Unspeakable

from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. According to Mrs. Beale,Casper doesn't want to undergo any more chemotherapy, and he was kicking up a fuss about it.'

Holly checked her watch. Damn. She had promised Daisy that she would try to get home early.

'What would you like me to do?'

'I'd like you to check up on this situation, that's all.'

'You mean today? Now?'

'It shouldn't take you more than twenty minutes. I wouldn't have bothered, normally, but one of the police officers reported that Mrs. Beale appeared to be very stressed- out.'

'Okay?,' agreed Holly, reluctantly. She took the phone message and noted the address.Southeast Boise was over the river, on the opposite side of the city. She hoped that the afternoon traffic wouldn't be too clogged up.

She buttoned up her coat. On the windowsill beside her, in a tall sunlit vase, stood the lilies that Mickey had given her. She had been thinking of taking them home, but she decided to leave them in the office till the following day. She had been glancing at them all day and wondering what Mickey was trying to say to her:I like you? I respect you? I pity you?

The sun was still shining when she drove across the Ross Island Bridge. By the time she reached Southeast Boise, however, it had been covered by a thin gray veil of cloud, and the street looked strangely nostalgic, like a photograph fromLifemagazine, circa 1965. The apartment block in which the Beales lived was a two-story building made of cream-colored brick, with turquoise-painted shutters and a dead lime tree standing in front of it. A gang of kids were skateboarding along the sidewalk using a homemade ramp. In the driveway, a short, fat woman in a headscarf was washing what looked like a brand-new Malibu.

Holly parked and approached the woman washing her car. 'Pardon me. I'm looking for Mrs. Hannah Beale.'

The woman kept her back turned to her, so Holly couldn't see if she was answering. She walked around the car until she was facing her, and said, 'I'm sorry- do you know where I can find Mrs. Hannah Beale?'

The woman looked Holly up and down. She was pale and puffy-faced, with eyes like raisins pushed into dough. She wore a bronze satin blouse and flappy white pants that were two inches too short for her, and strappy white sandals. A single hair grew from a mole on her chin and spiraled around.

'I'mHannah Beale, for the second time. Who wants to know, for the second time?'

Holly produced her ID. Mrs. Beale peeled off one of her pink rubber gloves and examined it closely. 'Children's Welfare Department? What's this?'

'The police department got in touch with us?. It'sonly a matter of routine.'

'Jeez! Itoldthose cops-how many times did I tell them?-Casper's sick. He has to have his chemo, even if he doesn't like it, or else he's going to die.' Holly could detect an accent, northern Minnesota or maybe southeastern Manitoba, with a rise at the end of every sentence so that it came out like a question.

'We wanted to know if there was anything we could do to help,' said Holly. 'It can't be very easy for you, taking care of a child so sick.'

'I'm fine. I can manage. Did somebody say I couldn't manage?'

'Is Casper your only child?'

Mrs. Beale jerked a thumb toward the skateboarders. 'That's Thomas-the one in the green T-shirt-and Kyra; she's the girl in the pink.' Holly shielded her eyes against the gray afternoon glare. Thomas and Kyra both looked like their mother, squat and overweight. Kyra was only about thirteen, Holly would have guessed, but her stomach bulged over her cherry- colored jogging pants as if she were five months' pregnant. Thomas had tight ginger curls and more ginger freckles than face.

'How aboutMr.Beale?' asked Holly.

'Daah,'said Mrs. Beale disgustedly, flapping her glove.

'But you're managing okay?'

'I'm doing fine, thank you. I'm not saying it's easy.'

She dropped her sponge into her foam-filled bucket and waddled over to the side of the apartment block to turn on the hose. Holly stood back while she sprayed the Malibu from front to back.

'Any chance I could see Casper?' asked Holly.

'For what?' asked Mrs. Beale. 'He's been real sick today. He needs his sleep.'

'Like I say, it's only routine.'

'Well, there's no need. He was howling this morning because he doesn't like his treatment, that's all it was. It makes him nauseous, you know?'

'All the same, I'd still like to see him.'

'I don't think so, miss. He's too sick to see people today.'

Holly waited while Mrs. Beale polished her car with a chamois leather. 'Can you tell me what hospital he's being treated at?'

No reply.

'Is it a local hospital? Providence St. Vincent, maybe?'

'What do you want to know that for?'

'It's just for my records.'

'As if I don't get enough busybodies poking their noses into my private business.'

'Well, I'm sorry, but Casper was screaming loud enough for somebody to call the police, and the Children's Welfare Department has a statutory obligation to follow it up.'

Mrs. Beale stopped polishing and snapped the wet leather in the air.Snap! andsnap!as if she were making a particularly vehement point about something. Her two children had stopped skateboarding and had come to join her, standing close to their mother with sullen, spoiled expressions on their faces.God,thought Holly.Talk about the Addams Family.

'Hi,' Holly said brightly. 'You're Kyra, aren't you? I love your barrettes.' Your cheap, nasty, pink plastic hair slides.

Kyra wrinkled up her nose. 'Who areyou?'

'My name's Holly. I've come to see if your mom needs any help with your brother Casper.'

'I'm managingfine,as a matter of fact,' snapped Mrs. Beale impatiently. 'If I needed any kind of damn help, I would've asked for it long since, wouldn't I?'

'That's terrific,' said Holly. 'So long as you're coping okay. Now, if I could just see Casper for a minute? It doesn't matter if he's sleeping.'

'Well, I don't really think so,' said Mrs. Beale. She pulled her children in closer to her side, and she shifted herself around so that she was standing in between Holly and the open door to the apartment block.

Holly hesitated. 'Mrs Beale, if you won't let me see Casper today, I'll have to make arrangements to see him some other time.'

'He's my son; he's sick but I take care of him good. I mean, what makes this any of your damned business?'

'I just need to make sure that he's receiving the best care possible, and that you're receiving all the help you're entitled to.'

'Youtalkweird,' sneered Thomas.

Holly smiled and pointed to her ear. 'That's because I'm deaf. I haven't been able to hear anything since I was a little girl.'

'You'redeaf?'said Mrs. Beale in disbelief. She lifted up her eyes to appeal to the sky. 'She's deaf, for Chrissakes, and she thinks she can bring up Casper better than me! Do you hear that, Thomas? They'll be sending around a cripple next, to teach you how to skateboard!'

'Mrs. Beale, you don't have to be so negative about this. I'm here to help you out, not to criticize you.'

Mrs. Beale jabbed a finger at her. 'I don't want none of your help. If it isn't bad enough, bringing up a child who won't be doing nothing in his life but dying. Now, you just get back in your vehicle and leave me alone. I've got enough of a cross to bear without you climbing astride of it for the ride.'

'I'm sorry,' said Holly. 'It wasn't my intention to upset you, but I'll have to see Casper sooner or later. If it's not convenient now, maybe you can tell me when.'

'Are you going to leave me alone or what?'

'All right, I'll leave you alone.'

'Then leave me alone. Get the hell out of here.'

Holly shrugged, trying to look indifferent, even though her heart was beating twice as fast as normal. 'I have to warn you, I'll be back, with a police officer if necessary.'

Just as she was about to turn away, however, a small figure suddenly appeared in the doorway of the apartment block, like a ghostly apparition. It was a boy. A thin, chalk-white boy, wearing pale green pajamas. He was totally bald, and his face was shrunken in so that his eyes and his ears looked enormously out of proportion. He looked more like a sickly monkey than a human child. Holly was so shocked that she said 'Oh my God' out loud.

'Momma!' the boy called out. His voice was surprisingly clear. 'Momma, I've puked in my bed!'

Mrs. Beale glared at Holly and bustled up the drive. 'How many times do I have to tell you not to come wandering outside? How many damn times?'

'But, Momma, I puked in my bed.'

'Okay, okay, we'll get you cleaned up. Now, get back inside.'

Holly skirted around the other two children and went right up to the doorway. The boy looked up at her with no curiosity at all. One leg of his pajamas was soaked in sour, milky vomit.

'Leave us alone,' said Mrs. Beale. She spoke with her teeth clenched-'Reave us arrone!'-so that Holly could hardly understand her. 'Can't you see how sick he is?'

'Of course I can see how sick he is. I can hardly believe that he isn't in a hospital.'

'What? There's nothing that nobody can do for him in hospital.'

'So who's his doctor?'

Mrs.