“Dad, I’m sorry.”
He stood, shook off an instant of dizziness, and watched as Norman pushed himself out of the chair. They faced each other for several seconds, and Don waited for the hug.
“The potatoes,” Norman said with an uneasy laugh. “Your mother’ll have my hide. C’mon, give me a hand.”
Don followed him into the foyer, but veered off to the stairs instead of the kitchen. When his father turned, he said, “I need to clean up, Dad.” He wrinkled his nose. “I smell like disinfectant, you know? I’ll be down in time for supper, don’t worry I just …”
He gestured vaguely toward the second floor and Norman nodded, gave him a big smile, and went off, whistling.
They were afraid for you, he told himself as he took the stairs slowly; they really are proud of you, really they are.
In the hallway he hesitated, then turned into his room and stopped. Gasped. Held on to the jamb and felt his jaw working.
“I went up to the attic after we saw you this morning,” Joyce said behind him, her voice small.
He didn’t jump. He only nodded. And he walked slowly in with a grin on his face, giving silent greetings to his pets back on their shelves, to the panther on the wall over his headboard, and the elephants that once again flanked his door. There was a bit of dust on the bobcat, and a cobweb on hawk, but he didn’t care as long as they were back where they belonged.
“Don, I’m sorry.”
She hadn’t come into the room, waiting in the hall as if for an invitation. He turned and smiled at her, ducked his head and shrugged. She was expectant, her hands twisting around her hairbrush, waiting for his reaction, waiting for absolution.
Then he looked to the desk and the empty space above it.
“Where is it?” he asked, more sharply than he’d intended. “I had a poster up there too. Where is it, Mom?”
“What?” Joyce came in, looked, and nodded. “Oh. Well, I wasn’t sure about that one, so I took it down and put it in the hall closet. I’ll get it if you want.”
“But why?” he said plaintively as she started up the hall.
She stopped, returned and swept an arm through the air. “Well, with all these animals and things around, I … well, I didn’t think you really wanted a picture of just some trees.”
EIGHT
Dinner was a hasty affair. Joyce spent more time waving her hands about and babbling than eating, Norman lost his temper more than once in an effort to be patient, and Don ate everything on his plate, had seconds, and seriously considered third helpings to satisfy his sudden, ravenous appetite. Yet his stomach bubbled acid, and a tic refused to leave the corner of his left eye. It was nerves, he decided, aggravated by his mother’s self-propelled ascent into near hysteria over her participation in the opening ceremonies at the park tonight, and goaded by the return of his father’s waspish tongue. The closer the time for leaving came, the more surly Norman grew, until Don finally excused himself and rushed upstairs to dress.
With the door closed behind him he switched on the light and forced himself to look at the poster retrieved from the closet and returned to its place.
The running horse was gone.
He checked it only once, could not look at it again without seeing the stallion charging across the ball field, green eyes, green sparks, heading for Falwick because Don had commanded.
When he looked out the window, he saw only the night.
“Don,” his mother called as she sped past the door. “Hurry up, dear, or we’re going to be late.”
His fingers refused to work his buttons, tie his laces, do anything with his hair; his lips quivered as he warded off a sensation of wintercold that stiffened his arms and made bending over a chore; and his eyes were pocked with grains of harsh dust that sent stabs of white fire into his skull, fire that swirled and coalesced and formed a flame-figure of a horse.
A dash into the bathroom emptied his meal into the toilet.
Kneeling on the carpeted floor, hands gripping the porcelain sides, he heard Joyce bleating in the hall about something spilled on her dress, heard Norman complaining that the photographers would make him look like a corpse if he wore, as she insisted, his good black suit.
Another surge of bile, and the acid tears that came with it before he gulped for air, flushed the toilet, and grabbed for a towel. From his position on the floor he dumped the terry cloth into the sink and turned on the cold water, waited, pulled the towel out and slapped it over his face. His shirt was soaked, but the shock was a comfort; his throat was raw, but when he staggered to his feet and scooped a palmful of water into his mouth, the expected reaction didn’t happen. The water went down, stayed down, and he smiled sardonically at his reflection, his face and hair dripping, and his eyes turning bloodshot.
“Big hero,” he mumbled. “You look like Tar after a three-day drunk.”
He dried himself quickly, brushed his teeth, and combed his hair; back in his room he changed his shirt and slacks, found a sports jacket he could wear, and hurried downstairs to wait, standing in the living room and looking out the window.
The street was dark, and a light wind taunted the last leaves on the trees. A couple passing by huddled close together though they weren’t wearing heavy coats. Mr. Delfield from across the road argued with his dachshund, who didn’t want the leash, and when the dog slipped its collar, the old man shambled after it, one hand raised in a doom-laden fist while the other whipped the leash angrily against the sidewalk. The red convertible sped past, the top up and music blaring. The wind gusted, and there was movement in the gutters, an acorn rolled along the walk and dropped into shadow.
Where are you? he thought, feeling the cold through the pane.
There was no answer, and he had no time to ask the question again. Joyce was in the foyer, rattling the car keys and calling up to Norman, telling Don to leave on one light so they wouldn’t break a leg when they got home, and wondering aloud what she had forgotten, what would go wrong, what people would think if the celebrations began with a thud, not a bang.
He followed them out, and took a deep breath, saw Mr. Delfield rushing back to his house with his dog wriggling under his arm, and took the backseat without any prompting.
He watched the street as they drove over and parked on the north side because there were no ready openings on the boulevard, Joyce complaining because they should have started earlier to get a decent spot.
At the gates — similar pillars of stone that marked the other entrance — he hesitated and listened, and could hear nothing but the murmuring of a patiently waiting crowd, the slam of a car door, the heels of his mother’s shoes cracking on the path.
Folding chairs had been placed in orderly half-moon rows facing the bandstand. The lights were bright and focused on the orchestra that took its place to a smattering of applause that grew, swelled, had people on their feet with smiles and whistles and proud looks for their children. A television news crew was off to one side amid a clutch of newsmen who scanned the front rows, discounting the mayor and the community leaders who couldn’t keep from glancing surreptitiously at the cameras.
Don sat between his parents, not liking the way he was looked at, pointed at, highlighted by smiles that claimed him as their own. The Quinteros sat behind him, and he spent as much time as he could whispering to Tracey about how silly this all was as he returned a nod or a wave when it came in his direction.
The bandmaster climbed to his stand, and the audience settled down; he turned to the microphone set up to his left and cleared his throat, causing a squeal to rip through the clearing. He laughed nervously; the audience laughed with him. He thanked them for coming, and introduced Mayor Garziana, who spent fifteen minutes orating Ashford’s history in such a way that the back rows began squirming and the front rows froze their smiles.