“Sheesh!”
“So there,” Emily said.
“Twerp.”
“Snerp.”
“That’s not even a word.”
“It is if I want it to be.”
The doorbell rang and rang as if someone was leaning on it.
Vic peered through the fish-eye lens at the man on the front stoop.
It was Marty Stillwater.
He opened the door, stepping back so his neighbor could enter.
“My God, Marty, it looked like a police convention over there. What was
that all about?”
Marty stared at him intensely for a moment, especially at the gun in his
right hand, then seemed to make some decision and blinked.
Wet from the rain, his skin looked glazed and as unnaturally white as
the face of a porcelain figurine. He seemed shrunken, shriveled, like a
man recovering from a serious illness.
“Are you all right, is Paige all right?” Kathy asked, entering the hall
behind Vic.
Hesitantly, Marty stepped across the threshold and stopped just inside
the foyer, not entering quite far enough to allow Vic to close the door.
“What,” Vic asked, “you’re worried about dripping on the floor?
You know Kathy thinks I’m a hopeless mess, she’s had everything in the
house Scotchgarded! Come in, come in.”
Without entering farther, Marty looked past Vic into the living room,
then up toward the head of the stairs. He was wearing a black raincoat
buttoned to the neck, and it was too large for him, which was part of
the reason he seemed shrunken.
Just when Vic thought the man was stricken mute, Marty said, “Where’re
the kids?”
“They’re okay,” Vic assured him, “they’re safe.”
“I need them,” Marty said. His voice was no longer raspy, as it had
been earlier, but wooden. “I need them.”
“Well, for God’s sake, old buddy, can’t you at least come in long enough
to tell us what–”
“I need them now,” Marty said, “they’re mine.”
Not a wooden voice, after all, Vic Delorio realized, but tightly
controlled, as if Marty was biting back anger or terror or some other
strong emotion, afraid of losing his grip on himself. He trembled a
little. Some of that rain on his face might have been sweat.
Coming forward along the hall, Kathy said, “Marty, what’s wrong?”
Vic had been about to ask the same question. Marty Stillwater was
usually such an easy-going guy, relaxed, quick to smile, but now he was
stiff, awkward. Whatever he’d been through tonight, it had left deep
marks on him.
Before Marty could respond, Charlotte and Emily appeared at the end of
the hall, where it opened on the family room. They must have slipped
into their raincoats the minute they heard their father’s voice.
They were buttoning up as they came.
Charlotte’s voice wavered as she said, “Daddy?”
At the sight of his daughters, Marty’s eyes flooded with tears.
When Charlotte spoke to him, he took another step inside, so Vic could
close the door.
The kids ran past Kathy, and Marty dropped to his knees on the foyer
floor, and the kids just about flew into his arms hard enough to knock
him over. As the three of them hugged one another, the girls talked at
once, “Daddy, are you okay? We were so scared. Are you okay? I love
you, Daddy. You were all yucky bloody. I told her it wasn’t your
blood. Was it a burglar, was it Mrs. Sanchez, did she go berserk, did
the mailman go berserk, who went berserk, are you all right, is Mommy
all right, is it over now, why do nice people just suddenly go berserk
anyway?” All three were chattering at once, in fact, because Marty kept
talking through all of their questions, “My Charlotte, my Emily, my
kids, I love you, I love you so much, I won’t let them steal you away
again, never again.” He kissed their cheeks, their foreheads, hugged
them fiercely, smoothed their hair with his shaky hands, and in general
made over them as if he hadn’t seen them in years.
Kathy was smiling and at the same time crying quietly, daubing at her
eyes with a yellow dish towel.
Vic supposed the reunion was touching, but he wasn’t as moved by it as
his wife was, partly because Marty looked and sounded peculiar to him,