"If I really thought you had tried to hurt her I wouldn't be sitting here now," she said. "Mr. Friedrichs, have you-"
"My name is Josef. With an f."
Pat had to smile.
"Yes, I suppose we have progressed to first names. Mine is Pat. You needn't fear that I'll take advantage of it."
A wave of red swept over Friedrichs' face. She hadn't realized how pale he was until the flush gave his cheeks their normal color.
"Drink your coffee," she said. "You're still in a state of shock. It won't do Kathy any good if you pass out, or-or have a heart attack."
"My heart is perfectly sound." He gave her a startled look. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to touch on-"
"I touched on it," Pat said steadily. "My husband died of a heart attack a year ago. We thought his heart was perfectly sound too."
"I owe you an apology, Mrs.-Pat. Not for what I said just now; for my behavior the other evening, when you most generously offered new neighbors…" He hesitated, and the ghost of a smile curved his thin lips. "Bread and salt, shall we say?"
"Pasta is basically flour, like bread," Pat agreed. "And there was plenty of salt in that casserole."
"Whatever the ingredients, the intent was the same. It was a kind gesture and my response was boorish. I regretted it at once. I tried to call to you, but apparently you didn't hear me. That's no excuse, however, I might have telephoned to express my regrets-or, at the very least, returned your umbrella! My apologies are belated, but, I assure you, heartfelt."
"Forget it," Pat said, amused at his carefully constructed sentences and meticulous grammar. Mark was right; the man should be living in the nineteenth century.
"Thank you." He relapsed into silence, as if to free her of the obligation to talk. Maybe he didn't feel like talking either. The apology had been made with a certain grace, although he had offered no explanation for his boorish-ness, as he called it. But the omission had its own decorum. Excuses would have necessitated personal references, and perhaps, if Nancy 's hunch about his marital misadventures were correct, an appeal to sympathy or an expression of self-pity. Pat glanced at him from under lowered lashes. He must be in his forties; his cheeks and forehead showed the harsh lines of experience, harsher now with strain. No, not the face of a man who indulged in self-pity or allowed others to pity him. Nor, unless all her instincts were false, the face of a man who would mistreat his daughter.
They did not speak again. The night wore on, with the deadly slowness of all vigils. Pat had long since learned the art of sleeping with one eye open; she did so now, drifting in and out of half-slumber, her senses always alert for any untoward sound or movement from Kathy. Once she slipped deep enough into sleep to dream. It seemed to her that the light from the lamp on the bedside table burned low, and that in the shadowy corner behind the bed something moved. A long arm, skeletal in its pallor and bony thinness, reached out toward the sleeping girl.
Pat woke with a start, to hear Kathy moaning. Fried-richs was sound asleep, his head on the desk, resting on his folded arms. Pat got up, stretching stiffened limbs, and tiptoed to the bed. When she touched Kathy, the girl's breathing resumed its quiet pattern.
Pat went back to her chair. The night had turned quite cold. The thin curtains shifted eerily in the breeze, like formless shapes of ectoplasm. She shivered, and wondered, half-seriously, if nightmares lingered on in the room where a dreamer's mind had shaped them. That pale skeletal arm… If Kathy had dreamed of something like that reaching out for her, no wonder she had fled in terror.
Of course the explanation was more prosaic. In her drowsing state she had heard Kathy moan, and had conjured up an appropriate horror.
But she did not sleep again. The birds roused before the sun, raising a racket in the old apple tree outside the window, and finally the sky began to brighten. The sun was not yet up, but the room was fully light when Kathy awoke.
Her father woke the moment she did, sitting up with a stifled grunt as his stiff muscles protested. His sleep-heavy eyes went straight to Kathy. The girl had turned so that her back was toward her father. She was facing Pat, and after a moment recognition replaced the haziness of waking that clouded her eyes.
"Mrs. Robbins-it is you. I thought I dreamed you." She yawned like a sleepy kitten, her even white teeth sparkling.
"Kathy?" Josef's voice cracked. Kathy rolled over in bed.
"Daddy. Did I oversleep? What time…" Then she really saw him. "What's the matter? You look so…"
She sat up and held out her arms. Josef dropped to one knee beside the bed. Even then he did not embrace her; he took her hands in his and held them tight. Pat, who had moved to the foot of the bed so she could observe what went on in those first, revealing moments, was reassured-about the Friedrichs, if not about their immediate problem. The girl's candid face showed fear, but only for her father, not of him. She turned to Pat.
"Mrs. Robbins, what happened? He's hurt-his face is all scratched and… Is that why you're here? Oh, Dad, you look terrible!"
Pat sat down on the edge of the bed.
"He's fine," she said. "Josef, I could use some coffee, and I'll bet Kathy is hungry."
"Right." Josef rose to his feet, freeing his hands from Kathy's agitated grasp. "I'll just… I'll be right back."
He knew, of course, why Pat had dismissed him. Kathy's bewildered blue eyes followed him as he stumbled from the room.
"Mrs. Robbins, what-"
"Now we talk," Pat said. "You're the patient, Kathy, not your father. What happened last night?"
"Last night? I don't understand."
"Are you taking drugs, Kathy? Pills? Pot? Peyote, or seeds, or-"
Hoping to catch the girl off guard, she made her voice hard and inquisitorial. She would not have been surprised, or convinced, by an indignant denial. Instead, Kathy blushed guiltily.
"I've smoked pot a few times… at parties… Please don't tell Dad, he thinks I'm a virgin saint or some-thing. Hey. Wait a minute. You mean last night? Honest to God, Mrs. Robbins-"
"It couldn't have been marijuana," Pat said, half to herself. "The symptoms weren't right. Besides, I'd have smelled it."
"So would Dad." Kathy pushed a pillow behind her and sat back. "I'd never be dumb enough to smoke here at home, he's got a nose like a bloodhound. What went on last- Oh!" As she twisted to push the pillow into a more comfortable shape she saw something that made the healthy flush fade from her cheeks. "Oh. I'm beginning to remember…"
She was looking at the lamp on the bedside table.
"It wasn't a dream," Kathy said slowly. "That hand- that awful, bony hand… It threw the lamp at me."
Three
I
The hands of Pat's wristwatch pointed to seven thirty when she inserted her key in her door, congratulating herself on being in time to destroy the note before Mark got up. His first class was at nine a.m., and he saw no reason to rise before eight thirty. After all, it was only a twenty-minute drive to campus.
She had felt compelled to leave a note, in case some uncharacteristic quirk roused Mark earlier than normal, but Pat was thankful he wouldn't see it. She didn't want to tell him the truth and she was too tired to think up a good lie.
But as she opened the door she realized that the fate that hates mothers had dealt her another low blow. Leaving the door ajar, she made a dash for the kitchen.
Unfortunately for her, Mark was already on the stairs, and the hall was long. It never entered his head to wonder why his mother was racing through the house in the early morning hours; he entered into the game with youthful enthusiasm, and naturally beat Pat to the kitchen door by at least six feet.
"The winnah and still champeen!" he shouted, blocking the doorway and foiling Pat's efforts to pass him. "Don't you know when you're defeated? Can't run the way you used to, old lady; sit down and rest those aged bones."