Letter 2
Dear Miller,
I haven’t heard from you since your last letter. It’s been nearly a ______, bud, and I’m starting to worry. But we’ve moved to ______ now, and your letter probably hasn’t caught up to me yet, is all. ______ is about a ______ from ______, where we were before. I’m in the group that goes out in the ______. The guys who go out at ______ have it much worse. It’s much worse at ______. I’m not telling you this to make you worried, bud. I’m just telling you because I want you to know that I’m in the group that goes out in the ______, and I’m lucky. I’m fine.
But it’s lonely, at ______, when I’m in camp and I can hear the ______ going off, and none of us know who is ______ at whom, or who is getting ______. We won’t know until the ______. None of us want to talk about it until then, until we have to. We go to our tents, or somewhere where we can be alone. It’s like we’re sick. It’s like what the Counselor told Exley: “We’re all sick, Freddy.”
But it’s lonely there, when I’m alone in my tent. So sometimes I talk to you. I ask you how your mom is. I ask you about school, about the other kids in your class. I ask you what you’re reading now, and whether you like it, and whether it’s better than A Fan’s Notes, even though we both know the answer to that question! I don’t know if you and your mom have talked about why I’m here. There are lots of reasons. That’s true about everything you can think of. But you don’t need to know all of them. So I just tell you one of them: that I didn’t want you to think you had a dad who lounged around on the davenport all the time. I tell you that I want you to be proud of me. I tell you to tell your mother that I want her to be proud of me, too. Then I tell you I’m coming home soon and not to worry about me. That I’m fine. I’m always fine. When I’m done talking to you, Miller, I feel better. I feel good enough to leave the tent and do it all over again.
Write me when you can, OK?
I love you, bud, Your dad
Your Head Gets You in Trouble
Mother got home just a minute after I did. I didn’t even have time to change into my pajamas. I got into my bed wearing my clothes and pulled the covers up to my chin. I wanted to make sure I was tucked in before Mother came up to see me. Because it’s hard to get mad at someone who is already in bed, especially if you were going to send him there anyway.
I could hear Mother throw her keys on the kitchen counter. She rattled around in the kitchen for what seemed a long time, then clomped up the stairs and into my room. I could hear Mother standing there, breathing. I’d closed my eyes, like I was asleep, even though we both knew I wasn’t. No one falls asleep after they’ve been running in the snow and the cold. Still, I kept them closed, trying to wish myself to sleep. I could hear Mother take two steps toward me, then stop. I wondered if she’d left the Crystal right after I did, to follow me, in a hurry, or if Mr. D. had talked to her first. If Mr. D. had talked to her, then Mother would know I’d skipped school, would know I was trying to find Exley. Mother had been furious at just the idea of me reading his book; I couldn’t imagine what she’d do if she found out I’d been looking for him. At the very least, she would make sure I stopped trying to find Exley. And then Exley would never have a chance to help me and my dad. And everything would be ruined. Mother moved a little closer to the bed. She smelled like burnt food. She smelled like a restaurant. Please, I wanted to say to someone, in my head, but I didn’t know who I should be saying it to, didn’t know who would help me. It felt like someone was blowing up a balloon in my chest. Mother sat on the edge of my bed, and the balloon in my chest got bigger and bigger. I knew now how Exley must have felt when he thought he was having a heart attack in chapter 1. I wanted to have a heart attack so I wouldn’t have to be around to see what happened to me next. Then Mother brushed my hair to the side with her hand. That’s when I knew she hadn’t talked with Mr. D.
“You OK?”
“I’m OK,” I said. My eyes were still closed, but the balloon feeling in my chest was gone.
“You’re going to see the doctor tomorrow, right?”
I told her I was. Right after school.
“All right then,” Mother said. She kissed me on the forehead, then said, with her lips still touching my forehead, “You think too much.” It was like she was talking directly to my brain. Then she stood up. The bed creaked from her getting up off it. “Your head gets you into such trouble, Miller,” she said.
“I know,” I said.
“You cannot let it get you into any more trouble,” she said. This wasn’t advice. This was a demand. Mother was mad now. I wondered if she was this way in court. If she started off calm and talked herself into getting mad. “Do you understand me?”
I told her I did. Then she left the room and closed the door behind her. When she was gone, I opened my eyes. There was a plate on the table next to my bed. On it was a BLT. Mother had made it herself. I knew this because the bread was undertoasted, the bacon overcooked. I didn’t care. I ate it anyway.
AFTER I ATE my birthday sandwich, I felt sleepy. But I didn’t want to go to sleep yet. I was worried that if I tried to go to sleep, all I’d be able to think about was how my dad was in that dark, dark hospital and I hadn’t gone to see him that day. I opened my door and looked into the hall. The door to Mother’s room was closed, and the light was on. She was mumbling in there again. I closed my own door behind me. It didn’t make a sound. Neither did I as I crept downstairs, out the front door, down Thompson and Washington, all the way to the VA hospital.
I’d been wrong about the hospital. It wasn’t totally dark. Or at least it wasn’t after I walked through the door. The revolving doors were locked or frozen. They weren’t revolving. But there was a regular door next to the revolving door. It was locked, too. But there was a red doorbell next to it. I rang it, and there was a buzzing sound. I pulled on the door again, and this time it opened. I walked into the lobby, and the whole place lit up. I just stood there for a second, blinking, trying to get my eyes right. When I did, I saw that the lobby was empty. The woman wasn’t even at her desk, although her computer was on. I could hear it humming behind the desk. I wondered who’d buzzed me in, and while I was wondering this, the lights went out again. I took a step forward, thinking that might activate the lights again, but it didn’t. So I kept walking, in the dark, toward and through the swinging doors.
It wasn’t as dark in the hallway. The overhead lights were off, but there were little rectangular lights on the left side of the floor, where the floor met the wall. The lights were blue, not white or yellow. The place was absolutely quiet. It felt like I was in an aquarium. Even the floor looked wet. I thought it just looked that way because of the lights or something. But when I bent down to touch it, I found out that the floor actually was wet. It was really wet, too. It was like I’d dipped my hand in a sink full of water. I stood up and flicked some of the water off my hand, dried it on my shirt, then walked into my dad’s room.