driver gunned the engine. Michael zippered up his jacket and went in the direction of the footsteps.
The night outside was cloudy and there was no moon. A line of evergreens separated the quarter-acre of yard beside the house from the road it fronted. He walked to the closest tree and saw a figure motionless against the pale phosphorescence of a soiled snowbank. Immediately he recognized the figure of his son.
The sight of Paul in the snow triggered unreasoning panic. Yet instead of calling him, Michael watched and waited. Paul was crouching behind the bank, chipping away at the side of it, gathering up the icy snow and packing it into snowballs.
When the next pair of high beams lit the road, Paul raised himself for a quick look over the jagged parapet. As the car approached, he pressed himself against the snow wall, cradling a supply of snowballs like an infantryman with a string of grenades. At the crucial moment, he stood up and let go with the chunks, passing them left hand to right, hurling them sidearm at the passing car. After each throw, he shouted something Michael could not make out.
Michael took a few measured steps over the snow toward the boy's position. Another car came up; he hung back. Watching Paul, he could tell even in the darkness that the boy was in distress. After releasing the last snowball of his fusillade, he would crouch and clench his fists and utter the little cry. Then the last car went by untouched and Paul was out of ammunition.
"Paul?"
His son stiffened as though struck. He spun around and took a false step as if to run, first to one side then to the other.
"Hey, buddy. Just be cool."
Paul doubled up, weeping. Michael walked out and put an arm around his shoulder and started walking him inside.
"Don't you think you could cause an accident doing that?" He spoke gently and his easiness was unaffected; he was not angry. "Do you want someone to run off the road?"
Paul pulled away from him.
"Ice can break a window, man," he said. Paul broke for the house and vanished into it.
Michael followed him in, waited a few minutes and then went upstairs to Paul's room. The room was dark and Paul was huddled under the quilt. All of his bedtime rituals had gone unobserved. No time for a read from the books neatly tucked beside the lamp, no notes to himself in his mother's scrupulous hand. His teeth went unbrushed and there were no evening prayers. Michael was not about to push it.
"I hope you know," he said, "that you can talk about anything with me. The troubles you have are very likely to be similar to the ones I had. Often it helps to talk." He did not really expect a reply and he did not get one. "And of course your mother is here for you too."
All the same, he could not keep from trying again.
"Sometimes you think, Why me? But we all make the same mistakes usually. Everybody feels awkward sometimes."
At Paul's age, he thought, he would have been told: Offer it up. Redeem the world through your humiliations. He had always thought that brutal, but all at once it did not seem so bad. It was a way of making children believe their suffering could mean something.
In the darkness before his son's room he felt the vertigo of the shifting world. Stop, he thought. Go back. To the sweet order that had prevailed when life was innocent and carefree. Standing there, he could almost believe things had been that way. Of course there was still time.
8
S HE FLEW first class from Minneapolis on their money. They allowed her a small suite at the Mayflower and, for the last time, she thought, a uniformed chauffeur waited behind the security gate at Reagan National. She thought it might be a good idea to register the chauffeur's face. The day might come when she would be desperately avoiding him at airports, hiding. He was a huge-shouldered
cholo
with a Chac mask of a face.
As he put her single bag in the trunk, the thin lines of a smile displaced his stone god's countenance. He had permitted himself a
The night outside was cloudy and there was no moon. A line of evergreens separated the quarter-acre of yard beside the house from the road it fronted. He walked to the closest tree and saw a figure motionless against the pale phosphorescence of a soiled snowbank. Immediately he recognized the figure of his son.
The sight of Paul in the snow triggered unreasoning panic. Yet instead of calling him, Michael watched and waited. Paul was crouching behind the bank, chipping away at the side of it, gathering up the icy snow and packing it into snowballs.
When the next pair of high beams lit the road, Paul raised himself for a quick look over the jagged parapet. As the car approached, he pressed himself against the snow wall, cradling a supply of snowballs like an infantryman with a string of grenades. At the crucial moment, he stood up and let go with the chunks, passing them left hand to right, hurling them sidearm at the passing car. After each throw, he shouted something Michael could not make out.
Michael took a few measured steps over the snow toward the boy's position. Another car came up; he hung back. Watching Paul, he could tell even in the darkness that the boy was in distress. After releasing the last snowball of his fusillade, he would crouch and clench his fists and utter the little cry. Then the last car went by untouched and Paul was out of ammunition.
"Paul?"
His son stiffened as though struck. He spun around and took a false step as if to run, first to one side then to the other.
"Hey, buddy. Just be cool."
Paul doubled up, weeping. Michael walked out and put an arm around his shoulder and started walking him inside.
"Don't you think you could cause an accident doing that?" He spoke gently and his easiness was unaffected; he was not angry. "Do you want someone to run off the road?"
Paul pulled away from him.
"Ice can break a window, man," he said. Paul broke for the house and vanished into it.
Michael followed him in, waited a few minutes and then went upstairs to Paul's room. The room was dark and Paul was huddled under the quilt. All of his bedtime rituals had gone unobserved. No time for a read from the books neatly tucked beside the lamp, no notes to himself in his mother's scrupulous hand. His teeth went unbrushed and there were no evening prayers. Michael was not about to push it.
"I hope you know," he said, "that you can talk about anything with me. The troubles you have are very likely to be similar to the ones I had. Often it helps to talk." He did not really expect a reply and he did not get one. "And of course your mother is here for you too."
All the same, he could not keep from trying again.
"Sometimes you think, Why me? But we all make the same mistakes usually. Everybody feels awkward sometimes."
At Paul's age, he thought, he would have been told: Offer it up. Redeem the world through your humiliations. He had always thought that brutal, but all at once it did not seem so bad. It was a way of making children believe their suffering could mean something.
In the darkness before his son's room he felt the vertigo of the shifting world. Stop, he thought. Go back. To the sweet order that had prevailed when life was innocent and carefree. Standing there, he could almost believe things had been that way. Of course there was still time.
8
S HE FLEW first class from Minneapolis on their money. They allowed her a small suite at the Mayflower and, for the last time, she thought, a uniformed chauffeur waited behind the security gate at Reagan National. She thought it might be a good idea to register the chauffeur's face. The day might come when she would be desperately avoiding him at airports, hiding. He was a huge-shouldered
cholo
with a Chac mask of a face.
As he put her single bag in the trunk, the thin lines of a smile displaced his stone god's countenance. He had permitted himself a
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