric had four books under his arm and even though he had been wearing contact lenses for three years, he still looked as if he were wearing glasses. “Mom asked me to meet you.”
“I can walk home on my own,” declared Gail, with the defensive independence of her almost-thirteen years. “I’m not exactly a kid.”
“You know what Mom’s like,” said Eric, as the only explanation for their situation.
“Sure; and she’s been worse since she went back to work.” They had fallen into step together, prepared to walk the mile and a half home, though pedestrians were not that common a sight in the San Fernando Valley, especially now that there were so many smog alerts.
“She’s worried, that’s all,” said Eric, frowning. “She’s a little guilty, too. You know what happened to Erin’s kids—she thinks the same thing’s going to happen to us.”
“That’s silly.” They stopped at a crosswalk and waited for a break in the stream of cars to cross. “Jenny got into junior-crack because of that guy from Texas. I mean, it was legal, a look-alike, not the real thing, being manufactured and all.” She tossed her head, her short brown hair shining in the ruddy afternoon haze. “Dad gave me this ghoully lecture about all the designer drugs. He’s worse than the cops that come to the school.”
Eric cleared his throat. “Well?”
“Well what?” she challenged. Until two years ago she had idolized her brilliant older brother, but much of that glamor had faded as she began to shine in school sports.
“Is there any reason they should worry?” Eric asked in his usual oblique style.
“You mean do I mess with drugs? Of course not.” Her scorn was tremendous and she increased her already long stride to emphasize her contempt for the idea. “I’m an athlete, for God’s sake! You know what happens with those designer drugs? Well, I’m not taking any chances.”
“Olympic gold in diving, right?” said Eric, repeating Gail’s often-stated goal.
“For starters,” she said, letting him off the hook.
“And then what?” He caught up to her, his breath coming too fast. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead and the color had drained from his face.
“Oh, hey, I’m sorry,” said Gail, slowing at once. “I keep forgetting. Are you sure we ought to be walking home at all?”
Eric gave her a crooked smile. “The doctors said that so long as I don’t overdo, some exercise is probably good for me. I’m scheduled for another series of tests next week.”
“Next week?” Gail was shocked. “But you just had a bunch two weeks ago.”
“Which didn’t turn up anything,” he reminded her, pleased that she reduced the pace of their hike.
“But Eric . . . ” She hesitated. “I mean, don’t they know what’s wrong? How can they not know? They’ve got all those machines and computers and all that. How can they not know?” They passed a service station with the usual twenty-car line for the pumps; neither Eric nor Gail paid any attention to the sight, which had become commonplace in the last two years.
“I guess because there’s nothing . . . specific about what’s the matter. It’s a little bit like mono and a little bit like a lot of other things, but it isn’t any of them.” He sighed, giving way to the futility he had felt since he had his first tests last May, six months ago.
“Boy, what a ghoully thing!” Gail burst out. “I start my crummy periods and then you get . . . what did they used to call it?”
“The vapors,” he suggested, trying to make light of it again.
“Yeah, that’s right. The vapors.” She said it in an exaggerated way, her voice deep and what she hoped was spooky. “The vapors! It sounds like a third-rate monster mini-series, doesn’t it?”
“Or a new video.” He stopped briefly, smiling his apology at her. “Sorry. Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure,” she said at once, switching to her own sports with ease. “I’m going to be in the freestyle as well as the diving next weekend. The coach asked me to fill in for Gretchen Wills—she’s got something wrong with her, and Ms. Dennison wants to have a full team in all the events.”
“Well, good for you,” said Eric, doing his best to muster enthusiasm. He was never much good at sports, and recently he had been excused from the athletic program at his high school until his physician determined it was safe for him to resume such demanding activities. “I know Mom’ll be happy to know that, too. She told Megan that she ought to practice more.”
Gail shook her head over the lack of perception this showed. “Megan’s no swimmer. She’s okay, but that’s all. Mom ought to get her those extra dancing lessons she wants, because that’s what she’s good at.”
“How can you tell? She’s only nine.” Eric hated to admit it, but his youngest sister baffled him.
“Nine’s almost too late for a dancer,” Gail announced with authority. “You ask Meredith, and she’ll tell you.”
Eric shook his head. “Meredith doesn’t talk to me that much anymore.” She had almost been his girlfriend for more than a year, and then, as Eric’s health changed, Meredith slipped away from him, as if she feared his unknown disease might touch her as well. “She’s taking extra dance classes,” he added, glad that there was a reasonable excuse for the change in their fading relationship.
“Well, see what I mean?” Gail asked, then paused. “Are you scared, Eric?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Don’t tell Mom and Dad, will you? They’re pretty upset as it is.” He cleared his throat and squinted across the next intersection. “They’d get me shrunk if they thought I was scared.”
“So what? Getting shrunk isn’t too bad,” said Gail blithely.
“That’s for the stringers on drugs and the weirdos with the tattoos and the tech-ers who won’t let anyone touch them. I’ve got an odd disease is all.” He coughed once, more to keep his voice from breaking than because he needed to.
“Whatever,” said Gail, holding up an imperious hand to the approaching cars. They had four more long blocks to go before they were home. As they crossed the six-lane street, Gail watched her brother covertly, looking for signs of illness.
“Stop it,” he said as they got to the curb.
“I didn’t mean anything,” said Gail, knowing it was useless to deny what she had done.
“Stop it anyway. I’m not going to drop dead in the middle of Victory Boulevard, for Chrissake.” He studied her and then smiled. “I don’t blame you for wondering.”
“Well, you got to admit that it makes more sense for you to be wondering about college than a puke-o disease.”
“It makes more sense,” he said, knowing that if his doctors would allow it, he would start at Cal Irvine next fall. If. If. If. The word had put all of his life in suspension while a bunch of doctors looked over the printouts and pictures from their machines and tried to decide what was wrong with him. What puzzled him most was that the machines— for which he had more respect than he had for physicians—had not been able to pinpoint his disease and offer a solution to it.
“You ought to volunteer for some of those experimental groups, you know, the ones that try out all the new medical things. I bet they’d find out what was wrong in a couple of weeks.” Gail favored him with an encouraging grin. “Those guys love to experiment, and they’re into everything.”
“Sure,” he said, with a complete lack of confidence. He began to feel sick, and he touched Gail on the arm. “Can we just wait a minute?”
“You okay?” she asked, suddenly anxious for him.
“I think so. I’m just . . . a little short of breath.” He stared toward the next cross street and glared at the traffic. “I guess the smog is getting to me. They issued a warning for this afternoon. I should have paid more attention.”
“Yeah.” Gail was more uncertain than ever. “Look, if you want to wait on the bus bench, I can run home and tell—”
“Tell who?” demanded Eric. “Mom and Dad are at work and they won’t be home, either of them, for more than two hours.” He hated the thought that his younger sister was in better shape than he was, though he knew it was true.
“Then we can wait a little while,” Gail conceded at once. “You’re right. Mom and Dad are still out. If I had my license, I’d drive you.”
“You won’t have your license for almost four years,” said Eric, who had acquired his learner’s permit only a month ago.
“I’d still drive for you if I could get away with it.” She gave him a conspiratorial wink. “You could drive home, but I’d bring the car here.”
They had reached one of the infrequent bus benches, and Eric gratefully sank down on it, chagrined at how much he needed the respite. “You’re not supposed to know how to drive at all.”
“That’s silly,” she declared. “And you know it as well as I do.” She shaded her eyes and looked down the street. “We could try hitchhiking.”
“Mom would have a fit.”
“There’s two of us. I wouldn’t do it alone. I’m not that dumb. But you and me ought to be safe.” She started to stick out her thumb, but Eric stopped her.
“All I need is a couple more minutes and that ought to be enough. HI didn’t have this crap, whatever it is, I’d be fine.”
“I know that,” said Gail with more sympathy than before. “You can’t help it that you’ve got something no one can figure out yet.”
“That’s so,” said Eric, taking several deep breaths of the gasoline-tainted air. “But I got to tell you, Gail, I’m damned sick of being sick.”
“I can imagine. It must be ghoully to feel bad all the time.” She reached out and patted his arm. “You don’t have to worry. They’re going to find out what’s wrong and fix you up in no time. Doctor Plaiting knows his job.”
“He sure does,” Eric agreed as he got to his feet. “What’s the worst part is that I end up feeling out of it about half the time, and that means I can’t think worth batshit.”
“That’ll change when you get well.” They started walking once more, Gail slightly in the lead. “You’ll see.”
“Yeah,” said Eric, striving to get more air into his lungs with each breath.
Steven Channing—
“There will be two more payments before the trust is exhausted,” the insurance lawyer explained to Irene Channing, his old-fashioned glasses riding down his nose so that he could peer over them at her; he felt it made up for his receding chin and hairline. “And there is the matter of the two trusts for the children.”
“Neil took very good care of us,” said Irene, squinting out the window at the flat spread of Dallas. “Three years and I still miss him.”
“You’ve already gone over the stock portfolio, I trust?” the attorney asked, knowing the answer.
“Yesterday, and Neil’s personal attorney also.” She was, she admitted to herself, growing very tired of attorneys and forms. In the three years since Neil died, she was sure she had spent more time attending to his estate than painting. On the other hand, she allowed as the insurance attorney droned on, Neil left her astonishingly wealthy and had provided for her son as well, and so she was the last woman on earth who had any reason to cry spoiled fish.
“If you’ll sign this authorization,” the attorney said at last, presenting her with a long, closely written document, “then I can make the necessary transfers through your banker.”
“I’d appreciate that,” said Irene, reaching over to take the pen he proffered. “Is signature enough?”
“Initials at the bottom of each page, please,” said the attorney. He cleared his throat as Irene tended to the matter. “Have you decided which house you intend to use for the summer?”
“The boys like the little ranch,” she said, scrawling her full name—Irene Dysis Poulakis Channing—on the space provided.
“When were you thinking of going there?”
“As soon as school is out. But that’s months and months away. It’s only November.” She handed the pen back to him. “And frankly, I’m more concerned about my gallery opening in March than vacation in June.”
“Oh, yes, the gallery opening,” said the attorney in a strained tone of voice. “I read about it.”
Irene made an effort to keep her temper. “I’ve had shows there before, but never a solo act. One-man—or one-woman—shows are hard to come by.” She smoothed her skirt. “Is that all, Mister Parker?”
“For the time being. You must understand that when amounts of this size are involved, there are procedures that have to be undertaken for everyone’s protection.” He removed his glasses and tried to smile. “You might find this—”
“Difficult to grasp?” she finished for him, angry at his bland assumption that she, both as a woman and an artist, had no sense of business. “I supported myself and my son for five years before I met Neil Channing. At a gallery opening, incidentally. It’s true that there wasn’t much money to take care of, but most of the time I managed, Mister Parker. I know about contracts. Just as I know that you are employed by this insurance company to protect their interests, not mine.” She reached for her suede jacket and pulled it on. “Thank you very much for your time.”
His adam’s apple bobbed under his collar. “Missus Channing, I hope you didn’t take offence at anything . . . I didn’t mean to say anything . . . ”
She went to the door and let herself out, her mind on Steven and Brice. She reminded herself that she owed them the time it took her to deal with infuriating men like Parker. She remembered the many times Neil had taken her aside and told her that she would have to be careful of men like Parker, and not to let them frazzle her, because that was how they gained the advantage. She was out on the street before she was willing to concede the contest to Parker.
Driving home, she pulled off the Highland Park Expressway and stopped at Steven’s school, taking a book from her purse and starting to read. She had four cars and a chauffeur at her disposal, but there were days when she liked taking her three-year-old Commadore and driving without fuss. Her mind wandered and she realized she had read the same sentence four times without any sense of what it meant.
“Hi, mom,” said Steven as he got into the car.
Irene stared at him, startled and surprised to see him. “You were dozing,” he explained as he pulled his seat belt into position and secured it. “Dull book?”
“A silly book,” she said, putting it aside and reaching to start the car.
“Oh.” He narrowed his eyes as she pulled into traffic. “How was the insurance company?”
“Smarmy, as usual,” she said, glancing quickly at him and seeing again the faint fuzz that grew on his cheeks and upper lip. He had already shaved once, and soon would have to again.
“Wasn’t that what you were expecting?” he asked, frowning. “Mom, can we go by the Gradestons’ place on the way home? Sean’s still out sick and I want to . . . you know.”
Sean Gradeston had been his best friend for more than four years; the two had played together and invented their own brand of raising hell. Now Sean was confined to the house, suffering from some unknown disease that sapped his strength and turned him from a tempestuous thirteen-year-old to a little old man in a kid suit.
“I sure do. We’ll stop for as long as Ginny will let you stay,” promised Irene. She carefully avoided asking how Sean was doing, since his continuing deterioration was a forbidden topic.
“Good.” He scowled at the traffic wending its way out through Highland Park. “Are they going to give you the money?”
“They can’t very well refuse,” said Irene. “It’s all in Neil’s will and all the documents are on file. They’re dragging their feet as much as the law permits. It’s a great deal of money, after all, and no one thought that Neil wouldn’t live past forty-six.”
“Yeah,” said Steven. “I liked him. He was a good jumper.”
Irene was familiar enough with her son’s jargon to know this was a compliment. “He sure was. I don’t like to think where we’d be now without him.”
“How about with my real Pa?” asked Steven.
“No way,” Irene said, and the vehemence of her words surprised her.
“Was he that bad?” Steven said with less certainty.
Irene did her best to take the sting away. “Not that bad, no. He just didn’t want any kids. In fact, he thought he couldn’t have any because of something that happened in Viet Nam. That was years and years ago. I heard,” she went on, saying nothing about the private detective she had hired to do the work, “that he ended up with a family of his own, eventually.” She knew that his wife was a teacher in a San Diego high school and that Tim Stevenson himself ran a gourmet market in La Jolla, the fourth business venture for him in ten years. Tim had three children and a hefty mortgage as well as two cars, a Dragon-class sail boat, a Schnauser, and an ulcer.
“Probably doing okay then,” said Steven with that curious mixture of longing and indifference that marked all his observations and questions about his father. “Remember about stopping at Sean’s.”
“I will,” said Irene, signaling early for the turn. “Sean will be glad you’re coming for a visit.”
“When he finds out about it, I guess he will,” said Steven. “I wish he wasn’t sick. Or maybe I wish I was sick along with him. It’s weird—one of us fine and the other so wasted that he can’t walk more than half a block without turning white and wheezing.” He folded his arms and stared out the window at the houses.
“He’ll get better. The doctors will find out what the matter is, and then they’ll take care of it. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that they couldn’t cure any of the kinds of leukemia, and now most of them are cured or under control and the few that aren’t can be slowed down.” She said this to give her boy hope. “Is this Golden Orchard?”
“Next corner,” said Steven. “I hope you’re right. I don’t want anything to happen to Sean.”
“Neither do I,” Irene said as she made the right turn onto the winding residential street. “When we get there, no matter how he looks, don’t you say anything about it, okay? He’s probably upset enough as it is.” She warned him more for his parents than for Sean, who took Steven’s ribbing with delight.
“Okay.” He cleared his throat. “There’s three more kids out with something like what’s wrong with Sean. One of the teachers said something about it at lunch. The Principal wants all of us to go to the nurse next week, in case there’s a bug going around. You know what that’s like.”
“I haven’t got a note about it,” said Irene, feeling real alarm for the first time.
“They just sent them out yesterday. Mister Rosenblum, the biology teacher, you remember him? he said that there’s been some of the environmental types around looking for toxic dumps and that kind of stuff.” Steven straightened up as the Gradeston house came into view. “Wouldn’t that be oxic? Yeah, oxic toxic.” He indicated the open space in front of the Gradeston house, although Irene was already pulling into it.
“What’s this ‘oxic’?” Irene asked, hoping to get a little of her son’s attention before he went in to visit his friend.
“It’s . . . about armpits. You know how they stink.” He had already unfastened his seatbelt and as the Commadore pulled to a halt, he pressed the latch. “Back in a bit,” he said as soon as the car had stopped and the door released.
Irene watched him go, then locked the wheel and prepared to follow him.
—Adam and Axel Barenssen—
“You are not down on your knees,” Preacher Colney admonished the younger—by seventeen minutes—of the Barenssen twins.
“I . . . I’m sorry,” muttered Axel as he obediently dropped to his knees and joined his hands in prayer.
“I’ve done my best,” Kirsten, their aunt, declared fervently, her own hands knotted together and her lean, parched face set with unhappiness. “God laid His burden on me, and I have thanked Him for it.” She stared at her two nephews. “But they’re getting to be . . . ” The words stuck in her throat and she looked away from the two boys, as if they were too bright for her eyes.
“They are of a certain age,” Preacher Colney agreed, his expression ambivalent. “And you say that Satan is working in them.”
“I have seen it.”
From their place on the floor, Adam and Axel exchanged one quick look, a signal of outrage and frustration. “It’s not Satan,” said Adam, loud enough for the two adults to hear him. “It’s just puberty. That’s what they told me at school.”
Kirsten’s countenance became more severe. “That’s part of it. That lying! Anything can be explained by glands or chemistry or . . . I can’t think! I have begged my brother to remove his sons from that place. There are atheists and Jews and God-alone-knows-what there. I have pleaded with him to show his authority and forbid his sons to read what the teachers have given him.”
Preacher Colney had every bit as rigid an attitude as Kirsten Barenssen, but he had learned enough of the law that he did not relish martyring himself to the statutes of education in the state of Oregon. He had been a minister long enough that most of his naivete had worn off and been replaced with a degree of tolerance for human frailty. “Patience, Sister, pray for patience and God will see you through.”
“It’s puberty,” Adam said with more force. “It happens to everyone when they get to be our age.” His knees were beginning to hurt and he shifted his place on the floor, watching his brother do the same.
“God sends His trials to all of us,” intoned Preacher Colney. “And you are not the ones to judge what has been manifested through you. You are too young and if you are being used by Satan, you might not know it. Most of those who succumb to his wiles do not know they have fallen.” He raised his well-worn Bible above the two boys and began to pray; his voice was harsh, more demanding than imploring, and he shuddered as if fighting against an invisible wind. “Hear us, your children, O God Who has made all things, and come to our aid in our time of tribulation and suffering. We call on You in our need and our weakness, for You will not give us more than we can carry, and we bow our heads to this.”
“He’s getting worked up again,” Axel whispered to Adam. They were so alike that even those who knew them well often confused them. There was one marked difference between them, and that was the shade of their eyes:
Adam’s were dark blue, a smoldering shade between cobalt and prussian; Axel’s were a soft, light green. Right now their dissimilar eyes were locked as if that contact alone would block out all unpleasantness, uniting them against the world.
“Lord, hear us and grant us Your mighty arm as our protection against the work of the Devil, who ravens like a lion among Your flock. Cast out the evil that has entered the bodies of Adam and Axel Barenssen. Save them from the fires of Hell and restore to them the cloak of perfect innocence and purity which is the greatest gift of Heaven.” He directed his remarks to the old-fashioned light fixture on the ceiling, as if suggesting that God might find His work easier through electrical circuits.
“They’re not right anymore,” sighed Kirsten. “Things happen when they’re around. I have seen it.” She reached out and grudgingly supported herself on the back of an ugly, overstuffed chair.
Preacher Colney interrupted his harangue and stared at her, a new recognition corning to him. “Are you still ailing, Sister Barenssen?”
“It’s them. It’s their work,” she told the pudgy minister. “They’ve brought this affliction on me as surely as they are the tools of Hell.”
“You have been to the doctor since we talked? You told me two weeks ago that you wanted to break your appointment. You kept it, didn’t you?” He could sense her stern resistance to his questions.
“I went, though it was a waste of time. They’re worse than pagan witch doctors, those men, with their machines and tests, as if that had anything to do with healing.” She raised her voice. “Where is the machine that can cast out the Devil?”
“What does your doctor say?” asked the Preacher, becoming concerned and wanting to keep the two of them on the matter of her health.
“He can say nothing. He does tests and he learns nothing. That’s because it isn’t a doctorable thing that’s wrong with me, it’s them.” She pointed at her nephews kneeling on the worn carpet. “They’re the cause. It’s their doing.”
Now Preacher Colney was distinctly uneasy. It was one thing to assume that the Devil might be getting into the bodies of teenaged boys—he had seen that often enough—but it was another to accuse them of causing illness. Little as he wanted to admit it, he knew that spinsters of Kirsten Barenssen’s disposition and age often endured mysterious and unfathomable maladies that neither medicine nor faith could treat. He looked down at the twin boys, white-blond and fresh-faced; he came to a decision. “Adam, Axel, leave me alone with your aunt for a little while. I’ll call you for informal prayers in a bit.”
The boys got to their feet at once. “Thanks, Preacher,” said Adam for them both, and they trudged out of the room, toward the kitchen.
“Don’t go far,” Colney admonished them, and then turned to Kirsten, seeing the shock he had expected to find in her eyes. “Before we go much further with this, Sister, I think we’d better have a talk.”
“About the boys?” she said. “I’ve told you all about them, but you’re not listening to me. You think I’m making it up.”
“No, not that,” he said, watching to be certain that the kitchen door was closed.
“I know what’s happening to me. I know that my faith is being tested and that my soul and my body are besieged by the forces of Hell. Won’t you help me? How can I fight them if you won’t help me?”
“Sister Barenssen, think; it might be a snare, a deception of the Devil to lure you to waste your faith and your strength where it is not necessary so that you will not be able to resist the true enemy.” He decided he would have to phone her physician and find out what the tests had revealed.
“You told me that I could call upon you, when I am tested. You gave me your word that you would help if—”
“Yes,” he said mollifyingly. “And I’m pleased that you did. But I think that we’d better discuss your health for a while first. It might have a bearing on . . . how we handle the trouble here.” He wanted to sound as neutral as possible, as removed from judgment as he could be without appearing to question anything that she had revealed to him.
“We handle the trouble by casting out the Devil. You’ve said that; Scripture says that.” She touched the Bible he held. “All my life I’ve clung to the Word, and trusted in it above all else. Now it is my only defense.”
“Of course,” said Preacher Colney in a soothing tone as he drew up a slat-backed wooden chair so that he could face her as they talked. “Just as we were promised.”
“Yes,” she said with inward passion. “Ever since God took their mother, I’ve watched over them. Now I see the Devil in them as my strength fails. I’m . . . I’m frightened,” she admitted, as if she were confessing to breaking all the Commandments at once.
Will Colney nodded, knowing that his reservations had been well-founded. “I want us to pray together for your health and strength before we try anything more with the twins. First things first, Sister Barenssen.”
“But the Devil—” There was terror in her eyes now, and her face was paler.
“The Devil will be with us forever; we can take time to pray together for strength,” he insisted, hoping that the repetition of the words would finally get through to her.
“I tell you that there is great danger in those twins. I knew it from the first.” She tightened her hands and then met his eyes. “Even before God took their mother, I knew that there was something wrong with them. It was their fault that she died.”
“She died in an automobile accident, along with thirty-four other people.” Will Colney knew that he would have to proceed carefully with this distraught woman.
“It was a judgment on them, on all of them. For their wickedness.” She wiped tears from her cheeks with the backs of her hands, and Preacher Colney was reminded of how an animal uses its paws. “And caring for her children was God’s judgment on me.”
“Why should taking care of your brother’s motherless twins be a judgment on you? You offered your care, Sister Barenssen, it wasn’t foisted on you. You gave your charity from the goodness of your heart. Didn’t you?” This last question was deliberately phrased as an afterthought, a gentle prompting to Kirsten to explain.
“I . . .” She was weeping in earnest now. “She was a frivolous woman. She painted her face and she wore the sort of clothes that . . .”
“I know she was not part of our faith, but that doesn’t mean that she was wholly without virtue,” said Preacher Colney with great care. “God has admonished us to hate the sin and love the sinner.”
“I know.” She sobbed deeply. “I was punished for my error. I was made to watch my brother’s children become the tools of the Devil because I could not learn to accept his wife. I know that now, and I repent my sins, I do. I have no words to tell you how great my remorse is.” She locked her hands together and clapped them between her knees. “I ought to have known. I ought to have thought about it, but it didn’t seem that important when I first came to care for them. I didn’t notice the signs that the Devil was working to destroy me and them.”
“How . . . what signs?” Will Colney knew he was out of his depth with Kirsten Barenssen. He was not experienced enough to deal with this woman, but his calling demanded that he try. He took his handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her.
She ignored him. “I saw at the first that Hilda was filled with vanity, and I did all that I knew to show her how wrong she was. I prayed for her and with her, and I spoke often with my brother, begging him to use a firmer hand with her.”
“And the other boy?” asked Colney, thinking of the eight-year-old Robert.
“There is no Devil in him. He is only the poor victim of his mother’s folly and my lack of vigilance.” She was rigid and trembling. “Oh, God, God, how could I have failed so?”
“God will forgive you, whatever you have done,” Preacher Colney assured her. “And His forgiveness will cast out the Devil to save those two boys.” It was the inspiration of the moment and he hoped it would be successful, at least for a short time.
“I wanted my brother to find a better wife, to set aside that lighthearted harlot he married. May God pardon me for my sins, I wanted her gone. I know that divorce is as bad a sin as murder, for it countermands a sacrament, but in my heart I wanted my brother to put her away, to leave her to her sinful ways and take a wife who would honor him and his children. I prayed for that. Jesus, Jesus! I prayed for a sinful thing. And for that she was killed, and it is on my head, and the Devil has come for me through her boys.” She collapsed forward, her forehead on her knees, and she cried wildly.
Perplexed and worried, Will Colney reached out and patted her shoulder. “God will forgive you, Sister Barenssen,” he said, noticing that she felt hot through her shapeless woolen dress.
Under his hand she shuddered as she wept.
—Laurie Grey—
On the stage of the junior high school auditorium, Laurie Grey went through her last rehearsal of her solo before the recital. Her ballet teacher stood in the wings, gesturing with her hands as Laurie went through the most difficult part: tour jete, capriole front, tour jete, capriole back, tour jete, pas de chat and ending with eight coupe turns in a circle.
“And bow,” said Miss Cuante as Laurie came to the end.
Obediently Laurie bowed, her mulberry-colored leotard showing sweat stains under the arms and down the back as she came toward Miss Cuante. “How was it? I thought I took the last turns a little too wide.”
“You did very well. If you do as well in the recital tomorrow I will be delighted,” said Miss Cuante as she reached for a towel. “You and Melanie will be the hits of the show.”
“Melanie’s so good,” sighed Laurie as she accepted the towel and pulled it around her shoulders. “I wish I could do those leaps she does.”
“You may, in time. Remember, she is two years older and seven inches taller than you are—it gives her an advantage.” She looked at the wall clock over the rear backstage door. “Your father will be waiting.”
Laurie nodded. “He’s taking me to his new restaurant tonight,” she said, proud of the news.
“Ah, yes, his new restaurant. How many does he have, now?” She had picked up her tape recorder and was putting it into her worn canvas tote that was already filled with dance togs, tapes, notebooks and a heavy sweater. “Don’t get cold,” she added, reaching out to steady herself as she stood up.
“You all right, Miss Cuante?” asked Laurie, surprised at how pale her teacher had suddenly become.
“Just . . . tired, I guess. A dizzy spell.” She laughed nervously and made a quick, dismissing gesture, something out of Giselle or perhaps Firebird, both of which she had danced more than twenty years ago.
Laurie said nothing but she watched her teacher with her enormous blue eyes wide, making her delicate face more fey than it already was. She found her own tote and took a lightweight jacket out of it. “Dad’s going to be at the corner, I guess.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Miss Cuante with extra briskness to show that her unsteadiness was well and truly over. “I don’t think you should wait by yourself, if you have to wait.”
“Thanks,” said Laurie, who more than once had attracted unwanted attention; since she had started to grow breasts the problem had got worse.
Miss Cuante took time to put the single-bulb nightlight at center stage, then switched off all the others before joining Laurie at the rear door. As she fumbled in her tote for the keys, she said, “I want you here for warm-up at eleven, can you do that?”
“I’m supposed to go to the hospital with Mom first. It’s my sister. She’s . . . ”
“Not any better, your mother mentioned,” said Miss Cuante as gently as she could. Student and teacher walked together down the deserted hallway toward the glass doors.
“They don’t know what’s wrong with her. She just gets sicker and weaker and weaker and sicker.” Laurie’s elfin face was suddenly sad. “I hate to see her like this. It’s terrible. She’s always been nice to me, even when I was real little.”
Miss Cuante pressed the crash bar to open the door for them. Outside, the sky was overcast and there was enough wind off the Pacific to make the cardigan and jacket they wore necessary. The teacher shaded her eyes. “Is that your father’s BMW?”
“Yeah, the grey one,” said Laurie. “All our cars are grey. You know.” She shrugged elegantly. “The license plates are just as bad. Dad wants everyone to know what he does. He says that it’s advertising, but it’s also ego.”
“Your father has a lot to be proud of, Laurie. You can’t blame him for showing off.” Miss Cuante thought of her own twelve-year-old Accord parked on the other side of the auditorium and could not entirely conceal her sigh. “It’s a fine car.”
“I guess.” Laurie was slightly embarrassed and was doing her thirteen-year-old best to hide it. “Well, thanks. I’ll see you in the morning. I’ll do the stretching exercises tonight, the way you told me to, and I’ll make sure I’m on time.” She started away, lifting her hand to wave.
“Tell your sister I hope she feels better,” said Miss Cuante, wishing the same thing for herself. As she walked toward the small lot where her car waited, she did her best to be sensible, recalling that she was approaching menopause and it was time to get a proper checkup. Her divorce two years ago had left some strange scars that still gave her emotional jolts at unexpected times—this dizziness was probably more of the same but there was no reason not to take precautions. As she unlocked her car door, she resolved to make an appointment for a checkup as soon as the recital was behind her.
Jonathon Grey beamed at Laurie as she got into the car and said, “Well, how’d it go, sugar?” In the last three years he had started to put on weight and although far from fat, he was becoming portly.
“Pretty well,” Laurie allowed. “I think I’m ready. I miss having the mirrors like we do in the studio—on stage I can’t see if I do anything wrong.” She adjusted her tote between her feet. “How’s Marilee?”
“We’ll find out when we get to the hospital.” He cleared his throat, a nervous habit which all his family recognized as a signal that he was not comfortable with what he had to say. “They’re asking us all to come in for tests, the whole family.”
“What?” Laurie was shocked. “Why?”
“Michaelson won’t say right out, but I gather he’s worried that this might be some kind of toxic waste reaction. He’s been checking with other hospitals—you know that search service they have out of Atlanta?—to see if there are other cases like Marilee’s out there.” He waved to the front of Jonathon’s Table which was still his favorite of his six restaurants, though his new one, Moonraker, was apt to displace it if it lived up to its promise.
“You mean they still don’t know what the matter is?” Laurie demanded, shocked. “How can they not know what’s wrong after all this time?”
“They can’t because . . . ” He faltered. “Maybe it’s something new. You know, like all the problems they’ve had in treating AIDS.”
“That’s a special case,” said Laurie. “Everyone knows that.”
“Not everyone,” said her father. “Otherwise it wouldn’t still be around, even with the vaccine.” He signaled for a left turn. “Your mother’s waiting for us in Chula Vista.”
“Oh?” She said it carefully, wary in how she spoke of her mother since her parents’ reconciliation eight months ago. Everyone had held their breaths waiting to find out if Catherine and Jonathon would be able to make a go of it after all the threats her first husband had made. With Gary back in jail and the family no longer under siege, Laurie hoped that the worst was over and that they were all a family once more.
“Don’t worry, sugar, everything’s fine. We’ve straightened it out. You don’t have to—” He interrupted himself to honk at a flashy pickup that cut in front of his car, swearing as the pickup driver responded with a wave of his raised middle finger. “Didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay, Daddy,” she said, reverting to her old pattern with him.
“It’s been a rough couple years, I know it has. When Catherine’s first husband got out of jail—” He stopped, not finding a way to go on without distressing Laurie and himself.
“I know,” said Laurie. “Everyone was scared.” She did not like to admit that she was as frightened as anyone. “And now Marilee’s sick.”
“They’re working on making her well. And we’ll do everything we can to help Michaelson, won’t we?” He nodded toward the road ahead. “Your mother already promised to stay with Marilee at the hospital if that would make things better. Jared and Shelley and you and I can manage on our own if Catherine spends a few days at the hospital.” He cleared his throat. “According to Michaelson, there might be a pattern in this disease’. If more cases come in, then they’ll have a better idea what they’re up against.”
“I see,” said Laurie in a soft voice.
“And you know how important it is to stop something like this early.” He said it, repeating what Ben Michaelson had told him. “I wish I knew what was wrong.”
“So do I, Dad,” Laurie sighed, adding as she stared, unseeing, out the windows, “Do you know what kind of tests we’ll have? Did they tell you?”
“No, not yet. Probably blood stuff. You know what that’s like.” When he had asked the same thing of the doctors, the answers had been vague and ill-defined, as if the physicians themselves did not know what they were looking for.
“How long will it take; did they say?”
“No. Not too long, though.” He was determined to be confident, and he said the last with emphasis. “Whatever’s wrong with Marilee is serious enough that they’re taking precautions, that’s all.”
“Oh.” She reached down and fiddled with the handles of her tote. “Is Marilee still in isolation?”
“Yes. Just in case she has something catching. That’s one of the reasons for them to test us.” He reached over and put his hand on her hair. “Don’t borrow trouble, hon. There’s no reason to assume they’re being anything but careful.”
“What if we have something catching? Will we all have to be isolated?” She was thinking of her dancing and her plans for the next year. If she had to be isolated because of something her half-sister had, she would lose precious, irreplaceable time. Guilt grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, shaming her for putting her ambitions ahead of Marilee’s health, but the thought lingered and would not be denied.
“What’s wrong, sugar?” asked her father when Laurie had been frowning in silence for the better part of a mile.
“Nothing, really. Worries.”
“We all have ’em,” Jonathon said quietly. “It’s part of living.”
“Yeah.” She stared ahead, trying to find a way to make her own conflicting emotions more palatable. She never thought of herself as heartless, but perhaps she was, if she could be more apprehensive about a few lost months than that Marilee might have a fatal disease. She did her best to make her mind a blank and to concentrate on nothing but the people on the sidewalk. After a short while, she said, “There’s Mom.”
Jonathon signaled and pulled toward the curb. “You’ve got sharp eyes, Laurie,” he said as he braked to a stop.
“Hi,” said Catherine, opening the back door and pressing Laurie on the shoulder. “Don’t mind me riding back here. I want to stretch out and it’s easier in the back. You stay where you are, Laurie.” As she pulled the door shut, she said, “I can’t tell you how much trouble Dave is giving me about this second agency. He’s convinced that we need three more people for the office, minimum, and there’s no way we can afford them.”
“Why all those people?” asked Jonathon, leaning back to exchange a twisted kiss with his wife.
“Because Dave can’t stand the thought of having a small second office, that’s why. He doesn’t want to admit that all we need is three people and the computer and everything’s fixed.” She kicked off her shoes and lifted her legs onto the seat. “I don’t know how to convince him.”
“Far Venture Travel isn’t exactly the biggest agency in the world,” said Jonathon. “You don’t need a huge staff, do you?”
“I don’t think so,” said Catherine. “Dave’s trouble is he wants to be the boss, which means he wants someone to boss around, preferably a lot of someones. He hasn’t said so yet, but I think he imagines himself as a travel mogul, booking two hundred tours a year for groups of seventy and eighty. Ever since we handled that cruise for that Del Mar company, Dave’s got his eye on big package deals. He forgets that the bookings I handle— which he thinks are a waste of time—bring in more than sixty-five percent of our profit. Handling a European vacation for a family of three doesn’t appeal to him.” She put her hand to her well-cut greying hair. “Never mind that. I’m blowing off steam. I probably should have yelled at Dave, but that never gets me anywhere. How’s Marilee? Have you talked to Ben yet today?”
“He still wants us to take those tests.” Jonathon glanced at Laurie as if to reassure himself that it was correct to discuss this in front of his daughter.
“Well, if he thinks it’s necessary, it probably is. We want Marilee to—”
“Get over the thing,” Jonathon finished for her. He reached out and gave Laurie a pat on her ann. “One casualty in the family is enough, isn’t it?”
“Um-hum,” said Laurie, starting to feel scared again.
—Harold Porter—
Finally the snow got so bad that Frank Porter pulled his camper off the road in the town of Mullan, a few miles over the Idaho border. He wrestled himself into his heavy shearling coat and then turned to his son. “You keep an eye out for company. I’m going to walk to that service station and find out if there’s a motel open this time of night.”
“Sure,” said Harold, his voice cracking. “I’ll do it.”
“Good for you, son,” Frank declared, taking the time to cuff the boy lightly on the jaw. “You’re a good kid.” Then he was gone into the blur of flakes swarming out of the night sky.
Harold pulled his knees up and sat huddled against the seat, trying to decide what was the best thing for him to do. His father rarely left him alone, and if he knew more about where they were, he might take a chance to find a phone and try to reach his mother. In the four years since his father had abducted him from his mother’s home in Golden, Colorado, he had been able to call her nine times, so she would know he was still all right. Twice he had tried to get away and return to his mother, but both times his father had found him and beaten him so badly that now he was afraid to make the attempt again. He felt in his pocket for coins, in case he found a phone, and realized he had less than two dollars to his name: he would have to call collect. Little as he admitted it, he missed his mother, and the life they had had before his father returned. Alexa had found them a place on the outskirts of Golden where she raised ponies, specializing in a handsome Welsh Cob/Caspian cross which was starting to earn her a reputation and a growing income. Harold had liked tending to the ponies and being with his mother Alexa, who lavished affection on him as if to make up for the years they had followed Frank on the rodeo circuit. Now Harold was once again on that circuit, and Frank, aging unpredictably, had become increasingly suspicious and demanding of his son.
“You drifting?” Frank asked as he yanked open the door and pointed an accusing finger at his boy.
“A little. It’s cold.”
Frank grunted. “There’s a motel about a mile up the road. They’ve got a room for us, and we can get sandwiches there.” He wedged himself behind the wheel and twisted the key in the ignition. “Old fart better start,” he muttered.
The engine turned over with a protesting roar, and Harold blinked to conceal his relief. “We going to stay here a day or two?”
“Have to, if the snow doesn’t stop. Told me at the service station that most places around here are already snowed in. Shit, if I can’t get going, I’ll lose that job in Twin Falls. I said I’d be there next Tuesday.” He tromped on the. accelerator and the camper lurched onto the road, fish-tailing on the icy surface.
“Dad!” Harold said faintly, trying not to rouse his father’s anger. Nothing made Frank Porter more upset than the fear that someone was criticizing his driving. Harold clung to the seatbelt and ground his teeth to keep from yelling.
“I can handle it,” Frank growled as he fought with the wheel. “I can handle a lot worse’n this.” He continued his battle for most of a minute until the camper steadied and began real progress down the road toward the motel.
“Hey, Dad, how long are you going to stay in Twin Falls?” It was a forlorn question; Frank had never remained in anyone place as long as he intended to; someone would insult him, or he would get into a fight, or there would be accusations and Frank would take his boy and they would once again be on the road.
“Through May, in any case. I told Bowan that I’d help out with getting his horses in off the range and broke, if he’ll guarantee my wages and a place to live for us both. He said there’s two house trailers on his place and we can have our pick of ’em. Things are going our way, kid, if we can get there.” This last was a dark reminder of Frank’s belief that he had been the chosen target of a capricious and vengeful fate.
“We’ll get there. You can phone from the motel, can’t you, so he’ll know where you are?” He made this suggestion carefully, so that it would not appear that he was in any way prodding his father to do anything. Frank hated any kind of manipulation unless he was doing it.
“I might,” he allowed when he had thought about it. “Ah. There’s the motel. Hang on, Harold.” He swung the camper abruptly and it slithered across the road, sliding into the parking lot of the Riverbend Motel. “Wait here while I get us checked in. I’ll be quick about it.”
“Great.” He watched his father stamp into the light over the office and pound on the door. For an instant he thought he might open the door and slip away, making his way toward the highway where he could hitch a ride back to Golden and his mother. But he had sense enough to know that the chances were he would freeze or his father would find him and take out after him with his fists again. Harold shuddered, and told himself that it was from cold.
“Okay,” said Frank as soon as he came back. “We got Unit Number Eleven. Here’s the key. I want you to get the duffles out and bring them in. We can get the rest in the morning. I’ll be back in a little while. Don’t let nobody in while I’m gone, you understand?”
“Yes, Dad,” said Harold, knowing that his father would be going in search of drink, since he had run out of the cheap alcoholic liquid that called itself scotch earlier in the day. “Anything you say.”
“You’re a good boy, Harold,” said Frank as he closed the door.
As soon as he had finished carrying the duffles into the motel room, Harold went back to the office and asked the manager if there was a pay phone around. “I . . . got some people to call, with the roads being closed.”
“Sure, kid,” said the manager. “There’s one down the hall. Takes quarters only.” He turned and started back to his sitting room behind the reception desk and then said, “You want a sandwich? Your father said you hadn’t had supper yet.”
“That would be nice,” Harold said uncertainly. “But I don’t have any money—he does.”
“I’ll put it on the bill,” offered the manager, and once again pointed down the hall. “Go ahead and make your calls. I’ll have a couple sandwiches ready when you’re through.”
“Thanks,” said Harold, perplexed by the kindness the manager was showing him. He quickly put that out of his mind as he went to the phone and punched in the familiar number and the code to make it collect. He felt a twinge of guilt at making his mother pay to hear from him, but it passed as he listened to the beeps and clicks.
“Who shall I say is calling?” asked the electronic voice of the computerized operator.
“Harold. Harold Porter.” He felt his throat go dry as he waited, listening to the rings and counting them.
Alexa picked up her receiver on the ninth ring. “Hello?” At the sound of his mother’s voice, Harold had to swallow hard to keep from crying. Sternly he admonished himself to be more grown-up, but as Alexa took the call, he felt tears well in his eyes.
“Harold?” she pleaded. “Is that you? Really?”
“Hi, Mom,” he said inanely. “Yeah. How are you?”
“I’m doing fine. What about you? Where are you? Are you all right? Oh, God, I’ve been so worried about you.”
He knew that she was at the edge of her control and he tried to reassure her. “I’m doing okay. I miss you.”
“Oh, baby, I miss you so much.”
She was crying now; he could hear the sound of it in her words and her silences. “I miss you, too.”
“Where are you?” she made herself ask.
“Somewhere in Idaho. It’s snowing. We were in Montana last week, and then something happened and . . . ” He choked.
“You don’t have to tell me; I know.” In her tears there was anger now. “He hasn’t hurt you again, has he?”
“No, Mom, not really,” he answered evasively. “Look, he said something about going to a Bowan place near Twin Falls. I don’t know if there’s anything you can do, but that’s what he said, and maybe . . .”
“I’ll try. I’ll call the State Police again and see if they’re willing to do anything. If he hadn’t taken you out of Colorado, it would be a lot easier. It always takes time when there’s another state involved.” Determination drove the sound of weeping from her speech. “I’m going to bring you home, Harold. You’ll see.”
“I hope so, Mom.” He tried to laugh and failed. “I keep hoping that . . . it’s almost Christmas, you know? I wish I was spending it with you.”
“Me, too,” Alexa said so softly that Harold barely heard her.
“Anyway, Mom, I got to go. I don’t want to run up your bill and I don’t want to . . .” He did not have to finish; they both knew what Frank would do if he even suspected that his son had called Alexa.
“You take care, Harold. I love you. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mom.” Before he said anything more, he hung up.
There were sandwiches waiting, and the manager turned off his television so he could talk with Harold while the boy ate the two chicken sandwiches that the manager had made.
“This is real kindly of you,” Harold said indistinctly through a full mouth.
“You looked half starved and miserable as a drowned puppy,” said the manager, giving him a second glass of milk.
“Not real common, your hospitality,” said Harold, this time with several questions implied in his tone of voice.
The man shook his head. “I’m waiting for my two kids to get back from rehearsal for their high school Christmas program. I can worry on my own, or I can worry with company. Thing is, I hope that if my kids ever showed up looking the way you did that someone would give them. a sandwich or two.” He indicated the television. “There’s cable in the room sets, but no pay stations. I can get you a listing of what’s on, if you want it.”
“Thanks,” said Harold, relaxing a bit.
“Think nothing of it. My name’s Tucker, by the way. Norton Tucker,” He held out his hand.
Harold took it. “I’m Harold Porter,” he said feeling very grown-up for a change.
“Stick around, if you like, and meet my kids. They’re a little older than you are, but you don’t mind that, do you?” Tucker got up and took the nearly empty plate from Harold.
“I better get to the room. My Dad’ll be back soon, and he wants me in the room.” Saying the words made him uneasy.
“Whatever’s right,” said Tucker. “The kids’ll be around tomorrow, if you change your mind. Maybe if I say something to your Dad, he might—”
Harold interrupted him. “No. Please. Don’t say anything. He . . . he doesn’t like me talking to strangers.”
Tucker nodded. “All right.” He watched as Harold started toward the door. “You let me know if you need anything.”
“Sure. Thanks.” He started toward the door, then turned back. “Don’t say anything about the phone call, will you? Dad doesn’t like me making calls.”
If Tucker thought there was anything out of the ordinary in this request he did not reveal it. “You got it,” he said with a wave that was almost a salute.
Harold made his way back to Unit 11, and took up his vigil.
—Mason Ross—
“We’re so sorry about Kevin,” said Joan Ellingham. “I wish there were something I could say—”
Susan nodded and tried not to cry again. “Thank you,” she murmured as she reached out to take Harper’s arm.
“Both of you,” their neighbor Barry McPhee said as he held out his hands to them. “Caroline and I are going to miss him so much.”
Harper said a few words as he tightened his hold around Susan’s shoulder. He glanced at his other two children, so quiet in their dark mourning clothes, both of them grieving and awkward at their brother’s funeral.
“Don’t worry about the rest of the . . . the holidays,” Harper’s department head told him as he took his hand. “I’ll put the grad students on your papers, so that you won’t have to bother with them. I’m really . . . you know.”
“Thanks, Phil,” said Harper.
“You, too, Susan,” Phillip Sanders said to her. “It’s a real shock, and what a time for it to happen.”
Susan had to stop herself from getting angry with Phil, to keep from screaming at him that there was no time that was good for a teenager to die. That it was Christmas made it no worse than it would have been at any other time of year. She nodded, not trusting herself to do anything more.
“I’ll call you later, Phil,” said Harper.
The line seemed endless, and by the time everyone who attended the memorial service had left the chapel, Susan was afraid she would not be able to walk as far as the car. She reached out for her two remaining sons, touching them blindly and with ill-concealed desperation. “We’re going home.”
“Okay, Mom,” said Mason, reaching out to take her hand. Despite his youth, he was curiously mature and responsible, as if he had been born thirty years old and was growing ancient before he reached high school.
“You did a fine job, Susan,” said Harper, his face closed and remote, as if he were lost in study rather than grieving for the loss of his child.
“How does anyone do a fine job with something like this?” she asked, but there was no heat in the words, only listlessness.
“We do the best we can,” Harper said, starting down the steps of the chapel.
Seattle was swathed in cold; snow had fallen the day before and now there was a frigid mist that hung over the harbor and lakes and hid most of the city. The chapel, which was only two blocks from the University of Washington campus, seemed suspended in clouds; the massive buildings of the university, most of them perched on the hill, were all but invisible.
“I wish the doctors could tell us more,” said Grant, who at sixteen was clearly the best-looking of the Ross boys. He had spent most of the fall in California, at a ranch near Santa Rosa in a program for drug abuse. His uncle, Susan’s brother, had served as his guardian. Only Kevin’s death had brought him back to Seattle.
“I wish they could, too, son,” said Harper as he led them toward their Trooper III. “Hurry up; it’s too cold to stay outside long.”
“But what was it?” Grant asked, still bewildered and beginning to be angry. “Why don’t they know yet?”
“Sometimes they . . . don’t have enough to go on,” said Harper in a distant way as he fumbled for his keys in his coat pocket. His heavy gloves made his fingers awkward.
“Isn’t what they do like solving crimes?” Mason asked. “I mean, they’re similar, aren’t they?” It was a deliberate ploy; Harper Ross was a professor of criminology. As he got into the back seat, Mason added another thought to his inquiry. “Couldn’t you help them out, Dad? You’ve got the experience to help them.”
“They think it had something to do with toxic wastes,” Susan said, so tired that she might as well have been up for three days without sleep.
“And you, Dad?” Mason prompted.
“It’s possible,” said Harper as he waited for the engine to warm up before putting the four-wheel-drive Trooper III in gear. “It fits with what we do know about it.”
“It could be . . . anything,” said Susan. “He died. That’s the one thing we’re all sure of.” She put her hand to her eyes so that she would not have to explain her tears.
“But if it’s something we can learn about,” Mason began, and saw that Grant was staring at him in unconcealed anger.
“It won’t change anything,” Grant said.
“It might mean that someone else won’t die,” Mason responded, meeting his brother’s hostile stare. “That wouldn’t bring Kevin back, but it could make a difference.”
“Mason, for God’s sake,” said his mother.
“He’s right,” Harper agreed unexpectedly.
“Not you, too.” Susan smeared her tears over her face, her mascara leaving wide, dark tracks.
“I don’t think I could sit by and watch this happen to another family,” said Harper as he concentrated on holding the car on the road. “It would be too much, if there was something I could do to prevent it.”
“There’s nothing anyone could have done,” said Susan. “If there were, they would have. They ran out of ideas, you heard them say so.”
“Susan,” Harper warned sympathetically. “Think. Letting others die won’t change Kevin’s death, it will only make it worse; it would put other families through the same thing we’re going through. Do you want that, Susan? Wouldn’t you do something about it if you could?”
“Are you trying to convince yourself?” Susan asked softly. “Or do you want to make a gesture?”
“It’s not a gesture, it’s . . . the only contribution I can think of to give.” Harper dared not take his eyes off the road to look at her, but the impulse was there in the angle of his head and the way he held the steering wheel.
“Yeah,” said Mason, leaning forward in his seat. “I’d help, if I could. I don’t know what I could do, but if there was anything . . . I owe it to Kevin, in a way:” He fingered his dark tie. “If there are more cases of this stuff . . .”
“Shut up,” Grant told him sharply. “Just shut up.”
They drove in silence, each one alone in pain.
“I told Phil we wouldn’t be there New Year’s,” Harper said to Susan as they neared the freeway entrance.
“He didn’t think we would be, did he?” she asked, sufficiently shocked to respond with less lethargy than she had shown so far that day.
“No, but I wanted him to know. He means well, and it saves making a phone call later.” He signaled to change lanes, maneuvering around a stalled van.
“All right.” She put her hand to her eyes once more.
On the freeway the traffic moved at less than twenty miles an hour, progress toward the Bellevue exit slowed by the mist and the cold. The Rosses were quiet as the Trooper III moved along; only when they had reached the Medina exit did Susan speak again, her voice still thick with tears. “If you decide to do anything, to get involved —if there’s anything to get involved with—then you do it on your own conscience. I’ve had all I can take. You do it on your own time, Harper.”
He nodded slowly as he moved into the right-hand lane. “All right. If you want it that way, I’ll do as you ask.”
“Dad’s being noble again,” Grant said. “Always looking for something to help out.”
“Stop it!” Mason yelled.
“Not another word, young man!” Susan, commanded, turning in her seat to glare at Grant. “You get that chip off your shoulder and the smirk off your face and then maybe you can question what your father does where I can hear you, but not before.” She was crying, but no longer in the helpless. depressed way she had since Kevin died. “I don’t want to hear anything more out of either of you, is that understood?”
“Yes, Morn,” said Mason, neither sullen nor chastened.
“Shit.”
“And none of that,” Harper warned as they neared the Bellevue turn-off. “It’s bad enough that we lost Kevin; I won’t stand by and watch the family self-destruct.” Since Harper was generally a soft-spoken man whose quiet, professorial manner gave away his occupation before he mentioned it, any outburst was regarded as important and significant, a thing to be respected. “Is that clear?”
“Yes, Dad,” said Mason in the same accepting tone he had used with his mother.
This time Grant remained silent, though his face was flushed and his eyes sizzled.
They had almost reached Lake Washington when traffic came to a complete stop.
“What do you suppose it is?” Susan asked.
“Probably an accident, the weather the way it is.” Harper sighed and studied the dials. “I wish I knew these methane engines better than I do. In the old Buick I would have known in a second, the way it sounded, if I ought to turn it off or not. But this thing . . .”
“You were the one who wanted to get it,” Susan reminded him.
“I’m glad we did,” he insisted, keeping his voice level and steady. “It was the only sensible thing to do; you agreed. Waiting in line for gas is—”
“Senseless,” she finished for him. “I know, and wasteful and profligate. Methane engines are the wave of the future. As long as matter decays we have no lack of methane. Et cetera, et cetera,” she recited, sounding like one of the more righteous of the advertisements for the new methane engines.
“It’s true. I’m simply not used to it yet,” Harper said in his most reasonable tone. “In weather like this . . .”
“It’s okay, Dad. There’s that special light on the thermometer, remember?” He pointed to the various dials, relieved to have something to talk about that was not connected with Kevin’s death.
“Which one?” Harper asked, appearing more confused than he was.
“There. If it turns yellow, then you have to . . . you have to engage the supplemental coolant. I think that’s how it goes. And if it turns red, then pull off the road and idle for two minutes, engage the supplemental coolant and then turn the engine off.” He said the last with pride, amazed at himself for remembering what the mechanic had told them when they bought the car the year before.
“No yellow, no red.” Harper leaned back in the driver’s seat and adjusted the angle of the lower back. “So long as we’re going to sit for a while, we might as well—”
He was interrupted by whooping sirens as two ambulances and a highway-rescue firetruck sped by on the shoulder of the road.
“Fuck a duck!” marveled Grant, watching the emergency vehicles fade into the mists.
“Oh, stop it,” Susan said, more irritated than angry now.
“Must be pretty bad to bring all that sh . . . stuff out,” said Grant. “Wonder where the cops are?”
“They’re probably the ones who radioed for the ambulances and the firetruck,” said Harper, lapsing into the same manner he adopted when lecturing in class. “It’s the most sensible explanation, in any case.”
“Someone with a CB might have done it,” suggested Mason.
“Yes, that’s true, but then the cops would have come along with the others.” He had both a CB and police monitor in his car, and for a moment toyed with the idea of turning them on and listening in. Then he realized that more disasters could be more than anyone of them was prepared to handle that day. He studied the instrument panel and let himself get lost in the information they offered.
“How long do you think we’ll have to sit here?” Susan asked when almost five minutes had gone by.
“I don’t know.”
“You could turn on the radios and find out what’s happened,” she said sharply.
“I don’t want to heat up the engine or put too much strain on the battery. We could be here quite a while and if we are, we’ll have to use the supplemental interior heater; that thing eats up battery power like a hog eating hops.” Harper hoped that his excuses were sufficient for Susan; he had no intention of turning on the radios.
She sighed. “All right. Why not? We might as well be stranded here as anywhere.”
In the back, Grant started to fiddle with the zipper on his jacket, his face blank, his eyes drifting into the hypnotic stare that had been part of him for the last four years. He began to hum, first very softly and aimlessly, then slowly getting louder, until he was forcefully grunting out the same four notes in endless repetition.
“I wish you’d stop,” said Mason, not expecting to get a response.
“Leave him alone, Mason,” said Harper. “It’s been a hard day for all of us.” He paused. “I wish I could call Linda. I don’t want her to think that we’re not coming.”
“Use the CB,” said Susan, unconcerned.
“She probably knows about the accident. Restaurant people usually do,” said Mason, doing his best to be neutral.
“If this lasts too much longer, I will call,” said Harper, staring out into the mist. “It’s terrible.”
“They say it isn’t going to clear up for a couple more days. Then we’ll have rain,” said Mason, repeating what they had all heard on the news that morning.
“I guess the McPhees are stuck in this, too,” Harper said, in order to say something.
“They were going to the Ellinghams for a drink,” Susan corrected him. “But who knows? it might go on long enough for them to sit here the way we’re doing.”
“They’ll have it on the news. The cops will keep the traffic diverted,” said Harper with more faith than certainty.
The air in the car was getting cooler, but no one wanted to mention it yet. Only Grant, locked away in his relentless mind, accommodated it to the extent that he stopped unzipping his jacket and instead ran his thumbnail down the interlocking bits of metal.
One of the ambulances hurried back the way it had come, all lights on and the siren on screech. A few of the other cars honked their horns at it, whether in derision or support was a matter of conjecture.
“When we get home, I’m going to call Jarvis and tell him I’d like to help if they’ll let me, if there’s anything I can do.” Harper’s voice was distant, the words coming slowly. “I don’t want to worry you or upset you, Susan, but I have to do it.”
“You do what you have to do,” said Susan in a constricted tone of voice. “I don’t want to know about it.”
Harper sighed, and let himself be distracted by the sudden return of the second ambulance, this time with a police escort. “I can’t believe that Christmas was day before yesterday.”
“Some Christmases aren’t real Christmasy,” said Mason, hoping he would not cry. He had wept for a week before Kevin died, so wasted and pale, with machines and tubes turning him into something as alien as a being from another planet. He had wept the night it had finally ended. Now he did not want to cry anymore.
“Next year we’ll do something better,” said Harper, pain and determination in his words. “Let’s go to Hawaii, or to Florida, somewhere it’s warm and Christmas looks like a midsummer fair.”
“That’s next year,” said Susan, but with less criticism than before.
“We’ll do something that won’t remind us. That will be a start. Lots of people have holidays that have bad things associated with them,” Harper said with deliberate simplicity. “That doesn’t mean that the holidays were bad, or have to stay bad, but that something bad happened on one.” He hesitated. “Remember that Phil’s brother was killed in that plane crash the day before Thanksgiving five years ago. Phil still has Thanksgiving and . . .”
When no one said anything more, Susan regarded Grant with curiosity and worry. “Can you leave the zipper alone?” she asked, though she got no response and expected none.