The Glass Harmonica (43 page)

And if anyone has learned you can't trust that, no matter how hard you try, it's me.

There.

What was that noise? Was that Keith? I don't think so.

I don't think we should let Glenn come over anymore. I know he's your friend, I just don't think he should have the run of the place, all right? The man scares me, especially when I'm alone.

Someone in the kitchen?

I hate this, the way it runs in over me, like lying unable to move on the beach long enough for the tide to finally catch you. You know it's coming, you can even imagine the cold of the water, just then when it first touches your toes.

My breath is running away from me, and everything is like a weight. Like a . . .

Lights flickering or . . .

Is the dog barking?

I've never liked dogs.

Keith wanted one once—to hunt in the fall, he said.

A big sad-eyed beagle, the kind of dog that just eats and lies around and smells wet. Shedding and drooling and messing up everything. Waddling off to the back door when it has to go out, whining to come back in, and who would be opening the door every time?

I said no, and Keith just nodded, but I knew that somewhere in there he was adding it up, saving it, keeping a tally, another legitimate reason for those dark stares of his that clearly had to be hate.

Those stares, the ones that shake you, that make you feel small, make you want to admit to anything, just so they will stop. I think it happens with everyone you know really, really well—that sharp flash, that window into their real insides. Marks you up—changes your timbre. Silly word—
timbre
. Where did that come from?

Keith?

I wonder if he's coming in.

Coming in now. Heavy words, those: coming-in-now.

Keith, please come in now. I can never find that little light switch when I want to, can't make my fingers close around it, can't let him know out there in the shop. It's too far.

I can't reach.

I can't lift my hand.

Come in now.

Can it really be dark already?

Acknowledgements

This book is far better—and in fact even exists—because of the help and support of a number of people.

Leslie Vryenhoek, my consort and editor, devoted a considerable amount of her own valuable writing time to both editing and hearing endlessly about this book. My friend Pam Frampton also gave her editing time unstintingly.

Philip and Peter Wangersky—and Raquel Bracken—who put up with me commandeering the main computer in the house and the kitchen that computer lives in.

Publisher Patrick Crean and Senior Editor Janice Zawerbny at Thomas Allen Publishers, who saw this book from its very beginnings, drawn on a sheet of scrap paper in a Toronto restaurant, and never let their doubts show.

The Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts, who provided much-needed financial assistance—even though it is not, actually, the book of short stories they were promised. That collection is complete, and will be next.

My employers, the St. John's Telegram and Transcontinental Media, who have been endlessly flexible with time.

Thanks to all. I hope, in the end, it's worth the investment.