Sammy shakes his head. "No."
Out of the corner of her eye, stuck on the branch of a bush, Elaine sees the red condom-like a red flag, hung out to dry.
"My balloon," Sammy says, making a dive for it, pulling it off the bush. The condom stretches and snaps, splitting at the rim, flying off the branch.
"No," Elaine says, grabbing it from him.
"It's my balloon. It's mine, I found it."
"Where did you find it?" Elaine asks, trying to find out who stuck it on the bush.
"Down there," he says, pointing to the street.
"It's a dirty balloon," Elaine says, stuffing it deep into her pocket. "Come inside and we'll find you something else to play with."
Sammy pouts. Elaine opens the front door and leads him in-she is thinking about the cop and the broken lock, wondering if it's something she can fix herself.
Elaine shows Sammy what the workmen have done. She shows him the plastic wall. "See how it's sealed off? That's to keep the dust out. And if you walk around out back, you can see-we're going to have pretty French doors and a deck. Won't that be nice?" She speaks in a chirpy voice that's entirely unfamiliar.
Sammy nods solemnly.
In the kitchen, Elaine pours glasses of lemonade; she drinks hers quickly and refills it, adding a splash of vodka when Sammy's head is turned.
"Everything all right?" she asks. "Are you breathing?"
Sammy doesn't answer, he just stands there.
Elaine digs out the fix-it book and her tools. She sits on the floor in front of the open front door, fiddling with the lock. Sammy stands next to her. She studies the diagram. "How was soccer?" she asks, trying to make conversation.
Sammy shrugs.
"Did you score?"
Again he shrugs.
"Did your team win?"
"Not because of me," he says.
Elaine examines the lock-the strike plate and the bolt are not hitting in the right place, and the cylinder seems misaligned. She unscrews the mounting plate and returns the cylinder to its original position. It works. The door opens and closes and locks. She's pleased with herself. "Now no one can come in unless we invite them," Elaine tells Sammy as she closes the door.
"Open it," Sammy cries.
"Why?"
"Open it," he says, panicked.
She opens the door. "Let's go find Daddy," she says, changing the subject.
"Don't close the door," Sammy says.
"Okay, but when it gets dark out, we have to close it, all right?"
Sammy nods.
Paul. He hears them coming. He gets up off Daniel's bed and meets them in the upstairs hall. "The wrecking ball is gone," he says.
"It was a rental," she says.
"The backyard is dirt," he says.
"They're digging for the deck." Elaine takes a deep breath; the house still has the non-scent of the cleaning company.
Sammy's toe taps the baseboard in a repetitious rhythm, banging out coded communication.
"Where have you been?" Elaine asks.
"In Daniel's room," Paul says.
"Doing what?"
"Thinking."
He leans against the wall. Paul doesn't tell Elaine that he took a look at the molding around Daniel's door and that she did a really good job putting it back together-he doesn't tell Elaine that he's impressed with her craftsmanship.
"The walls look lighter," he says, referring to the layers of grime peeled away by the deep cleaning.
Elaine nods.
Paul and Elaine are in a peculiar place where they really can't do much for each other; they are going forward, lost in them- selves-each awkward in a different way, each with reasons.
Paul looks up at the ceiling. He doesn't tell Elaine that he's been in Daniel's room crying; he doesn't tell Elaine that he wishes it were his room, that he wishes he were twelve again and could have another crack at everything. Paul doesn't tell Elaine that he's worried about work-he doesn't even understand what work is anymore-he's worried about money, he's screwing Mrs. Apple and doesn't have a clue what it's all about, and that there's this thing with the date that scared the hell out of him. He doesn't tell Elaine that he can't believe that last night they knocked down the door and raided their son's room, and he can't understand how Daniel turned into someone he can't talk to and how Sammy is so sweet and so adorable and Paul is horrified because he can't even take care of him. And Paul knows Elaine is suffering, and he doesn't know what to do for her. Paul doesn't tell Elaine that he doesn't feel like an adult, that he has no idea what it means to be a man, that in fact he's a total jerk. Paul doesn't tell Elaine that he doesn't know what to do-so he sat in Daniel's room crying and then he pulled out the fat-girl porno magazines and jerked off.
"Did you have an okay day?" Elaine asks. "Was the game good?"
Paul bows his head, he glances at Sammy. Paul doesn't tell
Elaine that when he got to the soccer field, the game was already going and that he didn't recognize Sammy right away-Mrs. A. had to point him out, and Paul joked that it was because Sammy was wearing different-color socks than usual. Paul doesn't tell Elaine that he stood next to Mrs. A. with a hard-on during the whole game and that they whispered tempting and tortuous things back and forth, verbally screwing each other for an hour and a half until the woman next to them walked away snorting in disgust and they realized that maybe they weren't whispering. Paul doesn't tell Elaine how uncoordinated Sammy was, how he missed the easiest shot, how all his teammates jumped on him-literally-and how Sammy had an asthma attack and no one could find the puffer. And so Sammy sat on the sidelines wheezing for the last quarter and then Paul drove him around in the car with the air-conditioning on for another hour, waiting for things to settle, afraid to bring him home like that. Paul doesn't tell Elaine that he took Sammy with him to McKendrick's house to drop off some tapes he picked up for him at the sleaze store near the office, and when the old guy opened the door he'd said, "They're watching me. Be careful."
"Who's watching you?" Paul had asked, thinking the old guy was losing it.
"Feds."
"Why would the feds be watching you?"
"Because I'm special," McKendrick hissed. "Come in, come in," the old guy said.
Paul handed him the tapes. "Just a little something I picked up for you."
"Goodie," the old guy said, then he goosed Sammy's ass. And while Sammy didn't seem to mind, it drove Paul crazy. Don't touch my kid, he wanted to say, don't lay your filthy hands on him. "Time to go," Paul said, tugging Sammy's sleeve, pulling him out of the room.
"They're across the street," McKendrick said. "Wave on your way out."
"What's he talking about?" Sammy asked as they were leaving.
"Old people get a little weird," Paul said as they walked down the flagstone path. Across the street Paul saw a plain parked car with dark windows. He had the strangest sensation that someone was taking their picture-he could almost hear the whir of the auto-wind.