social
occasion, she didn’t get started until evening, but then she got toasted fast. By seven-thirty she was gone. You might as
well talk to the television set. It had gotten to the point where she’d sleep all night sitting in her chair, oblivious, but
that had scared her badly enough that she’d cut back a little.
He stared out the window toward the tree-shaded hills, suddenly recalling the dream that had awakened him again early that
morning. There was something in the windy morning, in the sagebrush smell of the air, that suggested the dream, and he sat
forward, his heart racing, watching the tree shadows on the grassy hillside. He could almostswear that one of them hadn’t been a shadow at all, that a woman in a black dress had been walking beneath the trees along
the trail that descended from the ridge. Now there was nothing.
His heart fluttered, and unconsciously he rubbed his chest. The first moments of the dream replayed in his mind—the anticipation,
the windy moonlight, the sudden appearance of the woman—and he watched uneasily as the wind stirred the trees now, their shadows
shifting like the surface of a dark sea.
6
P ETER CLIMBED INTO THE S UBURBAN, TOSSED THE BAG with the spud guns onto the backseat, and drove out onto Chapman Avenue again. Just before Amanda and David went off to Hawaii
last week, David promised to send postcards. It was his first plane trip, complete with a ride in the airport limo, and so
he was going to send the first card from the airport. Peter had given him a little packet of stamps. No postcards had come,
from the airport or anywhere else.
It wasn’t like David to neglect to send the card. Like Amanda, he was organized and responsible to a fault, especially for
a ten-year-old. It shouldn’t have taken two days for the card to make it across town.
Regardless of what his marriage had come to, fifteen years of it had made Peter feel necessary, and the feeling was something
he couldn’t lose overnight. He had told Amanda that he would look at the front brakes on herHonda while she was gone. He couldn’t have her paying a hundred fifty bucks for a brake job, not for something that took thirty
minutes and a twelve-dollar trip to the Pep Boys.
The banners at Selman Chevrolet whipped on their lines, blowing straight out toward the ocean, and a big tumble-weed, freed
at last from whatever lot it had grown up in, rolled across the Tustin Avenue intersection, only to be knocked to pieces by
a pickup truck gunning away east, toward the foothills.
Instead of stopping at the Pep Boys for brake linings, Peter crossed the intersection and turned right on Monterey, pulling
up to the curb outside the house.
The
house now rather than his house. Each day brought new revelations. Just out of habit he was tempted to haul out the lawn
rake and clean up the windblown leaves and papers that choked the flower beds.
Through the open window of the Suburban he could hear the distant growl of a lawnmower, and he could see that the girl down
at the corner house on Maple was washing her car in the driveway. Weekend mornings in the suburb— the smell of bacon and coffee
through an open kitchen window, kids playing on the sidewalk, the hissing of lawn sprinklers. Maybe you had to get away from
it to see it all clearly again.
He climbed out of the car and walked up onto the porch. The blinds were drawn across the front windows. He knocked but he
could tell straight off that the house was empty. They were in Hawaii. They wouldn’t be home for a week. He had known that
but had knocked anyway. It wasn’t his house anymore and he couldn’t just walk in uninvited, even when he knew the house was
empty.
He headed up the driveway into the backyard, found the back door key inside a hollow plastic rock in the flower bed, then
stepped up onto the back porch to let himself in. Amanda’s cat, Tully, appeared out of nowhere and darted up onto the porch,
brushing against his leg
occasion, she didn’t get started until evening, but then she got toasted fast. By seven-thirty she was gone. You might as
well talk to the television set. It had gotten to the point where she’d sleep all night sitting in her chair, oblivious, but
that had scared her badly enough that she’d cut back a little.
He stared out the window toward the tree-shaded hills, suddenly recalling the dream that had awakened him again early that
morning. There was something in the windy morning, in the sagebrush smell of the air, that suggested the dream, and he sat
forward, his heart racing, watching the tree shadows on the grassy hillside. He could almostswear that one of them hadn’t been a shadow at all, that a woman in a black dress had been walking beneath the trees along
the trail that descended from the ridge. Now there was nothing.
His heart fluttered, and unconsciously he rubbed his chest. The first moments of the dream replayed in his mind—the anticipation,
the windy moonlight, the sudden appearance of the woman—and he watched uneasily as the wind stirred the trees now, their shadows
shifting like the surface of a dark sea.
6
P ETER CLIMBED INTO THE S UBURBAN, TOSSED THE BAG with the spud guns onto the backseat, and drove out onto Chapman Avenue again. Just before Amanda and David went off to Hawaii
last week, David promised to send postcards. It was his first plane trip, complete with a ride in the airport limo, and so
he was going to send the first card from the airport. Peter had given him a little packet of stamps. No postcards had come,
from the airport or anywhere else.
It wasn’t like David to neglect to send the card. Like Amanda, he was organized and responsible to a fault, especially for
a ten-year-old. It shouldn’t have taken two days for the card to make it across town.
Regardless of what his marriage had come to, fifteen years of it had made Peter feel necessary, and the feeling was something
he couldn’t lose overnight. He had told Amanda that he would look at the front brakes on herHonda while she was gone. He couldn’t have her paying a hundred fifty bucks for a brake job, not for something that took thirty
minutes and a twelve-dollar trip to the Pep Boys.
The banners at Selman Chevrolet whipped on their lines, blowing straight out toward the ocean, and a big tumble-weed, freed
at last from whatever lot it had grown up in, rolled across the Tustin Avenue intersection, only to be knocked to pieces by
a pickup truck gunning away east, toward the foothills.
Instead of stopping at the Pep Boys for brake linings, Peter crossed the intersection and turned right on Monterey, pulling
up to the curb outside the house.
The
house now rather than his house. Each day brought new revelations. Just out of habit he was tempted to haul out the lawn
rake and clean up the windblown leaves and papers that choked the flower beds.
Through the open window of the Suburban he could hear the distant growl of a lawnmower, and he could see that the girl down
at the corner house on Maple was washing her car in the driveway. Weekend mornings in the suburb— the smell of bacon and coffee
through an open kitchen window, kids playing on the sidewalk, the hissing of lawn sprinklers. Maybe you had to get away from
it to see it all clearly again.
He climbed out of the car and walked up onto the porch. The blinds were drawn across the front windows. He knocked but he
could tell straight off that the house was empty. They were in Hawaii. They wouldn’t be home for a week. He had known that
but had knocked anyway. It wasn’t his house anymore and he couldn’t just walk in uninvited, even when he knew the house was
empty.
He headed up the driveway into the backyard, found the back door key inside a hollow plastic rock in the flower bed, then
stepped up onto the back porch to let himself in. Amanda’s cat, Tully, appeared out of nowhere and darted up onto the porch,
brushing against his leg
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