Because things did not seem as if they could get any worse than they were at this moment, Thomas forced himself to think of that slow return to life that people—good-hearted people, people trying to help—prophesied for him: Everyday you’ll feel a little bit better. Some days you won’t be able to measure it, you maybe won’t even notice it, but it’ll come.
So far it hadn’t come. He knew he was doing something wrong—or, rather, that there was something he was failing to do to make himself feel better—but the idea of doing anything at all was ludicrous to him. What could be done about the way he felt? He knew next to nothing, finally, about how to will himself out of an emotion. Nor could he consider it for very long. The concept was so abstract it made his head ache. His life wasn’t about abstractions, though Pete would have loved this notion, would have embraced it, for he loved abstractions. Maybe it was the pot, or the times—the books he read, Carlos Castenada, Ram Dass, hippie philosophers whom Thomas used to criticize without having read. He nearly smiled recalling their arguments, Pete’s way of making him seem far more severe and authoritative than he wanted to be. Briefly he regretted his severity, until he remembered that he was, after all, the boy’s father, that a certain amount of dogma comes with the territory.
Around three-thirty the plate glass of the window rattled with a knock. Thomas shook himself out of a stupor. He’d paid no attention to time, had let it get away from him.
The knocking continued. Thomas rose and pulled back the curtain reluctantly, taking his time, hoping whoever it was would go away. But his son stood there, backlit by the last blaze of sun sinking behind the block of storefronts across the street. Thomas wasn’t sure it was real, this vision. He stood there staring, his eyes shielded against the sun, while Danny mock-curled his hand around an imaginary doorknob, offered his father a weak smile.
“Mom dropped me off,” said Danny when he was inside the office. “I told her I wanted to ride home with you.”
“Let’s go then,” said Thomas. “I’m ready.”
They did not speak until they were in the car, pulling out of the lot.
“Put your seat belt on,” Thomas told his son, who shook his head slightly and smiled before strapping himself into the seat. Thomas blinked back tears. He was so thankful that his son had come to him that he was scared to speak, lest he ruin the moment. Yet he knew he could not count on silence, knew also that the sanctity of the two of them riding safely home would not last.
And it didn’t. They arrived. In the driveway Thomas turned the car off and they sat there, the two of them, in the stale air of the car, listening to the motor tick. Thomas thought of things to say, but none of these things left his mouth. Danny didn’t seem to mind the silence, and after a while Thomas asked him if it was okay if they just sat there for a bit. What he meant to tell his son was this: Don’t you leave me now, and I’ll never leave you again. But he didn’t say anything at all, and Danny did not speak either, though by staying put, he answered his father’s plea the best he knew how. To Thomas this was more than enough. To Thomas it was true, this moment, and out of habit or duty, he wondered how he might report it to the rest of the world, for surely this was news.
Acknowledgments
For help with this novel the author wishes to thank Hamilton Cain, Fred Chappell, Allison Seay and Porter Shreve.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 2004 by Michael Parker
ISBN: 978-1-4532-1317-9
This 2011 edition distributed by Open Road Integrated Media
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