some time here two weeks ago talking to one of the maids.”
“Yes.”
“I’d prefer that you never do that again. My wife is very uncomfortable about our personal affairs being made public.”
He sounded as I had sounded with Merle earlier today. Right on the verge of being very angry. The thing was, I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want people whispering about me and my wife, either.
“I apologize, Mr. Byerly. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“My wife has suffered enough.” The anger had left him. He sounded drained. “She’s suffered way too much, in fact.”
And with that, I heard a child cry out from upstairs.
A child—yet not a child—a strangled, mournful cry that shook me to hear.
“Good night,” he said.
He shut the door very quickly, leaving me to the wind and rain and night.
After awhile, I walked down the wide steps to my car and got inside and drove straight home.
As soon as I was inside, I kissed my wife and then took her by the hand and led her upstairs to the room our two little girls share.
We stood in the doorway, looking at Jenny and Sara. They were asleep.
Each was possessed of two eyes, two arms, two legs; and each was possessed of song and delight and wonderment and tenderness and glee.
And I held my wife tighter than I ever had, and felt an almost giddy gratitude for the health of our little family.
Not until much later, near midnight it was, my wife asleep next to me in the warmth of our bed—not until much later did I think again of Mrs. Byerly and her photos in the upstairs bedroom of that dark and shunned Victorian house, up there with her child trying to make frantic sense of the silent and eternal universe that makes no sense at all.
EYES LIKE A GHOST’S
by Simon Clark
I found the cassette in the boxful of books I’d bought at the cancer shop. I never even realized it was in there until I’d brought the box home, balanced on the PVC hood of my daughter’s pushchair. Elizabeth would have played merry hell about that. The hood was already splitting in three places. Well, at the time, Elizabeth would be hammering at the till keys in the supermarket, so what the eye doesn’t see…
“Dad! A computer game!”
My seven-year-old son, who had been rooting in the box, rattled the cassette box excitedly above his head.
“I shouldn’t think so, Lee,” I said, pulling my gloves off. “Someone’ll have left it there by mistake.”
“Oh… music.” He pushed “music” out from his lips with disgust.
“Probably.”
“Music, crap music.” He threw the tape back in the box and returned to the television. Bart Simpson was spraying “EAT MY SHORTS” on the school wall.
“Someone phoned up,” called Lee, swinging his legs over the arm of the chair. “They said, ‘Can I speak to Martin Price?’ ”
“Well, that’s my name,” I said, “What did you tell them?”
“I put the phone down.”
“Didn’t you ask if you could take a message?”
Lee didn’t answer. The television had greater pulling power than me.
I toyed with the idea of delivering a lecture on manners but apart from the likelihood of it falling on deaf ears, the tape Lee had pulled from the box caught my attention. For some reason I felt pleased. The tape hidden among the books seemed a minor bonus. I intended a closer look but an annoyed yell from the kitchen signaled my daughter wanted release from her pushchair. And a biscuit… And a drink… And toys… And…
The tape would have to wait.
YOU CAN’T SEE ME, BUT I SEE YOU
I am Joseph Lawton. This happens:
I ride with you on bicycles I have painted golden, to where the trees paint the watery face of the river that shines beneath the sun. There we drink wine, eat sandwiches and you describe your paintings: tight, tight canvases all covered with ice-cream smiles, cats and gnomes and fishes and laughter.
Later, I play my guitar as you lie across the blanket and look up at the sky.
The sky is as blue as my guitar and full of music.
“The man on the telly said it was going to snow.” Lee gleefully bounced up and down on the sofa while looking out the window. “Snow, snow faster. Ally-ally aster.”
“Lee, stop bouncing. How many times have I got to tell you?”
He ignored me. “Can we get the sledge out?”
“If it snows. Have you seen my slippers?”
“Saw Jug chewing them.”
“Oh, bugger. Did you stop her?”
“No.”
“Thanks a lot, Lee.” Barefooted I crossed the room to where I’d left the box on the sideboard.
On top of the box lay the cassette. It might as well have been calling my name. I picked it up. Someone had turned the inlay card inside out as if ready to make a contents list but for some reason had never got round to it. Penciled very firmly in the corner of the card were the letters JL.
I glanced across at the stereo. A few minutes remained before Elizabeth returned home. I tapped the cassette thoughtfully against my chin.
I’d taken three steps toward the stereo when I stopped suddenly. My bare toes sank into wet pile.
“Lee.” I sighed. “Did you spill your pop this morning?”
“No,” he replied innocently, then continued his snow watch.
Kids make you philosophical. I dropped the cassette back in the box and went to hunt for a cloth under the kitchen sink.
MILES OF SMILES
I am Joseph Lawton. This happens:
“This is for you,” I say. I give her the ring with a diamond. She puts it on the third finger of her left hand. On the middle finger of her other hand is another ring set with an emerald as big as a man’s eye. She looks down at her new ring for a while; her hair the color of Turner sunsets falls across her face. Then she sits on the end of the bed and cries. I put my arm around her shoulder. These moments, I think, are precious.
Later she stands and tells me she will make a stir-fry.
I lean back across the bed, play the guitar and sing. It sounds like the golden bells that hang in the smiling trees of paradise.
I know I love her, because they told me so.
“See you tonight, Martin. Chops all right?”
“Perfect, love.” I kissed Elizabeth, then Lee, then Grace, sitting so warmly wrapped up in her pushchair that
