He stepped inside as Holly charged out of the kitchen, biscuit tin in one hand, a can of Coke in the other. Swain stopped in his tracks as Holly cut across his path, making a beeline for the TV.
Watching her, Swain put his suitcase down, folded his arms and leaned against the bench that separated the kitchen from the living room. He watched as, unsurprisingly, in mid-stride Holly dropped to the floor and slid gracefully across the carpet, coming to a halt inches away from the television set.
'Hey!'
Holly gave him a throwaway smile. 'Sorr
Swain shook his head as he went into the kitchen. He always said not to slide on the carpet and Holly always did it anyway. It was kind of a ritual. Besides, he thought, Helen had always said it, and Holly had always ignored her, too. It was a good way for both of them to remember her.
It had been two years now since Swain's wife had been killed by a drunk driver who had tried to run a red light at fifty miles an hour. It had happened late one August evening, around eleven-thirty. They had run out of milk, so Helen had decided to walk to the 7-Eleven a few blocks away.
She never came back.
Later that night, Swain would see her body at the morgue. The mere sight of it, bloodied and broken, had knocked the wind out of him. All the life, the essence, the personality -- everything that had made her
Death had struck -- brutally, swiftly, unexpectedly. She had gone out for milk and then all of a sudden she was gone. Just gone.
And now it was just him and Holly, somehow continuing life without her. Even now, two years on, Swain occasionally found himself staring out the window, thinking about her, tears forming in his eyes.
Swain opened the fridge, pulled out a Coke for himself. As he did so, the phone rang. It was Jim Wilson.
'You missed a great game.'
Swain sighed. 'Oh, yes...'
'Man, you should've seen it. It went into--'
'No! Stop! Don't tell me!'
Wilson laughed loudly on the other end of the line. 'Now would I do that?'
'Not if you wanted to live. Want to come over and watch it all over again?'
'Sure, why not? I'll be there in ten,' Wilson said and hung up.
Swain glanced at the microwave. The green LED clock read 5:45 p.m.
He looked over at Holly, camped less than a foot away from the television screen. On the screen, multicoloured creatures danced about.
Swain grabbed his drink and went into the living room. 'What are you watching?'
Holly didn't move her eyes from the screen. 'Pokemon,' she said, feeling for the biscuit tin beside her and grabbing a biscuit from it.
'Any good?'
She turned quickly, scrunched up her nose. 'Nah. Mew isn't there today. I'll see what's on the other channels.'
'No, wait!' Swain leaned forward, grabbing for the remote. 'The sport will be--'
The station changed, and a newsreader appeared on the screen.
'--while in football, fans in the national capital were not to be disappointed as the Redskins scalped the Giants twenty-four to twenty-one in an overtime thriller. At the same time, in Dallas...'
Swain closed his eyes as he sank back into his chair. 'Aw, man.'
'Did you hear that Daddy? Washington won. Grandpa will like that. He lives in Washington.'
Swain laughed softly. 'Yes, honey, I heard. I heard.'
Paul Hawkins strolled idly around the foyer of the library.
His every footfall echoed hauntingly in the open space of the atrium.
He stopped to survey the atrium around him. It was, quite simply, a massive interior space. When one took into account the rail-lined balcony that ran in a horseshoe above the lower floor, its ceiling was actually two storeys high. In the early evening darkness, the atrium looked almost cavernous.
Ten-foot-high bookcases loomed in the brooding semi-darkness. Indeed, with the onset of night, apart from the harsh white glow coming from the Information Desk where Parker sat reading, the only light that penetrated the gigantic room was the slanting blue light from the streetlights outside.
Hawkins looked over at Parker. She was still sitting behind the Information Desk, her feet up, reading some Latin book she said she'd read back in school.
----ooo0ooo------
The phone rang again. Holly leapt up from the floor and grabbed the receiver.
'Hello, Holly Swain speaking,' she said. 'Yes, he's here.' She put the receiver to her chest and yelled at the top of her lungs,
Swain emerged from his bedroom down the hall, doing up the buttons on a clean shirt. The belt around his jeans dangled from his waist and his hair was still dripping from the shower.
He gave Holly a crooked smile as he took the phone from her. 'Do you think the whole neighbourhood now knows I've got a phone call?'
Holly shrugged as she danced away toward the refrigerator.
'Hello,' Swain said into the phone.
'It's me again.' It was Wilson.
Swain glanced at the microwave clock. 'Hey, what are you doing? It's almost six. Where are you?'
'I'm still at home.'
'Home?'
'The car won't start. Again.' Wilson said, deadpan.
Swain just laughed.
Hawkins was bored.
Idly, he poked his head inside the library's central stairwell, flicked on his heavy police flashlight. White marble stairs flanked by solid oak banisters rose in a wide ' spiral up into the darkness.
Hawkins nodded. Had to hand it to these old buildings, they were built to last.
