At the bottom of the slope, the road turned left, out of sight. Between that turn below and the crest of the hill, which he had just topped, the two-lane blacktop was deserted.
According to his watch, Laura would be dead in a minute. Two minutes at most.
He suddenly realized that he should never have tried to drive toward the Packards, not after he had arrived so late. Instead he should have given up the idea of stopping the Packards and should have tried instead to identify and stop the Robertsons' vehicle farther back on the road to Arrowhead. That would have worked just as well.
Too late now.
Stefan had no time to go back, nor could he risk driving farther north toward the Packards. He did not know the exact moment of their deaths, not to the second, but that catastrophe was now approaching swiftly. If he tried to go even another half mile and stop them before they arrived at this fateful incline, he might reach the bottom of the slope and, in taking the turn, pass them going the other way, at which point he would not be able to swing around and catch up with them and stop them before the Robertsons' truck hit them head-on.
He braked gently and angled across the ascending southbound lane, stopping the Jeep on a wide portion of that shoulder of the road about halfway down the slope, so close to the embankment that he could not get out of the driver's door. His heart was thudding almost painfully as he shifted the Jeep into park, put on the emergency brake, cut the engine, slid across the seat, and got out the passenger-side door.
The blowing snow and icy air stung his face, and all along the mountainside the wind shrieked and howled like many voices, perhaps the voices of the three sisters of Greek myth, the Fates, mocking him for his desperate attempt to prevent what they had ordained.
9
After receiving editorial suggestions, Laura undertook an easy revision of
It was such a busy year for Laura and Danny that she was only peripherally aware of the Iranian hostage crisis and presidential campaign, and even more vaguely cognizant of the countless fires, plane crashes, toxic spills, mass murders, floods, earthquakes, and other tragedies that constituted the news. That was the year the rabbit died. That was the year she and Danny bought their first house — a four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath, Spanish model in Orange Park Acres — and moved out of the apartment in Tustin. She started her third novel,
The boy entered the world at 2:23 p.m. in a greater rush of blood than that which usually carried babies out of their prenatal darkness. Pain-racked and hemorrhaging, Laura required three pints during the afternoon and evening. She spent a better night than expected, however, and by morning she was sore, weary, but well out of danger.
The following day during visiting hours, Thelma Ackerson came to see the baby and the new mother. Still dressed punkish and ahead of her time — hair long on the left side of her head, with a white streak like the bride of Frankenstein, and short on the right side, with no streak — she breezed into Laura's private room, went straight to Danny, threw her arms around him, hugged him hard, and said, 'God, you're big. You're a mutant. Admit it, Packard, your mother might have been human, but your father was lightning a grisly bear.' She came to the bed where Laura was propped up against three pillows, kissed her on the forehead and then on the cheek. 'I went to the nursery before I came here, had a peek at Christopher Robert through the glass, and he's adorable. But I think you're going to need all the millions you can make from your books, kiddo, because that boy is going to take after his father, and your food bill's going to run thirty thousand a month. Until you get him housebroken, he'll be eating your furniture.'
Laura said, 'I'm glad you came, Thelma.'
'Would I miss it? Maybe if I was playing a Mafia-owned club in Bayonne, New Jersey, and had to cancel out part of a date to fly back, maybe
Almost two years ago Thelma had finally gotten time on the stage at the Improv, and she'd been a hit. She landed an agent and began to get paid bookings in sleazy, third-rate — and eventually second-rate — clubs across the country. Laura and Danny had driven into Los Angeles twice to see her perform, and she had been hilarious; she wrote her own material and delivered it with the comic timing she had possessed since childhood but had honed in the intervening years. Her act had one unusual aspect that would either make her a national phenomenon or ensure her obscurity: Woven through the jokes was a strong thread of melancholy, a sense of the tragedy of life that existed simultaneously with the wonder and humor of it. In fact it was similar to the tone of Laura's novels, but what appealed to book readers was less likely to appeal to audiences who had paid for belly laughs.
Now Thelma leaned across the bed railing, peered closely at Laura and said, 'Hey, you look pale. And those rings around your eyes…'
'Thelma, dear, I hate to shatter your illusions, but a baby isn't really brought by the stork. The mother has to expel it from her own womb, and it's a tight fit.'
Thelma stared hard at her, then directed an equally hard stare at Danny, who had come around the other side of the bed to hold Laura's hand. 'What's wrong here?'
Laura sighed and, wincing with discomfort, shifted her position slightly. To Danny, she said, 'See? I told you she's a bloodhound.'
'It wasn't an easy pregnancy, was it?' Thelma demanded.
'The pregnancy was easy enough,' Laura said. 'It was the delivery that was the problem.'
'You didn't… almost die or anything, Shane?'
'No, no, no,' Laura said, and Danny's hand tightened on hers. 'Nothing that dramatic. We knew from the start there were going to be some difficulties along the way, but we found the best doctor, and he kept a close watch. It's just… I won't be able to have any more. Christopher will be our last.'
Thelma looked at Danny, at Laura, and said quietly, 'I'm sorry.'
'It's all right,' Laura said, forcing a smile. 'We have little Chris, and he's beautiful.'
They endured an awkward silence, and then Danny said, 'I haven't had lunch yet, and I'm starved. I'm going to slip down to the coffee shop for a half hour or so.'
When Danny left, Thelma said, 'He's not really hungry, is he? He just knew we wanted a girl-to-girl talk.'
Laura smiled. 'He's a lovely man.'
Thelma put down the railing on one side of the bed and said, 'If I hop up here and sit beside you, I won't shake up your insides, will I? You won't suddenly bleed all over me, will you, Shane?'
'I'll try not to.'
Thelma eased up onto the high hospital bed. She took one of Laura's hands in both of hers. 'Listen, I read
'You're sweet.'
'I'm a tough, cynical, hard-nosed broad. Listen, I'm serious about the book. It's brilliant. And I saw Bovine Bowmaine in there, and Tammy. And Boone, the child-welfare psychologist. Different names but I saw them. You've captured them perfectly, Shane. God, there were times you brought it all back, times when chills ran up and down my back so bad I had to put down the book and go for a walk in the sun. And there were times when I laughed like
