From the Corner of His Eye

'Where do you get new eyes?'

'The supermarket.'

'Don't you tease me,' Angel said. 'You're not one of them.'

'One of who?'

'Grownups. It's okay if they do it. But if you do it, it'll be just mean.'

'All right. I get my new eyes from a doctor. They're not real eyes, just plastic, to fill in where my eyes used to be.'

'Why?'

'To support my eyelids. And because without anything in the sockets, I look gross. People barf. Old ladies pass out. Little girls like you Pee their pants and run screaming.'

'Show me,' Angel said.

'Did you bring clean pants?'

'You afraid to show me?'

The patches were held by the same two elastic strips, so Barty flipped up both at the same time.

Ferocious pirates, ruthless secret agents, brain-eating aliens from distant galaxies, super criminals hell-bent on ruling the world, bloodthirsty vampires, face-gnawing werewolves, savage Gestapo thugs, mad scientists, satanic cultists, insane carnival freaks, hate-crazed Ku Klux Klansmen, knife-worshiping thrill killers, and emotionless robot soldiers from other planets had slashed, stabbed, burned, shot, gouged, torn, clubbed, crushed, stomped, hanged, bitten, eviscerated, beheaded, poisoned, drowned, radiated, blown up, mangled, mutilated, and tortured uncounted victims in the pulp magazines that Paul had been reading since childhood. Yet not one scene in those hundreds upon hundreds of issues of colorful tales withered a corner of his soul as did a glimpse of Barty's empty sockets. The sight wasn't in the least gory, nor even gruesome. Paul cringed and looked away only because this evidence of the boy's loss too pointedly made him think about the terrible vulnerability of the innocent in the freight-train path of nature, and threatened to tear off the fragile scab on the anguish that he still felt over Perri's death.

Instead of staring at Barty directly, he watched Angel as she studied the eyeless boy. She had exhibited no horror at the concave slackness of his closed lids, and when one lid fluttered up to reveal the dark hollow socket, she hadn't shown any revulsion. Now she moved closer to Barty's chair, and when she touched his cheek, just below his missing left eye, the boy didn't flinch in surprise.

'Were you scared?' she asked.

'Plenty.'

'Did it hurt?'

'Not much.'

'Are you scared now?'

'Mostly not.'

'But sometimes?'

'Sometimes.'

Paul realized that the kitchen had fallen silent, that the women had turned to the two children and now stood as motionless as figures in a waxworks tableau.

'You remember things?' the girl asked, her fingertips still pressed lightly to his cheek.

'You mean how they look?'

'Yeah.'

'Sure, I remember. It's only been fifteen days.'

'Will you forget?'

'I'm not sure. Maybe.'

Celestina, standing next to Agnes, put an arm around her waist, as perhaps she had once been in the habit of doing with her sister.

Angel moved her hand to Barty's right eye, and again he didn't twitch with surprise when her fingers lightly touched his closed and sagging lid. 'I won't let you forget.'

'How does that work?'

'I can see,' she said. 'And I can talk like your book talks.'

'For sure, you can talk,' Barty agreed.

'So what I am is I'm your talking eyes.' Lowering her hand from his face, Angel said, 'Do you know where bacon comes from?'

'Pigs.'

'How's something so delicious come from a fat, smelly, dirty, snorting old pig?'

Barty shrugged. 'A bright yellow lemon sure looks sweet.'

'So you say pie. ' Angel asked.

'What else?'

'You still say pig?'

'Yeah. Bacon comes from pigs.'

'That's what I think. Can I have an orange soda?'

'I'll get one for you,' he said.

'I saw where it was.'

She got a can of soda, returned to the table, and sat down as if finished with her explorations. 'You're okay, Barty.'

'You too.'

Edom and Jacob arrived, dinner was served, and while the food was wonderful, the conversation was better-even though the twins occasionally shared their vast knowledge of train wrecks and deadly volcanic eruptions. Paul didn't contribute much to the talk, because he preferred to bask in it. If he hadn't known any of these people, if he had walked into the room while they were in the middle of dinner, he would have thought they were family, because the warmth and the intimacy-and in the twins' case, the eccentricity-of the conversation were not what he expected of such newly made friends. There was no pretense, no falsity, and no avoidance of any awkward subject, which meant there were sometimes tears, because the death of Reverend White was such a fresh wound in the hearts of those who loved him. But in the healing ways of women that remained mysterious to Paul even as he watched them do their work, tears were followed by reminiscences that brought a smile and soothed, and hope was always found to be the flower that bloomed from every seed of hopelessness.

When Agnes was surprised to discover that Barty's name had been inspired by the reverend's famous sermon, Paul was startled. He had heard 'This Momentous Day' on its first broadcast, and learning that it would be rerun three weeks later by popular demand, he'd urged Joey to listen. Joey had heard it on Sunday, the second of January, 1965-just four days before the birth of his son.

'He must've listened on the car radio,' Agnes said, digging down into the layered days in her packed trunk of memories. 'He was trying to get ahead of his work, so he'd be able to stay around the house a lot during the week after the baby came. So he arranged to meet with some prospective clients even on Sunday. He was working a lot, and I was trying to deliver my pies and meet my other obligations before the big day. We didn't have as much time together as usual, and even as impressed as he must've been with the sermon, he never had a chance to tell me about it. The next-to-last thing he ever said to me was 'Bartholomew.' He wanted me to name the baby Bartholomew.'

This bond between the Lampion and White families, which Grace had already heard about from Paul, came as news to Celestina as much as to Agnes. It inspired more reminiscences of lost husbands and the wistful wish that Joey and Harrison could have met.

'I wish my Rico could have met your Harrison, too,' Maria told Grace, referring to the husband who had abandoned her. 'Maybe the reverend could've done with words what I couldn't do with my foot in Rico's trasero.'

Barty said, 'That's Spanish for 'ass.''

Angel found this hysterical, and Agnes said long-sufferingly, 'Thank you for the language lesson, Master Lampion.'

What didn't come as a surprise to Paul was Agnes's determination that the Whites, during their period of lying low, should stay with her and Barty.