dreams, when they never come true?”
“Sometimes they do.”
“No. They never came true for my mom or dad. Never cam true for Thomas,
did they? Ask Clint and Felina if their dream came true, see what they
say. You ask George Farris’s family if they think being slaughtered by
a maniac was the fulfillme of their dreams.”
“Ask the Phans,” Bobby said quietly.
“They were boat people on the South China Sea, with hardly any food and
little money, and now they own dry-cleaning shops and remod
two-hundred-thousand-dollar houses for resale, and they have those
terrific kids.”
“Sooner or later, they’ll get it in the neck too,” she said, unsettled
by the bitterness in her voice and the black despair that churned like a
whirlpool within her, threatening to swallo her up. But she could not
stop the churning.
“Ask Park Ham stead, down there in El Toro, whether he and his wife were
thrilled when she developed terminal cancer, and ask him how his dream
about him and Maralee Roman worked after he finally got over the death
of his wife. Nasty bugger name Candy got in the way of that one. Ask
all the poor suckers lyin in the hospital with cerebral hemorrhages,
cancer. Ask those who get Alzheimer’s in their fifties, just when their
goide years are supposed to start. Ask the little kids in wheelchair
from muscular dystrophy, and ask all the parents of those other kids
down there in Cielo Vista how Down’s syndrom fits in with their dreams.
Ask-” She cut herself off. She was losing control, and she could not
afford to do so tonight.
She said,
“Come on, let’s go.”
“Where?”
“First, we find the house where that bitch raised him. Cruis by, get
the lay of it. Maybe just seeing it will give us ideas.’
“I’ve seen it.”
“I haven’t.”
“All right.” From a nightstand drawer he removed a tele phone directory
for Santa Barbara, Montecito, Goleta, Hop Ranch, El Encanto Heights, and
other surrounding communi ties. He brought it with him to the door.
She said,
“What do you want th he asked.
“For now, I have to be. Later, I want to talk about Thomas, how brave
he was about being different, how he never complained, how sweet he was.
I want to talk about all of it, you and me, and I don’t want us to
forget. Nobody’s ever going to build a monument to Thomas, he wasn’t
famous, he was, just a little guy who never did anything great except be
the best person he knew how, and the only monument he’s ever going to
have is our memories. So we’ll keep him alive,-won’t we?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll keep him alive… until we’re gone. But that’s for later, when
there’s time. Now we have to keep ourselves alive, because that son of
a bitch will be coming for us, won’t he?”
“I think he will,” Bobby said.
He rose from his knees and pulled her up from the chair.
He was wearing his dark brown Ultraseude jacket with the shoulder
holster under it. She’d taken off her corduroy blazer and her holster;
she put both of them on again. The weight of the revolver, against her
left side, felt good. She hoped she’d have a chance to use it.
Her vision had cleared; her eyes were dry. She said,
“One’ thing for sure-no more dreams for me. What good is it, haing
dreams, when they never come true?”
“Sometimes they do.”
“No. They never came true for my mom or dad. Never cam true for Thomas,
did they? Ask Clint and Felina if their dream came true, see what they
say. You ask George Farris’s family if they think being slaughtered by
a maniac was the fulfillme of their dreams.”
“Ask the Phans,” Bobby said quietly.
“They were boat people on the South China Sea, with hardly any food and
little money, and now they own dry-cleaning shops and remod
two-hundred-thousand-dollar houses for resale, and they have those
terrific kids.”
“Sooner or later, they’ll get it in the neck too,” she said, unsettled
by the bitterness in her voice and the black despair that churned like a
whirlpool within her, threatening to swallo her up. But she could not