October (18 page)

And then, suddenly, I know what it is. I have been sneaking his writings away from his drawer when he is at school, and now, I know what he is going to say next.

"I'll never be as good as you."

"Bobby, you will! You'll find your own way. You love words, it's obvious—"

"Not with you smothering me."

I take him by his shoulders and draw him to me. He lets me hold him, stiffly. "Bobby, please. Don't you know how much I love you?"

The stiffness in his shoulders softens, then hardens again. When he speaks, his voice is soft. "I know you love me," he says. "But I have to go."

That afternoon I hear the front door close as I work upstairs. I rush to the window to see him leaving the house. When I run downstairs and open the front door, he is already down the street, his back to me, his jacket collar up, a duffel bag clutched in his right hand.

"Bobby!" I shout. "Bobby!"

He doesn't turn . . .

Into the void, the plunge through Time . . .

Kevin. I want to tell him everything today. My last chance? He will soon be gone, I know, off to Cornell for his Ph.D., and already the foolish ache of his leaving is in me. I feel so old! Forty-eight, a dinosaur, a fool. Like those talk-show women, older women with younger men, they always look so grasping, so worthy of embarrassment. He is twenty-four,
exactly half my age
. I want him to take me in his arms (fool! fool!), baggy garden pants and all, old loafers, sweatshirt, plainly attractive face, no makeup, glasses, hair needing brushing, and tell me he loves me. I would lead him to the bed. Those darkly bright eyes, oblivious, his shock of brown hair, his preoccupation, and self-absorbed smile

What's wrong with me! He wants answers from me I cannot give. He's not in love with me, he's in love with my work and an aspect of me he wants for himself. He is consoled by my worldview—would he be comforted by my touch? No! Could he love me, who has periods of forgetfulness, and occasional diarrhea, who cleaned spilled food on the kitchen floor when Lydia was a baby, who smells bad in the mouth in the morning, has a sagging line of belly that never went away from Eddie's birth, and truly loved to feel her hated husband inside her, because the rough act, the moving of his lustful hands over her, made her feel loved.

Who wants to feel this boy inside her . . .

Look at how he looks at me—like a mother, a goddess—not a woman.

So, abruptly, petulantly, miserably, I try to end the interview.

And Kevin breaks down.

Suddenly, I am holding him, giving comfort. God, I wish I could give him what he wants! I wish—

Fool!
There is warmth growing between us, and suddenly I am ashamed. How can I think this way! He is twenty-four, and if only he would say a word, any word—

No!

So I send him away, with his tape recorder, and his pain, out of my bedroom, out of my life—

Into Lydia's arms!

Amazingly, I hear Lydia outside my door—poor daughter who has mooned over Kevin like a schoolgirl, who has melted into my shadow—and now, suddenly, she tries to break free!

Like a voyeur, I creep to my door to see my daughter led Kevin to her bedroom. Transfixed—Lydia's door closes! She has done what I dared not—had not the courage to do!

I walk back to my straight-backed chair and hug myself and cry.

The curse of inner peace.

If only I could give Kevin what he wants; if only . . .

The Machine, the Time Machine . . .

MY GOD, I BEGIN TO REMEMBER!

The light goes on in the backyard, through the window, and it comes back to me. The cellar window. Jerry Martin reaches out through the flames, takes hold of my wrist. Icy numbness up my arm. He tries to pull me back into the flames, but then he uses my resistance, pulls himself out of the cellar window. Blackened bits, his face falling away. I fall back, and Jerry Martin, the smell of flesh, is on top of me, his charcoaled hands clawing at my face. I feel the bones of his fingertips in my mouth.

His face comes close, hot breath, the odor of burned flesh. Nothing in his eye sockets, deep, empty wells. I scream, push against him, but he pries open my mouth, the skull-smile of his own scorched face widening, the heated air of ruined lungs.

Something small scrabbles over his tongue, hanging to the edge, dropping toward my screams and then into my mouth—

The Time Machine, the plateau, the real world, the present—

LYDIA! LYDIA! PLEASE. DEAR GOD, LET ME STAY HERE ON THIS PLATEAU, IN THIS PLACE, JUST A LITTLE WHILE. I HEAR THE WORDS, DEAR GOD, I'M BEGINNING TO REMEMBER! LYDIA! SO COLD, OH, GOD, PLEASE, KEEP ME HERE, LYDIA! LYDIA! DAMN YOU, GIRL, YOU TRIED TO TAKE HIM FROM ME. LYDIA! COME HERE, GET KEVIN MICHAELS! PLEASE! IT'S GOING, I CAN'T . . .

GET KEVIN MICHAELS!

As dawn broke, there was frost around the window. Davey could see his breath. He sat up, shivering. His throat was sore. His head hurt, and there was a dull, stabbing pain behind his eyes. He felt like throwing up. He fed the dog, but could not keep any food down himself. He tried to drink the juice from a can of fruit cocktail, but the sweetness in his throat made him gag.

The morning remained cold. Davey huddled against the side of the freezer, the dog close by. He made himself a packed area of newspapers that he crawled into; the smell of yellowing newsprint made him sick to his stomach. His throat was so sore, he could barely swallow.

In the early afternoon, Davey heard the tall man stir upstairs and leave the house.

Shivering, Davey pushed himself out of his newspaper tent and ran to the window. He climbed a newspaper bundle and looked out.

The tall man was mounting the hill away from the house. He wore no coat. Davey saw a fine film of frost on the tall grass at the foot of the hill.

The tall man ascended the hill in long strides, crested the top, was gone.

Davey waited, eye pressed close against the chilled, dirty glass, to make sure the tall man did not reappear. A surge of hope ran through him.

"He's gone!"

The dog huffed loudly.

Davey jumped from the newspapers, mounted the cellar stairs. He pushed open the cellar door, ran to the front door and out onto the porch.

He and the dog climbed the hill together.

Davey caught sight of the tall man at the bottom of the hill, heading into town.

Davey shivered with fever, but smiled at the dog and said, "Come on!"

They ran back to the house. The dog stopped by the edge of the garden and pawed at the fresh-turned soil, whining.

Davey hugged himself. "Come into the house."

The dog moved farther into the garden. His agitation grew. He ran in tight circles, growling, stopping to sit on his haunches and bark, then leaning forward to dig at the soil.

Davey watched and said, "Forget it. Come on."

The dog pawed at the ground, huffed.

Davey eyed the hill, looked at the dog.

"All right, dammit, I'll have a look."

The shovel was just inside the barn door. As he walked into the sun with it, a feverish shiver ran through him. He stopped at the spot where the dog was scratching.

He pushed the shovel in, dug quickly. Big shovelfuls of loose loam moved easily aside.

Almost immediately, he hit something solid.

"What—"

He uncovered a varicose-veined leg, the bottom fringe of a woman's skirt. Next to it was the cold, black head of a dog, the front of its face collapsed. Feeling worse than ill, Davey uncovered the body, revealing the ruined, cold face of Martha Meyer.

"Shit," Davey said. The sight, coupled with his sickness, made him vomit into the hole.

Not bearing to look, he covered the bodies with dirt.

"He killed Ben Meyer and his wife," Davey said. He looked to the dog, who barked, backed away from the garden.

"Let's get what we need and get out of here."

Davey reentered the house. He went back to the cellar, opened the gun case, withdrew the .38 handgun. He brought his supply bag upstairs.

He went through the hutch in the dining room until he found the ammunition for the .38. He loaded the gun, put the cardboard box of shells in his jacket pocket.

He retrieved the grocery bag, put the .38 in it. "Let's go," Davey said.

He opened the front door, let the dog out. He was sweat-
ing
, his mind racing, trying to think.

As he reached the foot of the hill the dog made a sound and held back.

"What is it?"

The dog ran across the yard, toward the apple orchard. Davey followed.

He turned at the first block of trees. The tall man was just topping the rise that led down to the farmhouse. With him was another man, older, huskier, almost as tall. They began their descent to the house.

"Jesus," Davey said. He fumbled in the grocery bag, tearing it. Cans and packages spilled out. He found the .38, flipped the safety off, raised the gun in the air, fired it.

 
"Hey!" he shouted. "Hey!"

The two men stopped, turned, located him. He waved his arms, fired the gun into the air again. "Get away!" he shouted. He put the gun down, cupped his hands around his mouth. "Get away!"

The two men stood still as statues. Then, the tall man with suspenders raised his arm and struck the other man. The other man fell to the ground. He tried to rise, but the man in suspenders struck him again and then straddled the body.

The man in suspenders searched the ground around him, lifted a rock, brought it down on the man beneath him.

Davey fired the gun again. The tall man in suspenders paused, turned to look at him. The dog barked, growled loudly, ran in circles, whined.

The tall man turned back to the man on the ground, raised the rock, brought it down. The man on the ground did not move. The man in suspenders rose, looked steadily at Davey and the dog.

"Come on." Davey thrust the gun into his jacket pocket. Abandoning the food, he ran through the orchard. He glanced back through the straight rows of trees. He saw no one. Then the tall man's form appeared, just entering the trees. When he reached the rock wall, Davey vaulted over as the dog jumped beside him.

"Run, boy."

The hill bottomed out. Davey half slid down, loosened rocks on the edge of the path tumbling down beside him.

He looked back. The tall man stood at the edge of the orchard, regarding him.

"Come on," Davey said, and he and the dog ran on.

He kept off the main streets, avoided places where people might know him. His fever heightened. After a while, he was shivering so badly he could hardly walk. His sight blurred, and he had to lean into the curve of a telephone or light pole, holding himself tightly, bending over, until his vision cleared and his trembling subsided.

By late afternoon, he was so weak he nearly fainted. In the park, he sat on a bench and pulled his feet up, curling into a fetal position. He closed his eyes, but immediately the world began to swim and he grew nauseous. He sat up, clasping his knees, heaving.

He said to the dog, "Only one place to go."

A half hour later, they reached it. Davey cursed to see an old green sedan, badly in need of a paint job, in the driveway.

Almost immediately, though, he was rewarded. He hid in the house's side bushes as a burly man hulked from the house, down the steps, into the car.

At first the car wouldn't start. Davey heard the man curse. But then the old sedan roared its noisy muffler, pulled down the driveway past them into the street.

The car died between reverse and drive. Once again, the man in the car cursed, tried to restart it. Davey thought he was going to get out when he finally gave up on the starter, but the man tried it once more.

The car sputtered into life and held. The transmission ground into drive and the car moved off, spitting black, oily exhaust.

Davey waited till it turned the corner, then stood up and moved to a space in the bushes. He pushed through it, onto a neglected, cracked walk, overgrown with clumps of grass, which led around to the side of the house. There was a three-step porch, a door set out of its frame, all in need of white paint.

Shivering with cold and fever, Davey held his jacket at the throat with one hand and knocked on the door.

"Come on, come on," he said.

There was darkness in the house, no sound of television or radio.

Davey knocked again, louder. "Shit, please."

He heard faint movement within.

"Come on, dammit!"

Suddenly he had to vomit. He clutched his middle, felt his head go light as helium. A sickly sweet taste filled his mouth. He struggled to fall forward, to lean against the house, but collapsed down, like a folded fan. The porch met his body. He curled over it. His head lay on the top step, a sliver of peeled paint tickling his cheek.