The man in the window

The angel took Atlas’s outstretched hand, andthey stood together for a long moment beneath the cool shade of the tree.Atlas looked into the angel’s eyes, eyes he had always known, and sa

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious Any similarity

to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author

Text copyright © 1992 Jon Cohen

Introduction and Readers’ Guide copyright © 2013 Nancy Pearl

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission ofthe publisher

Acknowledgements

Reader’s Guide for The Man in the Window

Discussion Questions

Suggestions for Further Reading

About the Author

About Nancy Pearl

About Book Lust Rediscoveries

PROBABLY THE question that I’m most often asked by people is, “How do youchoose what you’re going to read?” and I don’t really have a good answer forthem I can relate to the novelist Carrie Brown (my favorite book of hers is

Lamb in Love) who described herself as being “a promiscuous reader.” I’ll

give almost any book a chance to have its way with me I read all sorts ofnonfiction (pretty much everything, in fact, but generally not self-help books,

unless they’re by Harriet Lerner—my favorite of hers is The Dance of

Anger) History and current events have always been two of my particular

nonfiction favorites And of course I read a lot of fiction, both literary andgenre (which is not to say that I think a sharp line can be drawn between thetwo)

I usually start off the process of identifying my next book by cruising theshelves in a bookstore or library, looking for jacket art that seduces my eye or

a title that tugs at my mind I know from long experience that if the author’sname on the cover is in a bigger font size than the title, then I can be prettysure the book is aimed directly at the best-seller list and therefore probablyisn’t one that I want to take to bed (where I do a lot of my reading) with me.Then I open the book to a random page in order to get a sense of whetherit’s worth my while trying to develop a relationship with it or whether I’mbetter off putting it back on the shelf where I found it, knowing that it’s notright for me (Kind of like a first date.) For example, if I discover that I’mgoing to be inside the head of a vicious serial killer—or sociopaths in general

—even if it’s only in the first chapter or in alternate chapters, then it’s a

no-go I remember once asking a little boy—he must have been about 7 or 8—what kind of books he liked “No dead dogs,” he told me I knew exactlywhat he meant For me, it’s no murdered, or tortured, or sexually abusedchildren

I study the blurbs on the back of the book, not so much to see what theysay about the book (they’re all, obviously, going to wax eloquent about howwonderful it is; otherwise they wouldn’t be there) but rather who’s saying it

If the blurbists are writers or reviewers whom I respect, I’m more inclined toread the book I also check to see if the quotes are taken from reviews innewspapers or magazines, or if they were solicited from the author’s friends

or the editor’s contacts in the literary world There was a column called

“Logrolling in Our Time” in the (very) late, (very) lamented Spy magazine

that revealed authors each of whom wrote a glowing blurb for the other’sbook If the blurbists all live within hailing distance of each other, I don’ttake it as a good sign Believe me, read enough and you get to know thesethings, like where the authors live Writers are asked to blurb books all thetime—I receive at least one request a week (Margaret Atwood has awonderful poem called “Letter sent in reply to requests for blurbs” thatspeaks to this; it’s easy to find on the Internet.)

I found Jon Cohen’s The Man in the Window when I was working as the

head of collection development at the Tulsa (OK) City-County LibrarySystem in the spring of 1992, right after it had been published It wasdisplayed face out on the “New Books” shelf I didn’t love the cover, whichwas in various shades of green and brown and centered on a Picasso-esquepainting of a man’s head and upper body apparently looking out through (ormaybe embedded in, it was hard to tell) a window There was nothingespecially wrong with it (I am a great fan of cubism), but there wasn’tanything that I found especially appealing, either I turned the book over andlooked at the blurbs on the back of the jacket One, from an author I wasn’tfamiliar with, was for the book I was holding The other four, taken from

newspaper reviews, referred to Cohen’s first novel, Max Lakeman and the

Beautiful Stranger, which I hadn’t read.

No obvious turn-offs, so far, but neither was I hearing that little voice (theone that I never tire of; that delights me, still) telling me that this might be a

book I didn’t want to miss So what made me open The Man in the Window

to the first page and start reading? It was, perhaps illogically, actually the sizeand shape of the book itself Not its thickness, nor the number of its pages,but rather its length and breadth It was a hardcover, but was the size andshape of a trade paperback, which were not as ubiquitous in the early 1990s

as they are now It looked like it would be utterly comfortable to hold Itlooked like a book that could easily be lost amongst the bigger and brawniernovels on the shelf, the runt of the litter, so to speak, and I just couldn’t resistgiving it a chance to win me over

And when I read the entrancing first line of The Man in the Window, I

knew I’d made no mistake Here was a novel to love And so it proved to be.That first line—“Atlas Malone saw the angel again, this time down by thehorse chestnut tree.”—made it impossible for me to put the book down Iloved the interplay of the fantastic—an angel!—with the utterly prosaic—ahorse chestnut tree And the specificity: not just any old chestnut tree, but a

horse chestnut (I have to say here that, not being a gardener or arborist, I

never knew there were such things as horse chestnut trees before I read The

Man in the Window You read and learn.) And that simple word “again.”

How could I bear not to find out when Atlas encountered an angel before?Clearly, this was a book that was written with a reader like me in mind

For many years, whenever I was asked to give a talk about good books to

read, I would include The Man in the Window, and I’d describe it to the

audience this way:

When he was sixteen, Louis Malone was caught in a fire that erupted

at his father’s hardware store He was burned so badly that for the nextsixteen years he didn’t go out of his family’s house, spending his dayswatching the outside world through his second story bedroom window.And even in the house he covered up the terrible scars on his face bywearing a scarf around his mouth and chin and a baseball cap with aPittsburgh Pirates logo pulled down low over his forehead But one dayLouis reenters that world, falling from, or somehow being impelledthrough, the window that he’s been hiding behind for so many years.Rushed to the hospital by neighbors who are wild with curiosity to findout what he looks like underneath his hat and scarf (which he manages

to keep on despite the fall and a broken arm), he meets Iris Shula, anIntensive Care nurse who’s covering the emergency room when hearrives Iris describes herself as being four foot seven and weighing onehundred fifty-five “very poorly distributed pounds,” with “a nose like aboxer’s, and the complexion of a corpse.”

Then I’d read from the book: “Iris had been an unappealing baby—andbabyhood, as it turned out, was her physical high point She went fromunappealing to unattractive, and by the time she moved into adolescence,she’d become undeniably homely Even her parents, who loved her, whogave her every benefit of the doubt and then some, could not dispute theevidence.”

And I’d conclude by saying that Iris, in her own way, had been just asalone in the outside world as Louis had been in his upstairs room And thatthe relationship that slowly develops between Louis and Iris both breaks andremakes the reader’s heart and offers some good laughs along the way.

Usually when I’m perusing book jacket copy, I take words like affirming, heartwarming, touching, uplifting, poignant, and tender as awarning: DO NOT READ, LIKELY TO BE SENTIMENTAL CLAPTRAP.But in the hands of that all too rare writer who respects his readers anddoesn’t try to manipulate them through cheap emotions and easy tears, a book

life-can be deeply satisfying because it is so authentically life-affirming and heart-warming, etc Cohen is such a writer, and The Man in the Window is

such a novel

Nancy Pearl

TO MOLLY AND BEN

PART ONE THE MONSTER OF WAVERLY

CHAPTER ONE

ATLAS MALONE saw the angel again, this time down by the horse chestnuttree Yesterday the angel had stood, in a floaty sort of way, beside theraspberry patch—Atlas couldn’t tell if its feet touched the ground with anykind of earthly weight Indeed, when he inspected the spot later, not a blade

of grass had been disturbed, although an entire cane of raspberries had beenpicked Gracie, his wife, said she had not gone near his patch

Today beneath the horse chestnut tree the angel appeared to have moresubstance, a physicality it had not possessed before—gained, perhaps, fromstolen raspberries Atlas turned to see if Gracie was nearby, but she was still

in the front yard mulching the tulip bed He opened his mouth to call to her,but then shut it again For all he knew, the angel had the nerves of a cat andmight be scared off by the least little thing

The angel, whose face Atlas could not discern, stood beside the tree Abright wedge of summer sunlight touched its wings, and the angel lifted themslightly, flexing, taking in the warmth Atlas began to walk the length of thebackyard toward the horse chestnut tree He kept his hand extended beforehim, ready to greet the angel as he might a guest at his weekly Rotary Clubluncheon

The thoughts that came to him were ordinary and peaceful, and for amoment he forgot about the angel waiting for him down at the bottom of hisyard The grass needs cutting, he thought, maybe I’ll do it before I take mynap this afternoon The hedge has filled in well I should water the zinnias

He paused, then turned and took it all in, his house and yard, the sense ofGracie, busy in the tulip bed, close to him He brought his hand to his chestand touched it lightly there, mistaking a tingling in his heart for pleasure.When Atlas turned again, his hand out and ready, he had reached the angel.The angel’s head was bent; he was looking down At his shoes, thoughtAtlas I know those shoes, and as Atlas brought his eyes slowly up again, herecognized the pants too, and the shirt They were his clothes, old andfamiliar, the most comfortable he owned Now the angel lifted his face, and

revealed himself with a slight smile Atlas saw that the face also was old andfamiliar, that it was his own The angel took Atlas’s outstretched hand, andthey stood together for a long moment beneath the cool shade of the tree.Atlas looked into the angel’s eyes, eyes he had always known, and said,

“This isn’t so bad, is it?”

No, said the angel, not moving his lips or making a sound, it’s not so bad.Beneath the angel’s feet the grass remained undisturbed, as before, but it bentand flattened as Atlas dropped first to his knees, then face forward down intothe green

Coming around the side of the house with a wheelbarrow full of weeds,Gracie watched it happen She saw Atlas place one hand over his heart andthe other straight out in front of him as if he was reaching for something

“Atlas,” she called, and began to hurry, then run to him, her white hairflying “Atlas!”

When he fell to the grass, she knew, even before she reached him, that hewas dead

“Damn you, Atlas,” she whispered fiercely, as she drew him to her Sheheld him, her white hair dropping forward, mingling with his Somewhereabove her came a fluttering of wings and a rising

CHAPTER TWO

THE UNDERTAKER, Jim Rose, son of Big Bill Rose, founder and owner ofRose’s Funeral Home, the only funeral home in Waverly, Pennsylvania,didn’t appear to understand what Gracie was saying

“Mrs Malone,” he said, in a voice modulated by eight hundred and fiftydollars’ worth of concern and accommodation—eight hundred and fiftydollars being the price of the cheapest of the cheap coffins, the one Graciewanted, and a funeral with a minimum of fixings “Mrs Malone, if you don’tfeel you have a suit appropriate for Mr Malone, Rose’s can arrange—”

“My husband, I guarantee you, Mr Rose, does not wish to travel througheternity in a necktie and a pair of shiny shoes pressing on his bunions.”

Louis Malone, Gracie’s thirty-two-year-old son, sat at the top of the stairslistening to his mother and Jim Rose

Gracie held out a flannel work shirt, a pair of corduroys thin at the knees,gray cotton socks, and an old pair of Hush Puppies Atlas’s favorite clothes.Jim Rose still declined to take them “Mrs Malone, really I just don’t feelthis is, well… I don’t feel we’d be doing our job It’s just not professionallyacceptable.”

Louis coughed He knew his mother had been given her opening

“Professionally acceptable,” mused Gracie, her hand smoothing back andforth over the flannel shirt “You have standards, after all.”

“Yes ma’am,” said Jim Rose “Of course.” He tried a smile

“Big Bill’s standards Of course.”

The smile began to disappear back into Jim Rose’s face “My father’sstandards, yes.”

“Now tell me, Mr Rose, are those the standards he had prior to theunfortunate incident of the ice, or the new standards that followed theunfortunate incident of the ice?”

Louis shifted on the stair and laughed softly The unfortunate incident ofthe ice had been one of Atlas’s favorite stories In fact, everybody in Waverlyhad enjoyed it for over forty years Everybody, that is, except the perpetrator

and those related to him.

During World War II, Big Bill Rose came up with an idea, or scheme asAtlas would call it whenever he told his version of the story, that waspatriotic, enterprising, and good for an easy buck When he got caught, BigBill emphasized the patriotic part, and his accusers emphasized the buck part.Big Bill’s was one of the last funeral homes in that part of Pennsylvaniathat still used ice instead of mechanical refrigeration to maintain the lovedone until interment—or, as Atlas put it in his version, to keep the corpsescold and the stink down before planting them, getting his words out quickbefore Gracie could reach across the dinner table to slap his arm Wasting somuch good, usable ice after each burial had always pained Big Bill WhenWorld War II came along and conservation and thrift became every goodcitizen’s duty, a light bulb clicked on in the dim attic of Big Bill’s brain.Without offering too many details as to the origins of the ice, Big Billapproached his sister, Edith, who ran a little catering business out of her ownkitchen, with a plan that, as he would later explain to his accusers, “was firstand foremost, and originally intended, to ease the burdens of our fightingboys overseas.” This was not what he had told Edith He referred to his

“surplus of ice” and a small deal that would be mutually beneficial to themboth—whenever Edith was in need of ice for one of her grander events, such

as the Waverly Firemen’s Ball or the Kiwanis’s annual chicken barbecue, BigBill would supply her at half price His yearly revenue, for the one year hederived income before his scheme collapsed, came to six dollars and twenty-three cents—an amount, Atlas would say in his version of the story, that even

in those days was still a pissy handful of change (Gracie would not evenbother to slap at him at this point, he’d used so much dirty talk)

Big Bill’s twice-used ice operation might have flourished had LucyJameson not ordered a Pepsi-Cola with “lots of ice” at her wedding reception

at Waverly Lodge, catered by Edith Rose, in the hot summer of 1943 To hiscredit, and as he repeatedly explained to his accusers, Big Bill always rinsedhis ice, “carefully,” he said Of course “carefully” meant one thing to hisaccusers and something else again to Big Bill, who rinsed, carefully, makingreal sure he didn’t melt his profits down the drain—a drain that in this casewas located in the center of Big Bill’s aging porcelain embalming table.Lucy, impelled by the heat of the day and the anticipated heat of herimpending honeymoon encounter, had drained her Pepsi-Cola (chilled withcarefully rinsed ice) in one great swallow When she finished, she continued

to hold her tilted glass to her lips An array of looks flashed across her face,all partially concealed by her upended glass Surprise Confusion And then,slowly, a sort of giddiness For there, in the bottom of the glass that Lucy stillpressed up into her face, came a glint of frozen gold from among the silverchips of ice A ring, a man’s wedding band Lucy was pleased She lookedshyly at her new husband, Albert Jameson, who stood at her side She had noidea Al was capable of play, that he was such a trickster, and this odd littlegame came as something of a relief to her But when she looked down at Al’sleft hand and saw his wedding band firmly in place on his finger, her giddyfeeling returned to one of confusion.

Al, who was not playful, stared disapprovingly at his new wife as shepoured the glass of ice into the palm of her hand, and frowned deeper stillwhen she handed him, embedded in a large chip, the wedding ring Lookingvery glum, as if he thought the ring was a mysterious suitor’s challenge to hisclaim on Lucy, Al cracked the ice chip on the end of the refreshment table.The noise captured the attention of all the wedding guests who were notalready staring at the strange behavior of the bride and groom

Al held the ring up and turned it in the sun “Well, sweet Jesus,” he said.The wedding guests pressed closer Al read out loud the inscription on theinside of the ring “Norman Keeston May 10, 1886.”

May 10, 1886, was the date of Norman Keeston’s wedding day The date

of Norman’s demise was just three days ago, and his preservation on ice andsubsequent burial yesterday morning was courtesy of Rose’s Funeral Home,Bill Rose, director Lucy fainted right then and there and was immediatelyattended to by her bridesmaids and all the other women present except forEdith Rose, who remained standing behind the refreshment table beside herice chest All the men gathered around Al with one exception, Big Bill Rose,who slipped quietly away to his Studebaker, and sped off for the safety of hisfuneral home

It didn’t take long for the men to deduce the chain of events that placedNorman Keeston’s wedding ring in the bottom of Lucy Jameson’s glass ofPepsi-Cola First, they ruled out that Norman’s ring came out of the Pepsi,because it was too large to pass through the opening of the glass bottle Then

Al remembered that it had been half-frozen in a piece of ice, and all the menturned their eyes toward Edith Rose Her brother’s name emerged unbiddenfrom her lips “Bill,” she said “I got that ice from my brother Bill.”

It took less than five seconds for the wedding guests to understand the

implications of ice from brother Bill A great gasp went up from the crowd,particularly and especially from those whose drinks were cooled with BigBill ice At this point in his telling of the story, Atlas would make awfulspitting and throat-clearing noises, imitating the guests, then grin at Gracieand Louis.

Weakness of the flesh had been the culprit Poor Norman Keeston’s finger,already contracted with age, contracted further still as he reposed upon a bed

of ice on the embalming table When Big Bill and his assistant hadtransferred Norman to the dressing table the morning of the funeral,Norman’s ring slid off and disappeared among a thousand frosty chips, allbound for the Jameson wedding

But for a timely catastrophe, that would have ended the career of Big Bill

as Waverly’s sole funeral director Sergeant Marple of the Waverly policebrought the news, pushing his way through the crowd of men who’d driven toRose’s Funeral Home, until he reached Frank Pearly, his chief Chief Pearlywas trying to keep Al Jameson from strangling Big Bill Sergeant Marple’snews made the men go slack The Mader twins and Stu Kipner had drowned

in Waverly Lake after their boat capsized No one spoke until Big Bill clearedhis throat and uttered the words that saved his career

“Neighbors I’m sorry for the unfortunate incident of the ice Please bringthose boys to me and I will attend to their funeral needs at no cost to theirfamilies.” His voice caught a little on the “no cost” part, but he managed toget the words out The wedding crowd nodded their silent approval and thenmade their way to their cars

Al Jameson was the last to go He hesitated in the doorway, turned, lookedBig Bill in the eye, then tossed him Norman’s wedding ring His curseechoed in the funeral parlor as if from the walls of an Egyptian tomb “Mayyou choke on this ring, you greedy bastard.”

For seventy-five cents, his profit from the Keeston/Jameson ice deal, aprofit he didn’t even have in his pocket because his sister Edith had yet to payhim, and probably never would, Big Bill got stuck for three free funerals, wasshamed before his community, and cursed by an enraged groom All in all,not a very good day for the funeral industry in Waverly

Even though he couldn’t see them, Louis knew from the silence downstairsthat his mother and Jim Rose were reliving the unfortunate incident of theice Gracie’s eyes had softened, then closed for a long moment as sheremembered Atlas telling the story year after year at the dinner table His

details were the details she remembered, even though she had actually been atthe Jameson wedding and he had been away at basic training at Fort Jackson.He’d gleaned his story from the stories of others until he formed a versionthat was his own “You should have seen Lucy Jameson’s face,” he’d say,and Gracie would say, “I was there, Atlas, I did see it.” “But no,” Atlas

would say, “you should have seen it.” And somehow it got to be, from the

sheer force of joy he derived from the telling of it, that she saw Lucy or Al orBig Bill or Sergeant Marple the way he saw them, as characters in awonderful fiction that was true These people, whom she encountered everyday on the streets of Waverly, were elevated by Atlas’s recounting of theirlives, taking on proportions they did not necessarily possess

Of course it was unkind of Gracie to use the unfortunate incident of the ice

on Jim Rose, Louis knew Jim Rose probably looked very grim Perhaps now

he would strike back at Gracie through some little unkindness of his own Dosomething, say, to Atlas, humiliate the corpse by burying him with no pants

on or with his finger up his nose But Gracie had not said it, Louis was sure,simply to put Jim Rose in his place Gracie was a brand-new widow, and thepower of her grief, of her missing of Atlas, may have moved her to thisexchange with Jim Rose, so that the mentioning of Big Bill and the ice couldbecome inevitable, so that then she could recall a specific moment that wasAtlas, could recall him telling his story, and recall further the twenty or thirtytimes in twenty or thirty ways that Atlas had told the story, and in thespecificity of all those moments Gracie would have him again He would nothave left her as he did beneath the horse chestnut tree

CHAPTER THREE

UPSTAIRS, WATCHING the flow of bustling women from behind a curtain, Louisthought of trick-or-treaters Yes, their faces bore that same look of dread andexcitement, as on the faces of children in costume, that comes when deadthings are in the air

Gracie let them in, the women who came in twos or threes, never alone,and endured again and again the awful awkward moment as they all stoodthere in the front hallway She wished they’d leave their casseroles and cakes

on the front doorstep like the UPS man—ring the bell, drop their goods, anddisappear This time it was Kitty Wilson and Bev Howard Kitty lived nextdoor to Gracie, in the house with the new aqua aluminum siding that Atlassaid was capable of causing permanent eye damage in a man of his advancingyears Bev lived four houses down and had a yard full of topiary hedges, poorabused plants shaped to resemble elephants and bears Atlas teased Bev andher husband, Bert, to no end about those hedges Atlas never missed anopportunity to be simple and infuriating He’d stand beside a bear hedge,knowing it was a bear hedge, and say, “My God, Bert That’s more like anelephant than an elephant is like an elephant Gracie and I were watching the

Nature show on PBS last night, no, the night before, ‘Sunrise on the

Serengeti,’ and the elephants on that show were nowhere near as majestic or,I’m telling you, Bert, as realistic as this one.” More than once over the years,Atlas would be walking by and spot Bev on her knees in the ivy, or Bertpatching the walk, and he’d stop and stare at them with hard accusing eyes.When he got their attention and then held them with that look until they’dbegun to fidget, he’d nod over at one of the bear hedges and say in a loweven voice, “One of your bears got into my trash cans last night See that itdoesn’t happen again.” Then, without a flicker of a smile, he’d say, “Goodday,” and march off down the block

Louis loved the elephants and bears, and once he slipped out at night to bewith them While Waverly slept, Louis moved among the animals, then stoodvery still and watched them move around him It was in winter after a new

snow He thought it was wonderful to watch the bears and elephants playing

in the snow

Bev scrunched up her face into what was supposed to be, Gracie figured, amask of neighborly commiseration But it didn’t quite come togethersomehow, and poor Bev with her drooping mouth looked as if she hadsuffered a mild stroke Kitty’s face was more composed, held in place bygenerous layers of makeup She always coordinated her colors, the lips andeyes matching the stones on a necklace or picking up a hint of something in asweater This time her eyes were rimmed with an intense aqua Could it be,Gracie wondered, that Kitty is coordinating herself with the new aluminumsiding on her house?

Kitty, herself five years a widow, blinked her aqua eyes several times—adisplay meant to demonstrate the effort it took to contain her tears Kittyblinked and Bev snuffled, her drooping mouth going up and down Gracielooked at her two neighbors twitching and grunting before her and thought,Grief is an ungainly dance

Kitty held her casserole out to Gracie Unable to say, I am so sorry, Gracie,we’ll all miss Atlas, which is what in her own way she felt, Kitty said, “OhGracie, here I whipped this up for you—sweet potatoes with a marshmallowglaze Put that in the oven at three-fifty for twenty minutes, then take the lidoff for ten minutes at the end to let it brown.” She placed the dish in Gracie’shands as solemnly as if she were handing over an urn containing Atlas’sashes Then she stepped back, relieved, and it was Bev’s turn

Bev looked scared, as though she thought widowhood might be catching.Bert, after all, was two years older than Atlas Maybe there had been somesort of mix-up, maybe it was Bert who was supposed to have collapsed in hisbackyard When she heard about Atlas, Bev had whisked Bert out of the yardwhere he’d been trimming the elephants and made him lie down on the sofa

“Gracie,” Bev began, then stopped She gulped

Gracie said, “It’s all right, Bev.”

“No, Gracie,” she said “It’s just that… Here I made these The little sugarcookies Atlas liked so much Remember, at our barbecue two years ago? Heate a full dozen, at least, and Bert, he was so busy at the grill and everything,

he didn’t even get one, but I guess Atlas didn’t notice about Bert, or he justliked them so much he couldn’t help himself Anyway he sure ate them.” Shethrust the tin of cookies at Gracie

Gracie remembered things a little differently The reason Atlas ate the

sugar cookies as though they were the main course was because, in the end,that’s what they turned out to be Bert always had a few beers before theannual picnic with Gracie and Atlas, because Atlas made him nervous Hecould never quite tell when Atlas was joking and when he wasn’t—like withthe hedges Bert must have been extra nervous, because he’d had more than afew beers that day During two and a half interminable hours, he managed todrop three steaks and most of the chicken breasts on the ground, and the food

he was able to keep over the coals he burned beyond recognition Atlas neverlooked at a sugar cookie again

And what do I have, thought Gracie, to comfort me in the hour of mygreatest sorrow? Kitty and Bev, a batch of sweet potatoes with a ruinousmarshmallow glaze and some sugar cookies Atlas, save me

A sudden small sound pattered from above, tiptoes down the hallway, lightand quick Kitty and Bev looked up at the ceiling, then back at Gracie

Bev said, “Louis is taking it hard, I imagine, Gracie?”

Gracie thought about that Then she said, “You can’t be sure how Louistakes a thing He carries his sorrow differently than the rest of us.”

When she had finally released Atlas’s body there beneath the horsechestnut tree, Louis was beside her He wore, as he always did indoors or out,

a purple scarf wrapped high above his nose like a bandit, and a baseball cap,the rim pulled down low She looked up into his hidden face and saw in hiseyes that he understood, but she said it anyway, articulated it for herself

“Louis, your daddy’s dead.” She said it like that, used the word daddy,

although it was not a word that belonged to Louis, who always called himAtlas Gracie sat beside her husband, her hand resting on his still figure.Louis knelt down, touched Atlas, then suddenly pulled back and stared downthe yard at the lengthening shadows, and pointed there, then there, raising hisfinger a little each time, until at last he pointed straight up in the air His headwas tilted back, and his scarf fell away Gracie saw his eyes following amovement, his mouth open, his face bathed in the blue light of the sky

Kitty pursued what Bev had begun, presuming on the intimacy that seems

to form between neighbors after a death “Will you, Gracie, do you thinkyou’ll be able to care for Louis now that Atlas is gone?” She stood too closeand Gracie, as she often did, picked up the fermented scent of wine on Kitty’sbreath

Upstairs, a toilet flushed

Gracie moved past Kitty to the front door and opened it “You have it quite

wrong, quite backward,” she said “Now that Atlas is gone, it will be Louiswho takes care of me.”

When Gracie closed the door behind the two women, footsteps tiptoeddown the hall again

CHAPTER FOUR

GRACIE REMEMBERED what Atlas always told her, what he said right from thebeginning “Gracie, I hope to God I go before you do.” He even said it ontheir wedding night in 1946 She sat at the dressing table in the bedroom ofthe Tremont Hotel in Atlantic City, and he had come up behind her in hisblue silk bathrobe, picked up her brush, and begun to brush her hair Theyhad kissed before, of course, and more, but nothing approached the intimacy

of that moment She let her head sink back as he stroked Her hair was brownand long, and it seemed to take the brush forever to move through it Finally,Atlas put the brush down, and whispered, “Oh, Gracie, I hope I go before youdo.”

The words did not seem at all inappropriate or morbid

Gracie laughed, pulled him to her, and kissed him They were young, theywere just married—he would brush her hair, and they would stay young andmarried forever

“Atlas,” she said “Neither of us is going to go They make specialallowances for people like us.” She kissed him again

But Atlas had been to war “Well, just in case they don’t, I hope I go first.”She touched a finger to his lips “Listen to you,” she said “Listen to you.”

He said it many times over the years But at some point there came aturning for Gracie, and the words took on a measure of menace The ordinaryaccumulation of vulnerabilities was the menace, and so were the small shocksthat come one after another over the course of a life The menace was in theslow hollowing of her bones and in the fragile ticking of the clock Theywould not always be young or forever married, and the hair Atlas still liked tobrush for her was going white

Two years before he died, they were at the farm, the hundred acres ofovergrown land and small farmhouse that Gracie had inherited from hermother, when Atlas said those words for the last time “I hope I go before youdo.” He floated in the middle of the pond, a seventy-year-old man draped on

a black inner tube She leaned against a piling at the end of the dock,

watching a red-winged blackbird on the top branch of a dead willow It hadnot moved in five minutes But when Atlas called across the pond to her, itabruptly took flight Gracie was sure it was more Atlas’s words than thesuddenness of his voice that scared the bird Now she heard the words, too,and they didn’t declare love, as they always had, but the loss of love, ofAtlas She felt something rush up out of her chest, felt the frightened beating

of wings, and the escape of the blackbird

Atlas would go before her, he would get his wish Maybe it would happennow, right now As he floated in smiling ease, maybe the pond would open

up and draw him down Or his heart would stop, and he would slide throughthe middle of his inner tube and away Or something in his brain, somethingtiny and thin, would engorge and burst, and Atlas would see a brief dim light,one candle lit for one instant, enough to see where he was going, before aslight wind or the breath from an unseen mouth cut the flame and left all indarkness

“Damn you, Atlas!” she called fiercely across the water

Atlas’s head was turned, and he didn’t seem to hear her Gracie followedhis gaze to the side of the hill that rose beyond the weedy pasture, where afigure moved Even on this hot day, Louis wore his baseball hat and scarf,though the scarf hung loose and open around his neck—he felt safe at thefarm He sat picking wild strawberries Gracie saw him find a spot, then hishand going back and forth from the ground to his mouth

Atlas turned away from Louis and began paddling back to the dock Hepulled himself out of the water, graceful still in his movements He said,

“Well, he sure finds those strawberries, all right I can hardly see themanymore, but Louis sure finds them, even the ones no bigger than your babytoenail Boy, I bet—”

Gracie stopped him “Atlas, don’t say that anymore.”

He looked at her

“Don’t say you hope you go before I do.”

He moved close but didn’t touch her “I’m sorry, Gracie.”

“You think you couldn’t do it without me Well, I couldn’t do it withoutyou It works both ways.”

Now he touched her lightly on the arm “You’re stronger than me.”

She pulled away “You always say that How do you know? Everythingthat’s happened we’ve borne together.”

Louis called to them from the hillside “Atlas Gracie I found a big one.”

Gracie knew from his voice that he was smiling The line of his mouth would

be straight, because his injured lips could no longer define a smile It was all

in his voice now

Atlas waved to Louis Then he began to speak, looking at Graciesometimes, or way off at Louis, or down into the murky water of the pond.Atlas spoke, and Gracie listened, her eyes closing first in the slow heat of theday She tried to see the world as Atlas described it She listened, then openedher eyes and watched him intently, as if she hoped to see each word in thetumble of words that rose out of him

“I got up while you were asleep last night, Gracie,” he said “You’reusually the one who gets up, I hear you every time, and I always think, Thereshe goes, she’s taking off Isn’t that funny? All you’re doing is going to thebathroom, or checking the stove, and I’m as sure as my next breath you’releaving me Well, I got up, I don’t know why To look out the window, tolook at the dark.” Atlas stared into the distance “Up here, the dark isdifferent—not just darker, but fuller I guess all that means is it’s fuller ofthings I’m not used to At home, I know my work shed’s out there, and mygarden… but up here, you don’t know Well, I’m thinking about that when all

of a sudden something big pushes around through the tall grass down belowthe old pear tree, and it’s not moving right for a deer, it’s too deliberate Istart to get spooked—you know how it is with things in the dark I moveaway from the window a little, like it could jump up two stories.”

Gracie nodded She could see it, Atlas peering down at the shadows

“Louis,” she said

“Louis, that’s right.” Atlas smiled “There he is, steps out from behind thepear tree, not spooky at all, or playing a joke on me or anything He didn’teven know I was there.”

Louis, Gracie thought Louis in the light of the moon

“His hat was off And his scarf, too.” Atlas’s face went tight, and his voicedropped down “It hurt me Even now, even after all these years, it hurts me.With the baseball hat and the scarf, you forget.”

The hat and scarf Was there ever a time, Gracie asked herself, when Louisdidn’t wear them? Yes—and she saw herself, younger, and Louis a smallboy, as she lifted him to kiss the skin on his cheek for the sheer pleasure of it,her lips tasting the coolness of his skin

Atlas trailed his hand back and forth in the water “But he never forgets,does he? Wraps himself until he’s hidden from us.”

“And from Waverly,” said Gracie, watching the rippling water behindAtlas’s hand “From the fair citizens of Waverly.”

“Louis, our monster boy.” Atlas’s eyes cut to Louis crawling on thehillside “And what was our monster doing last night in the dark below mywindow? My God—sound the alarm, let the citizens light their torches andbrandish their clubs and pitchforks!”

Gracie reached for him, her hand moving out to stop his words fromechoing across the water to Louis, to stop them from entering her

But Atlas caught her hand in his and finished in a whisper “What was hedoing? Catching fireflies.”

Gracie’s eyes remained on Louis Not a monster, because what mothercould recognize or acknowledge that? What mother could abandon the dreamthat lived inside her, deny the one thing in this world she knows as certain,which is the absolute and everlasting beauty of her child? Yes, there was atime before he hid himself, a thousand times, and she closed her eyes andimmersed herself in them, moments within moments, so that she was able toreconstruct Louis from her memories, at all ages, from all angles, capturesimultaneously every mood that had ever shaped his face For the briefestinstant, there on the dock with her eyes closed against the reality of Louis onthe hillside, he was hers as he had once been, before he had drawn his purplecurtain across his face

Gracie chose from the memories that swirled before her “The fireflies,”she said

Atlas turned to her “Last night, you mean?”

“No,” she said “When he was six or seven.” Louis at six or seven Hisface, the lashes around his eyes “Remember?” she said quickly, speakingbefore the words caught in her throat “How he was about the fireflies, how

he wanted to put them in jars and sell them at the hardware store?”

“I remember,” Atlas said

“Sell different strengths, he said Some jars would have five fireflies, someten It’s funny to think that’s how the store seemed to him—a place where hisfather sold hammers, and paint, and for all he knew, jars with differentstrengths of fireflies.”

“He loved the store.” Atlas smiled suddenly “That’s why he thought ofshelves stocked with fireflies, and who knows what all The store is what hemisses most, I think All these years it’s been only four blocks away, and hehasn’t been able to get to it, could not bring himself to venture out on the

streets of Waverly even if he wore a hundred hats and scarves.”

Then Gracie saw Atlas find a memory, saw it take shape behind his eyes,watched him work his mouth in preparation for the telling of it Here we go,thought Gracie, there’s no stopping him now She was glad though, at leastfor the moment, to have his recollections quell her own

“Say,” he said, “you know how Louis will ask me about somebody whowas in some way connected to the store? How he does because he knows itwill make us both remember and move up and down the aisles again, the way

he and I used to when he was little?”

“Yes, I know.” Gracie leaned against one of the pilings on the dock, bracedherself really, because that’s what you did when Atlas was about to take off

on one of his tales

“Guess who he asked about last week?”

“Who?” She knew he didn’t want her to slow him down by actuallyguessing

“Mrs Meem.” And with that, Atlas’s flight began Gracie took a deepbreath and climbed on board beside him

“That’s right,” he said, “Mrs Meem and the dog She and Louis both feltthe same magic in the place, I think, the sheer excitement of beingsurrounded by so many miraculous things, over your head, in drawers,hanging from the ceiling, spilling out of boxes Louis was satisfied just to bethere amongst it all, but for Mrs Meem, it was more than she could bear.Brought out her criminal tendencies.” Atlas raised an eyebrow

“Poor Mrs Meem,” said Gracie, smiling

“Poor Mrs Meem? Rich Mrs Meem, you mean, rich with all the stuff shestole from my store! And tricky Mrs Meem, too, because she tricked me andLouis for the longest time, which was understandable Who could believe that

a fifty-year-old woman with a weakness for flowered dresses and fruited hatswould be snatching sixpenny nails and electrical tape? That big pocketbook

of hers should have been a clue, but on her frail arm it wasn’t, even when itbulged with half the contents of my store

“But of course, what really confused the picture,” said Atlas rubbing hischin, “was the dog.”

Gracie laughed If it was Mrs Meem who always got Atlas down therunway, then it was the dog who lifted him off the ground

“Laugh away, but you know that dog was unregenerate Nothing about itwas right That dog was so wrong you couldn’t stop staring at him He

mesmerized you! Which of course, we finally realized, was the plan Tobegin with, he swaggered, which is okay for a Newfoundland or a husky, butthis dog was terrier-sized, and as a rule you should never trust a little guywho swaggers His coat was gray, but to say coat suggests it covered himcompletely, when in fact it only sprouted out of him here and there That wayyou got a good look at his skin, which had moist pink areas, partially healedwounds from the battles he waged with his own flesh And then, of course,there was that smell and those eyes I believe the two were related in that hisgod-awful odor, which could not have come from him alone, but was perhapssomething dead and rotted he rolled in, something he applied to his pinkspots like a salve—I believe this overpowering stink caused his eyes to squintand cross, as if they had done everything they could to get away from it,rolled this way and that with such intensity the damage became permanent.And a dog with crossed eyes is a killer, anybody will tell you that, or at leastdangerous, and at a minimum up to no good.”

“Honestly, Atlas,” said Gracie, “he was unattractive, I’ll admit, but—”

“But nothing,” Atlas countered “He was the absolute worst, and you know

it, we knew it, me and Louis, and Yank Spiller, and everybody else knew it,

were helpless to do anything but eyeball that dog, while unbeknownst to us,Mrs Meem was easing her way to the back of the store All according to herplan She’d get herself back there, then to make sure no one looked in herdirection, she’d signal the dog with a dainty cough, and it would suddenlybreak away from the crowd that had formed around it and skitter downwhatever aisle Mrs Meem was not in Of course we’d chase after it When adog runs like that, you are compelled to chase after it But the dog was toofast, and there were too many of us in pursuit, knocking things off shelvesand bumping into each other, to gain on it The dog would suddenly skid to ahalt and look over his shoulder and give us a smile Louis always said heheard it laugh too, but I heard it as a growl, and so did the others Grin, laugh,

or growl, it stopped us in our tracks At which point, with a steely calm, thedog proceeded to lift its leg and release a mighty stream on my merchandise.”

“Oh, Atlas, please, not this part How many times…”

Atlas grinned at her, pleased to go on “You would swear, watching him as

we all intently did, that he took aim before he fired I once saw him, Gracie,”

he said, nudging her with his bare foot when she tried to ignore him, “I once

saw him place his flow between the claws of a rake and strike a roll of tar

paper And then there was the episode of the saturation of the cement bags

He soaked five of them, moving back and forth like a fireman working astubborn blaze.”

Atlas laughed, and so did Gracie “Well,” he went on, “while thiscommotion was taking place, Mrs Meem, alone and undetected in the otheraisle, scooped up the contents of my store and stuffed them into herpocketbook We never would have caught her except for the two cans ofyellow high-gloss exterior paint She was almost out the door, after one ofthese episodes, when Louis pointed to her pocketbook and said, ‘Mrs Meem,you’re leaking.’ The paint can lid had opened, drizzling the evidence all overher flowered dress and my wood floor She broke down, of course, andconfessed and generally caused a scene too painful to contemplate Louis wasmortified for her and kept whispering to me to please let her go, which I wascertainly going to do

“A week later she returned to the store, dog and all It became Louis’s job,from that day on, to monitor Mrs Meem and to account for everything shetook What did she steal? What didn’t she steal? Galvanized staples, woodglue, eye hooks, bailing twine, four feet of chain link, pieces of linoleum, abicycle tire repair kit Louis and I would go over the list and try to imaginethat Mrs Meem was building something large and complex, requiring oddand unrelated materials By arrangement with Pastor Meem, I presented him

a monthly bill, which he paid in full without comment.”

“You’re a good and decent man, Atlas Malone,” said Gracie

“Hush, woman, you’re trying to distract me from my finale.”

She sighed

“Well, as you may or may not know…”

“Would it matter?” she said

“As you may or may not know,” Atlas repeated with emphasis, “thebusiness with Mrs Meem and her dog went on for three years until it came to

an abrupt end one cold December morning It had to do with an electric floorheater and the dog finally picking the wrong target We chased the dog down

the aisle like always, and then when we saw dog, A, lift its leg and aim at electric heater, B, we all let out a simultaneous gasp I have to admit, in the

interest of scientific curiosity, we did nothing to intervene The spark thatjumped back and forth between the dog and the heater was a sight to behold.The dog died instantly, was thrown five feet into the air, and landed in agalvanized bucket, which I presented to Mrs Meem, dog and all,compliments of Malone’s Hardware Store.”

Atlas stretched out on the dock, grinning up at the sky.

“Every time you tell that story, it gets worse Galvanized bucket That’s alovely detail I don’t recall.”

“Ho-dee-ho,” said Atlas

“A galvanized bucket—not just a bucket.”

“Truth be told,” said Atlas, “it was Louis who provided that little detail.Also the color of the paint I always thought it was green Louis was right,though Yellow.”

“You two.”

Atlas sat up “Now if you want to talk details, you should have heard him

go on about Harvey Mastuzek last night There’s a story with details.” Atlasrubbed his chin and looked away

Gracie hesitated, but then had to ask “Harvey Mastuzek in the hardwarestore?”

Atlas still looked away “That’s right.”

“Harvey, who never leaves his house except to buy whiskey?”

“That’s right.”

“In our store?”

“You want to play Twenty Questions, or you want me to tell you about it?”Gracie looked at Atlas’s back as he sat dangling his legs over the end ofthe dock I could just give him a poke and over he’d go Give him thedousing he deserves “Tell me,” she said

“Well,” said Atlas, suddenly up on his feet and pacing back and forth overthe wooden planks, his hands moving, his elbows pumping at his sides,everything charged up and ready to go, “well, Mrs Meem and her dog, that’s

a pair we all remember But Louis, whose intentions are often morecomplicated than we can know, sometimes he’ll reach deep and pull upsomebody we would never consider, somebody he’ll choose to enliven hisrecollections of the store Like Harvey Mastuzek ‘Remember HarveyMastuzek?’ he said ‘Remember the time he came into the store?’ No, I said

‘You don’t?’ his voice incredulous, but kind of sly and amused, too, like hecaught you not paying attention to something really important, but on theother hand not important at all, or important in a way you couldn’t imaginewas important unless you were Louis.”

Gracie clutched the edge of the dock

“He proceeded to tell me the long and complicated story of HarveyMastuzek, longer and more complicated, if you can believe it, than any of my

stories, and filled with nuances inside of nuances, most of which I missed andwon’t attempt to repeat Louis went on for an hour, maybe two, about thetime, now hold tight, Gracie, about the time Mr Mastuzek came into the storeand bought a black rubber washer That’s right, a thoroughly unremarkableman enters my hardware store for the first and only time in his life andpurchases, in a transaction that could not have taken more than three minutesfrom start to finish, one thirteen-cent washer for his faucet Louis’srecounting of that transaction was beautiful and frightening He describedHarvey Mastuzek’s every feature—not just how he looked, but right down tospeculating on when he last shaved and were those sideburns beside each ear,

or simply missed hairs, missed hairs for God’s sake, Gracie He went on

about his sharp whiskey odor, the way he spoke and cleared his throat and

breathed, the way he moved, what he wore, where he might have bought

what he wore, whether or not what he wore was appropriate for the season

On and on Then Louis discussed the journey down the middle aisle withHarvey Mastuzek and what they saw, what was displayed on the counters,what was on the Peg-Board hooks, the size of the Phillips screwdrivers, howmuch a ball-peen hammer cost, actually getting the correct cost for thatparticular year, Gracie And then the search for the right rubber washer Louisholding one up, then Harvey Mastuzek taking it and moving under the light

to get a better look, then shaking his head no, and Louis holding another one

up, until they finally find the right size That’s the transcendent moment forLouis, the look that passes between him and Harvey Mastuzek, therecognition of rightness—the discovery of the rubber washer that will do thejob But there’s more, Gracie.”

And Gracie thought, Of course there’s more It is the essence of Louis togive more, to reveal, even as he himself remains unrevealed My shadowedboy, throwing light upon everything, the brilliance of your gaze causing us tolook everywhere but at you “Yes,” said Gracie, “more.”

“Then he tells me about the return trip up the aisle, past all the same stuff,but the perspective is different now, not just because they are moving up theaisle instead of down it, but because the discovery of the absolutely rightwasher has colored his view, has put a glow on everything, an aura At last,they get to the cash register and money changes hands, thirteen cents—that’sone buffalo nickel, and one Jefferson nickel, and three pennies It takes Louisten more minutes of description to move Harvey Mastuzek away from thecash register and out the door, and when it’s all over, Louis lifts his eyes and

peers at me from behind his baseball hat and his scarf He wanted to see if Ihad gotten it Of course I hadn’t I was exhausted I had heard the story, but Ihadn’t heard the story hidden inside the story.”

Atlas knelt beside Gracie and lightly touched her arm She looked up athim “This morning, I got it,” he said “I was brushing my teeth and it came

to me, like Louis timed it to go off that way, after a night’s rest.”

“The story inside the story.”

“Yes The way he saw it, Harvey Mastuzek could walk into the store onlyone time It was Mrs Meem all over again, as Louis perceived it The magicabundance of the store overwhelmed him, too—the curative potential, thecascade of visual and sensual stimuli—but Harvey responded the opposite ofMrs Meem Where she had to immerse herself again and again, to possessbecause simple contact was not enough, Harvey Mastuzek had to stay away,look once, and then stay away Like a quick glance at the burning sun Sothat’s why, in Louis’s mind, Harvey Mastuzek’s three minutes in the storemerited two hours of recollection And no doubt he gave me the abridgedversion A premiere moment in Harvey Mastuzek’s life took place beforeLouis’s eyes, so Louis had to give it the meticulous attention it deserved

“But wait, right? The shelves of Malone’s Hardware Store contained nomagic, just hammers and saws, and duct tape, and putty knives Where’s themagic that compelled these people? The fireflies, Gracie Squeezed inbetween the roofing nails and the wire clippers, or somewhere, who knowswhere, Louis saw the different-strength fireflies Because Louis saw them, hebelieved Mrs Meem and Harvey Mastuzek saw them, too And the firefliesimbued everything in the store with their luminescent halo Here’s another

way of putting it: To a certain kind of person, a hardware store is a holy

place There, that’s a good moral to the story.” Now Atlas was beside Gracie,

and together they sat, arms around each other as they watched their distantson moving in the grass of the hillside When Atlas spoke again, it was in awhisper

“So last night, Gracie, I got up out of bed and saw Louis out among thefireflies, not wearing his baseball hat or scarf I tried to see his face in the dimmoonlight I tried to look, as I have never been able to in all these years Buteven from a distance, and in the softest light of fireflies and moon, I couldn’t

He gave me a chance to see him, because he must have sensed by then that Iwas there But I turned away The slightest turn of my head, away He knew

it How many times have I done that, and how many times has he known it?

When you say, ‘Everything that’s happened we’ve borne together,’ that’s nottrue, Gracie You changed the dressings, you applied the ointments, youlooked him full in the face and did what had to be done And I turn my headaway.”

“Atlas.”

“There’s too much, and I don’t have the strength for it, Gracie There’s toomuch of everything I couldn’t do it I couldn’t do Louis And I couldn’t livewithout you That’s why I must go before you I’m sorry.”

Atlas was done They sat on the end of the dock and together watchedLouis He knelt in the grass, then a moment later waved and pointed tosomething he held in his hand A perfect strawberry

Atlas reached behind Gracie and found her brush in her canvas bag Hebegan to brush her white hair Gracie closed her eyes and mistook the smell

of pond water for the sea, and thought she was in Atlantic City

CHAPTER FIVE

LOUIS WATCHED the funeral from the car He had come downstairs an hourbefore, as Gracie was readying herself When she turned around, he wasstanding in her doorway dressed in a coat and tie She expected the hat andscarf—it was the coat and tie that looked odd

“Look at you,” she said

“Three words guaranteed to make a recluse cringe,” said Louis He made asound that was his laugh

Gracie smiled “I haven’t seen that coat in years.”

“Since I was sixteen.” At sixteen it all stopped for Louis, or was put away,

or was in some way changed “Does the coat smell like mothballs? I mean, Iknow it does, it’s had mothballs in the pockets for sixteen years But is itoverpowering?” He leaned close

Gracie sniffed She had been crying off and on since she got up, so shedidn’t smell a thing “It’s fine, Louis Really.”

“Good,” he said

“You’re thirty-two and you still fit in the coat you wore when you weresixteen That’s not bad.”

She turned away and began to fix her hair “Louis,” she said at last

He was at the window peering out at the street He knew all the windows

in all the rooms and how to look out of them He knew how not to be seen, ofcourse, knew what the sun revealed as he stood just so behind a curtain or ashade And the sun was always changing, so on cloudy days he had to adjusthimself this way or that, or alter his stance in the afternoon from what it hadbeen in the morning Bright days, rainy days, light reflected from the whitesnow or from the green of a summer lawn—all affected the way he stood athis windows Even at night he was wary, of streetlights, passing cars, andsometimes the moon Stars, too For someone who does not wish to be seen,even the light from stars must be considered Sometimes, though, he did wish

to be seen He liked to play with Kitty Wilson She couldn’t keep her eyes offthe windows as she passed by on the street, craning her neck, teeth clamped

on a cigarette, squinting through her makeup He’d flutter curtains and jiggleshades, and her mouth would widen, and if the window was open he couldalmost hear her panting When she finally gave up and turned to go, he’dreveal himself completely, there and then gone, and she’d freeze, notknowing if it was a trick of the sun or her imagination, or if he’d really beenstanding behind the glass.

“Louis,” Gracie said again

He turned and faced her

“The coat Were you thinking… are you coming to the funeral?”

He moved toward her, then paused and went back to the window “JimRose is here In a big silver car.”

Gracie rose instantly and brushed past Louis “I told him I didn’t want anynonsense I’m not paying for the privilege of riding in a car owned by BigBill I already told Mary Dickson I’d go with her Those Roses will doanything to squeeze a nickel out of you Vampires sucking nickels out of thebereaved.”

Louis put a hand to her face, and she stopped He said, “Gracie, I’d like toride in that car.”

“You’re coming?” she said, drawing him close “Louis, there’ll be people.All sorts of people.”

“I’d like to ride in the car And I’d like to go to Atlas’s funeral.”

“Louis, why? It’s just so much.”

He looked out the window at Jim Rose starting up the walk, then he lookedbeyond him as far as he could see, which was not far enough “Gracie, I’vetried all the windows Even the tiny dormer in the attic If there was a way Icould see the cemetery from this house, I wouldn’t go.”

“But Atlas would tell you the cemetery part doesn’t matter It’s just a showfor his friends, for the people he worked with He’s already gone, Louis, andwe’re just burying the shell.”

The doorbell rang Then Louis said, “I know he’s gone.” A movement inthe air, a soft beating of wings, and he was gone “I know But if I go, I’llbelieve I’ve forgiven him If I can leave this house in daylight, for everyone

to see, if I can do that, I’ll believe I loved him even when he turned away.”Gracie’s voice barely reached him “He loved you.”

“And now he’ll know that I loved him.”

They held each other, then Louis said, “You sure, now?”

She cocked her head

“You sure you can’t smell mothballs?”

Gracie went downstairs and opened the door for Jim Rose He was readyfor her, getting his words out first Louis heard him say, “Mrs Malone, Iknow that transportation was not part of your original funeral package.”

“That’s right, Mr Jim Rose,” she said “And if you think you canbamboozle—”

“Someone has stepped in on your behalf, Mrs Malone Someone issatisfying all the financial aspects of this day, so that you may attend to morepressing emotional needs without hinderment.” He held out an envelope toher

“Hindrance,” said Louis, stepping into the foyer

Jim Rose, who had spent years perfecting his professional composure, thatlook of unflappable blankness, took a large step backwards and widened hiseyes

Louis was pleased, because he was at least as nervous as Jim Rose, but hecould see now it would go undetected

“Hello, Jim Good to see you.” The scarf filtered the shakiness in his voiceJim Rose took a breath “Louis Good to see you.” The words wereespecially meaningless, since it was impossible to see anything of Louis buthis eyes

The two men faced each other The last time they had been together was inhigh school, the day before Louis’s accident, showering with the other boysafter gym class The usual chaos prevailed—towel-snapping fights, waterskirmishes, tossing soap bars But one boy didn’t join in the fun Louisspotted Jim Rose scurrying toward his locker, not even bothering to dry off

He was hiding something, something just below his waist Unfortunately, and

of course inevitably, all the other boys spotted him, too What had happened

to Jim Rose was the one thing, that most dreaded of things, all boys pray willnever happen while taking a shower with fifty other boys It could have beenany of them, and they were all so grateful it wasn’t, they decided to sacrificeJim Rose to the gods They immediately attacked, all except Louis and a fewother decent souls, taunting him, pelting him with soap bars, snapping at his

erection with their rat-tailed towels Mr Hollister, the gym teacher, finallybroke it up, and then punished the victim, not the victimizers, giving JimRose an unprecedented twenty-five detentions What especially enraged Mr.Hollister was that male sexual anatomy was not going to be taught in healthclass for another two weeks, and Jim Rose had obviously read ahead in thetextbook The boys added their own little punishment, giving him anickname, substituting Dick for Jim, so that his name forever identified hissin: Dick Rose.

Louis reached out across sixteen years and offered his hand Jim Rosedidn’t take it Instead he offered the envelope he had held out to Gracie.Louis took it, and handed it to her She read it aloud

“My sympathies are with you on this sad occasion Please accept this smallgesture, so that I can be satisfied that my account with Atlas is now closed.Know that God watches over all of his angels Pastor Meem.” She looked atLouis, then said, “Well, well, well.”

Gracie called Mary Dickson Louis and Jim Rose stood silently in thefoyer Jim Rose’s professional composure returned Louis could feel JimRose eyeing him Louis itched beneath his scarf and he reached up to adjust

it Jim Rose sucked in his breath in panic, and Louis realized Jim Rosethought he was about to remove the scarf

Louis whispered, “No I’d never…,” and then Gracie reappeared

Jim Rose went out to the car Louis, with Gracie at his side, stood on thefront porch in the sunlight He trembled Gracie began to repeat softly,

“There, there Come on now Come on now,” as if calming a bewilderedanimal

Which Louis was From his windows he had seen the front walk, the greengrass, the azaleas, the dogwood, every day for sixteen years And often atnight, he had touched the dogwood, moved among the azaleas But the sun…

he had lived so long out of the revealing sun Only at the farm did he darewalk in the light He looked around, at his street, at the world of Waverly, ateverything that was familiar, and knew that he was the object out of place, ashadow on the shadowless land The sun The sun in the grass, shiningthrough each blade, and on the leaves of the dogwood, and on the azaleas,impossibly lit, and the incandescent shimmer of the mica in the cement walk

He closed his eyes

“Flames,” he whispered, and hid his face on Gracie’s shoulder

“Come on now, Louis No flames, no flames,” she whispered back “I’ll

take you in Let me take you in.”

In Louis opened his eyes and the flames began to recede In Where it was

cool, and dim, where he could watch the overbright world in safety

“Take me in,” he said He saw Jim Rose standing beside the open car door,waiting

In the foyer again, Gracie said, “You’ll be all right here, Louis Wait forme—I’ll be back soon You’ll be all right?”

Through the screen door of the house that had been his safety for years andyears, Louis saw Jim Rose standing beside the open car door Without aword, he suddenly brushed past Gracie, pushed on the screen, and broke into

a run down the walk toward the car Jim Rose jumped aside as Louis doveonto the leather upholstery of the backseat He made it He made it throughthe flames

Gracie hurried up to the car, looked at Louis, then got in beside him JimRose closed the door behind them and walked around to the driver’s seat.Gracie adjusted Louis’s scarf and brushed at his coat sleeve as the car startedup

“There,” he said “Nothing to it.”

He held Gracie’s hand as the car moved slowly along He spared himself,did not look out the window There was too much to see; he didn’t want touse himself up before the funeral So he watched the back of Jim Rose’sneck, or kept his eyes downward and studied the upholstery, the hem onGracie’s dark dress, the tips of his shoes He imagined leaving a wake ofgawking people behind as the car passed along the streets of Waverly toRose’s Funeral Home Women catching a glimpse of him and dropping theirbags of groceries Children swerving and falling off their bicycles Old men

on their porches slumping in their chairs Dogs howling, and birds takingflight Phones ringing all over town: Did you see, did you see? He’s out.They’ve let him out I’m telling you, I saw him Louis made himself smaller

He stayed in the car during the short service at Rose’s The car was parkedaround back, away from the guest lot He peeked out the window and sawJim Rose by a dumpster talking to an immensely fat old man who leaned on acane Big Bill Big for fat, not tall The cane looked as if it was about to snap.Jim Rose pointed over to the car Louis pushed back against the seat JimRose had betrayed him Big Bill would come and press his fat nose againstthe window Jim Rose, Jim Rose, I didn’t betray you in the locker room Isaw you but did not say a word Louis closed his eyes and saw himself in the