Frowning, Agnes said. 'Yes, those stories. Sweetie, when Uncle Edom and Uncle Jacob go on about big storms blowing people away and explosions blowing people up? that's not what life's about.'
'It happens,' the boy said.
'Yes. Yes, it does.'
Agnes had struggled recently to find a way to explain to Barty that his uncles had lost their hope, to convey also what it meant to live without hope-and somehow to tell the boy all this without burdening him, at such a young age, with the details of what his monstrous grandfather, Agnes's father, had done to her and to her brothers. The task was beyond her abilities. The fact that Barty was a prodigy six times over didn't make his mother's work easier, because in order to understand her, he would require experience and emotional maturity, not just intellect.
Frustrated again, she said simply, 'Whenever Edom and Jacob talk about these things, I want you to be sure always to keep in mind that life's about living and being happy, not about dying.'
'I wish they knew that,' Barty said.
For those five words, Agnes adored him.
'So do I, honey. Oh, Lord, so do I.' She kissed his forehead. 'Listen, kiddo, in spite of their stories and all their funny ways, your uncles are good men.'
'Sure, I know.'
'And they love you very much.'
'I love them, too, Mommy.'
Earlier, the dirty-sheet clouds had been wrung dry. Now, the trees that overhung the house had finally stopped dripping on the cedar shingled roof The night was so still that Agnes could hear the sea softly breaking upon the shore more than half a mile away.
'Sleepy?' she asked.
'A little.'
'Santa Claus won't come if you don't sleep.'
'I'm not sure he's real.'
'What makes you say that?'
'Something I read.'
A pang of regret pierced her, that her boy's precocity should deny him this fine fantasy, as her morose father had denied it to her. 'He's real,' she asserted.
'You think so?'
'I don't just think so. And I don't just know it. I feel it, exactly like you feel all the ways things are. I'll bet you feel it, too.'
Bright though they were at all times, Barty's Tiffany eyes shone brighter now with beams of North Pole magic. 'Maybe I do feel it.'
'If you don't, your feeling gland isn't working. Want me to read you to sleep?'
'No, that's okay. I'll close my eyes and tell myself a story.'
She kissed his cheek, and he pulled his arms out from under the covers to hug her. Such small arms, but such a fierce hug.
As she tucked the bedclothes around him again, she said, 'Barty, I don't think you should let anyone else see how you can walk in the rain without getting wet. Not Edom and Jacob. Not anyone at all. And anything else special that you discover you can do? we should keep it a secret between you and me.'
'Why?'
Furrowing her brow and narrowing her eyes as though prepared to scold him, she slowly lowered her face to his, until their noses were touching, and she whispered, 'Because it's more fun if it's secret.'
Matching his mother's whisper, taking obvious delight in their conspiracy, he said, 'Our own secret society.'
'What would you know about secret societies?'
'Just what's in books and TV'
'Which is?' His eyes widened, and his voice became husky with pretended fear. 'They're always? evil.
Her whisper grew softer yet more hoarse. 'Should we be evil?'
'Maybe.'
'What happens to people in evil secret societies?'
'They go to jail,' he whispered solemnly.
'Then let's not be evil.'
'Okay.'
'Ours will be a good secret society.'
'We gotta have a secret handshake.'
'Nah. Every secret society has a secret handshake. We'll have this instead.' Her face was still close to his, and she rubbed noses with him.
He stifled a giggle. 'And a secret word.'
'Eskimo.'
'And a name.'
'The North Pole Society of Not Evil Adventurers.'
'That's a great name!'
Agnes rubbed noses with him again, kissed him, and rose from the edge of the bed.
Gazing up at her, Barty said, 'You've got a halo, Mommy.'
'You're sweet, kiddo.'
'No, you really do.'
She switched off the lamp. 'Sleep tight, angel boy.'
The soft hallway light didn't penetrate far past the open door.
From the plush pillowy shadows of the bed, Barty said, 'Oh, look. Christmas lights.'
Assuming that the boy had closed his eyes and was talking to himself, somewhere between his self-told bedtime story and a dream, Agnes retreated from the room, pulling the door only half shut behind her.
'Good-night, Mommy.'
'Good-night,' she whispered.
She switched off the hall light and stood at the half-open door, listening, waiting.
Such quiet filled the house that Agnes couldn't hear even the murmuring miseries of the past.
Although she had never seen snow other than in pictures and on film, this deep-settled silence seemed to speak of failing flakes, of white muffling mantles, and she wouldn't have been in the least surprised if, stepping outside, she had found herself in a glorious winter landscape, cold and crystalline, here on the always-snowless hills and shores of the California Pacific.
Her special son, walking where the rain wasn't, had made all things seem possible.
From, the darkness of his room, Barty now spoke the words for which Agnes had been waiting, his whisper soft yet resonant in the quiet house: 'Good-night, Daddy.'
On other nights, she had overheard this and been touched. On this Christmas Eve, however, it filled her with wonder and wondering, for she recalled their conversation earlier, at Joey's grave:
I wish your dad could have known you.
Somewhere, he does. Daddy died here, but be didn't die every place I am. it's lonely for me here, but not lonely for me everywhere.
Soundlessly, reluctantly, Agnes pulled the bedroom door nearly shut, and went down to the kitchen, where she sat alone, drinking coffee and nibbling at mysteries. Of all the gifts that Barty opened on Christmas morning, the hardback copy of Robert Heinlein's The Star Beast was his favorite. Instantly enchanted by the promise of an amusing alien creature, space travel, an exotic future, and lots of adventure, he seized every opportunity throughout the busy day to crack open those pages and to step out of Bright Beach into stranger places.
As outgoing as his twin uncles were introverted, Barty didn't withdraw from the festivities. Agnes never needed to remind him that family and guests took precedence over even the most fascinating characters in fiction, and the boy's delight in the company of others pleased his mother and made her proud.
From late morning until dinner, people arrived and departed, raised toasts to a merry Christmas and to peace
