horn sounded in the street and then, almost at once, sounded again in
the driveway.
Sasha had arrived.
In spite of the sunscreen on my neck, I turned up the collar of my
jacket for additional protection.
From the Stickley-style foyer table under a print of Maxfield Parrish’s
Daybreak, I grabbed a pair of wraparound sunglasses.
With my hand on the hammered-copper doorknob, I turned to Orson once
more. “We’ll be all right.”
In fact, I didn’t know quite how we could go on without my father. He
was our link to the world of light and to the people of the day.
More than that, he loved me as no one left on earth could love me, as
only a parent could love a damaged child. He understood me as perhaps
no one would ever understand me again.
“We’ll be all right,” I repeated.
The dog regarded me solemnly and chuffed once, almost pityingly, as if
he knew that I was lying.
I opened the front door, and as I went outside, I put on the wraparound
sunglasses. The special lenses were totally UV-proof.
My eyes are my point of greatest vulnerability. I can take no risk
whatsoever with them.
Sasha’s green Ford Explorer was in the driveway, with the engine
running, and she was behind the wheel.
I closed the house door and locked it. Orson had made no attempt to
slip out at my heels.
A breeze had sprung up from the west: an onshore flow with the faint,
astringent scent of the sea. The leaves of the oaks whispered as if
transmitting secrets branch to branch.
My chest grew so tight that my lungs felt constricted, as was always
the case when I was required to venture outside in daylight.
This symptom was entirely psychological but nonetheless affecting.
Going down the porch steps and along the flagstone walk to the
driveway, I felt weighed down. Perhaps this was how a deep-sea diver
might feel in a pressure suit with a kingdom of water overhead.
When I got into the Explorer, Sasha Goodall said quietly, “Hey,
Snowman.”
“Hey.”
I buckled my safety harness as Sasha shifted into reverse.
From under the bill of my cap, I peered at the house as we backed away
from it, wondering how it would appear to me when next I saw it. I
felt that when my father left this world, all of the things that had
belonged to him would look shabbier and diminished because they would
no longer be touched by his spirit.
It is a Craftsman-period structure, in the Greene and Greene tradition:
ledger stone set with a minimum of mortar, cedar siding silvered by
weather and time, entirely modern in its lines but not in the least
artificial or insubstantial, fully of the earth and formidable.
After the recent winter rains, the crisp lines of the slate roof were
softened by a green coverlet of lichen.
As we reversed into the street, I thought that I saw the shade nudged
aside at one of the living-room windows, at the back of the deep porch,
and Orson’s face at the pane, his paws on the sill.
“How long since You’ve been out in this?”
“Daylight? A little over nine years.”
“What happened nine years ago?”
“Appendicitis.”
Like That time when You almost died.”
“Only death brings me out in daylight.”
She said, “At least You got a sexy scar from it.”
“You think so?”
“I like to kiss it, don’t I” “I’ve wondered about that.”
“Actually, it scares me, that scar,” she said. “You might have
died.”
“Didn’t.”
“I kiss it like I’m saying a little prayer of thanks. That You’re here
with me.”
“Or maybe You’re sexually aroused by deformity.”
“Asshole.”
“Your mother never taught You language like that.”
“It was the nuns in parochial school.” I said, “You know what I
like?”
“We’ve been together almost two years. Yeah, I think I know what You
like.”
“I like that You never cut me any slack.”
“Why should I?” she asked.
“Exactly.”
Even in my armor of cloth and lotion, behind the shades that shielded
my sensitive eyes from ultraviolet rays, I was unnerved by the day
around and above me. I felt eggshell-fragile in its vise grip.