sake and smiled as his son got into the car.
'How was school?' he asked.
'Great,' Tony said sarcastically.
Daniel laughed at the boy's tone of voice. 'Well, at least it's Friday.'
'Yeah,' he said. 'At least it's Friday.'
They did not talk on the way home. Daniel got into an old Joe Jackson song on the radio, listening to the lyrics, singing along in his head, remembering when that album had first come out, and it wasn't until they were pulling into the driveway that he realized he and Tony had not spoken since leaving the school. He glanced over at his son. 'Is everything all right?'
Tony nodded.
'You sure? Nothing you want to talk about?'
'No.' Tony grabbed his books, got out of the car.
Daniel followed the boy into the house. Margot wasn't home yet, but she'd be back from work within the next hour, and he decided to start making dinner. She had a series of stressful meetings today and though she'd told him she'd fix something when she got home, he thought it would be a nice surprise if he made dinner tonight, gave her a little treat.
He looked through Margot's cookbooks, looked through the refrigerator and cupboards to see what they had, and finally decided on a hamburger casserole from Julia Child. The instructions classified it as a 'quick and easy'
dish, estimated preparation time fifteen minutes, but he knew himself and he figured he'd be lucky if he finished within the hour.
Tony plopped his books down on the kitchen counter and grabbed a can of Dr Pepper from the refrigerator before heading off toward his bedroom.
'Homework!' Daniel called out.
'It's Friday!'
'Do it today and your weekend will be free.'
'I'll do it Sunday.'
Daniel thought of arguing with him, but decided to let the boy go. He picked up the books from the counter and carried them into the living room, where he placed them on the coffee table on top of the pile of today's newspapers.
It took over an hour to prepare the meal, and Margot came home before he was finished, but she was touched by his thoughtfulness and she gave him a big hug as he slid the casserole dish into the oven. 'I love you, Mr. Mom.'
He turned around, gave her a quick kiss. 'I love you, too.'
Dinner wasn't great, but it was better than he'd expected, and Margot praised the meal to high heaven, exaggerating its quality to such an embarrassing extent that Tony rolled his eyes and said, 'Give it a rest, Mom.'
Daniel laughed, looked over at his wife. 'Is this your subtle way of telling me you want me to cook dinner more often?'
'No--' she began.
'No!' Tony repeated.
'--I'm just touched by your thoughtfulness and I
wanted to let you know.'
Tony pushed back his chair, stood. 'This is getting too pukey for me. I'm out of here.'
They watched him go, smiling.
'It really is pretty good,' she said. 'I'm proud of you.'
'Thanks.'
As always, he offered to do the dishes and, as always, she turned him down. So he went out to the living room and watched the last part of the local news, then the national news. There was nothing on after that except reruns, game shows, and syndicated entertainment news, so he shut off the television and walked back into the kitchen, where Margot was eating an orange over the sink.
'Where's Tony?' she asked.
He shrugged. 'I don't know. His room, I guess.'
'Hiding in there?' She looked at him significantly.
'Why don't you go see what he's doing.'
'He's all right.
'Why don't you check?'
He understood her concern, thought of his son walking alone through the crowds of students at school, thought of him sitting silently in the car, and nodded.
'Okay.'
The door to the boy's bedroom was closed, and Daniel walked quietly down the hallway and stood outside it for a moment, listening. He heard nothing, and he reached for the knob, turned it, pushed open the door.
Tony moved quickly, trying to hide something beneath the unmade covers of his bed.
A bolt of primal parental terror shot through Daniel.
Drugs, was his first thought.
He walked toward the bed, desperately trying not to think the worst. Let it be a Playboy, he prayed. Let it be a Penthouse.
He forced himself to smile at his son. 'What you got there, sport?' He reached for the covers, pulled them up.
It was not drugs. It was not porno magazines.
It was a figure, a doll, the body made from an old 7Eleven Big Gulp cup, the arms straws, the hands and fingers toothpicks, the legs and feet bent toilet-paper tubes. The face was paper, topped by whisk-broom bristle hair, and it was the face that stopped him cold. A
seemingly haphazard composite of eyes, nose, and mouth culled from disparate newspaper photos, the face nonetheless possessed a strange unity, an off-center cohesion that seemed natural in an unnatural way and awakened within him a dread deja vu.
He had seen the face before.
In the House When he was a child.
In the House But he couldn't quite remember where.
'What is that?' he demanded.
Tony shrank back, shaking his head. 'Nothing.'
'What do you mean, 'nothing'?' He was aware that he was yelling, but he couldn't help it, and though he was addressing his son, his gaze remained fixed on the figure. It repulsed and frightened him at the same time.
There was something abhorrent in its makeup, something repugnant about its form and shape and the way ordinary objects had been used in its construction. But it was the doll's familiarity that frightened him, the sense that he had seen it before and could not quite place it.
'What is it?' Margot ran up behind him, an edge of panic in her voice. 'What's happening? What's wrong?'
Tony was still cowering on the bed before him. 'Nothing!'
he told his mom. 'I was working on an art project and Dad went crazy!'
'Art project?' Daniel said. 'For school?'
'No, I'm doing it on my own.'
'Then why were you trying to hide it?'
'I didn't want you to see it!'
'What's going on?' Margot pushed past him, stood before the bed. She looked down at the doll. 'Is this what all the commotion was about?'
'Yeah,' Tony admitted.
Margot turned on Daniel. 'Why are you screaming at him? Because of this? I thought you'd caught him using drugs or something.'
