Here I Stay (27 page)

No one except Martin. "For the most part, Mr.
Holderman? You do make exceptions, then."

"There is a third category," Holderman admitted. "A few cases only, reported by reliable witnesses and inexplicable in terms of hallucination or—forgive me—stupidity. I have a theory about them."

"Naturally you do," Martin purred, "May we ask what it is?"

"Psychic impressions," Holderman said. "Violent emotions, passions, acts—might they not leave an impression, like a sound recording, in the places where they occurred? Pictures invisible to the eye as certain sounds are beyond the range of human hearing, but perceptible at certain times and to certain persons, who are attuned to that specific emotion."

Impressions, impersonal as photograph recordings or photographic prints...That must be it, Andrea thought. That explains everything. Reba's negative reaction and her own fondness for the house, shadows in a darkened hallway, dreams of desperate wings. The house had been a hotel; dozens, no, hundreds of people had walked its corridors and slept in its rooms, each with his own history of joy and sorrow. The old house had seen birth and death, love triumphant and love defeated. Some
people could tune in to certain wavelengths, but not to all; others were "deaf to all impressions.

The girl, Mary's daughter—for the moment Andrea couldn't remember her name—had died at seventeen. Jim and "the guys" made a show of toughness, but they were sentimental slobs at heart. They honestly believed that every love was the best and last; it was from their ranks that cynical old generals recruited the warrior children who felt honored to die for the fatherland, for Mom and apple pie. Bored and frustrated, Jim had developed a sentimental attachment to...whatever her name was. If he had lived in the nineteenth century, he would have grown Byronic sideburns and written bad verse about beautiful young maidens dying young. No doubt he pictured her as delicate and goldenhaired. Whereas she had probably been squat and sallow and homely as a mud fence.

It was Monday morning before Andrea had a chance to deal with the minor breakdowns that always occur on a holiday weekend, when repairmen cannot be located. At breakfast she announced that she was going to one of the shopping malls in Frederick—news that was received with the same
degree of apathy by Martin and Jim. Armed with a long list, which ranged from apples (stewed, with brown sugar, for breakfast) to a zipper (for the green dress), she tried for five minutes to start the car before she realized the gas tank was bone-dry.

Jim, of course. He had an uncanny knack of using up the last drop of gas just as he pulled into the garage. Andrea ran back to the house. Martin would have to give her enough gas to get to the Amoco station. She would have siphoned it off herself without bothering to ask if his tank had not been fitted with a lock.

Thinking of locks reminded her that he had mentioned there was something wrong with the latch of his door. It wouldn't stay closed. She decided to have a look at it while she was there; it might be something simple she could fix herself.

The door was slightly ajar. As she approached Andrea could hear him talking. He had had his own telephone installed. Reluctant to overhear or interrupt, she hesitated before knocking. Then she heard a phrase that made her forget her scruples: "I'm not happy about his move to the tower."

He was talking about Jim. But to whom? It didn't matter. He had no right to discuss Jim so familiarly with anyone. Andrea put her ear to the door. The next sentence she heard turned her beet-red with fury.

"No, on the contrary, I think he's coped well with his handicap. That's what worries me...What do you mean, why? You're the shrink, you're supposed to know these things. Because it's normal—if I may use that word—for a kid his age to be depressed about losing a leg. If he's not depressed about that, he's depressed about something I can't explain...Not
yet. I asked him pointblank the other night if he would see a psychiatrist; he gave me a big boyish smile and said there was no need, he felt fine. But I'll keep working on it...I know you can't. You've already done more than I had any reason to expect...Thanks, Tony...Yes, I will."

Andrea waited for a few seconds to make sure he was finished. Then she kicked the door open.

Satan was sitting on Martin's typewriter, shedding into the works. He growled. Martin jumped, swore, and dropped the phone. It began to buzz maniacally. Andrea stood waiting in deadly silence while Martin put the pieces back together.

"Damn," he said. "I thought you went shopping."

"Who were you talking to?"

Martin sat down on the unmade bed. He answered without hesitation. "A friend of mine."

"A psychiatrist?"

"One of the best."

"Well, that makes it all right. That justifies your unwarranted interference in our affairs!"

"Sit down," Martin said.

"I don't want to sit down. I want to slug you, you nosy bastard!"

Satan rumbled deep in his throat; the fur on his back stood up in a stiff ridge. Martin sat with folded hands, eyes meekly downcast—a totally inadequate target for the rage that boiled in Andrea. She turned on the cat.

"You shut up! How dare you growl at me? Get the hell out of here—get your big fat furry ass off there!"

Satan leaped off the table and trotted out, moving faster than was his wont. If Martin had laughed
Andrea would have pounded him with her fists. Instead he repeated, "Sit down. You have a right to be indignant, but you ought to listen to me first."

His unwavering calm drilled a hole in the molten shell of her anger; it rushed out, leaving her on the verge of tears.

"Martin, how could you? You had no right."

"He doesn't know Jim's name," Martin said. "He'll never know, unless Jim consents to see him."

"You're crazy. Jim doesn't need a psychiatrist. He's fine."

"He is miserable," Martin said flatly. "He is desperately unhappy. You have an enviable capacity for ignoring things you don't want to see, but even you must have realized that. There have been times when his eyes remind me..."

"Say it. You couldn't offend me more than you have already."

"I once saw a couple of louts push a dog out of their car and take off," Martin said. "I suppose it had become a nuisance to them. It wasn't a particularly attractive animal—a mutt, middlesized, shaggy. ...It stood there watching the car drive away. Its eyes had the same look Jim's have now. Bewildered, lost, uncomprehending."

After a moment Andrea regained control of her voice. "Damn you, Martin. Of all the low, underhanded rhetorical tricks—"

"It was tacky," Martin admitted. "But it's the truth."

"You're wrong. Jim has problems, I admit that— but he's coping with them."

"If it's any consolation to you, Tony Benson agrees," Martin said.

Her face lit up with surprise and joy. Martin swallowed, and went on reluctantly, "He's speculating in a vacuum, of course. He's never talked to Jim. But according to him, Jim seems to be adjusting to his handicap with remarkable maturity. He's exploring alternatives—reading, carpentry, gardening...I told Tony that. He said, 'So what's the problem, buster?' "

"So what is it?"

"I don't know," Martin mumbled.

"I wish you'd keep your worries to yourself," Andrea said. "They get me upset, even when I don't believe them."

Martin resisted the temptation to point out that it was not his fault that she knew about his worries. "Tony also said," he went on, "that I was suffering from frustrated paternal instincts. You know about that, don't you? Reba told you?"

"Yes." Andrea didn't look at him.

"You never mentioned it."

"I didn't want to sound like—like a—"

"Nosy, interfering bastard? Tony may be right at that. I don't know what it's like to be a father. I wouldn't recognize the symptoms."

Andrea hesitated, but not for long. Friendship, she reminded herself, is the willingness to lie down and listen.

Besides, Martin never held his tongue when he thought she was wrong.

"Why did you give up? He's your child, you have the right to—"

"Tear him to pieces?"

"Show him you love him," Andrea said.

"Now who's using tacky rhetorical tricks?" She had hit him where it hurt; his face was flushed and vulnerable, his voice rough with anger, "if that's your
idea of love, then heaven help the man who..."

"Go on."

"You know what I was going to say."

"Yes. Now the shoe is on the other foot, isn't it? And you don't like criticism any better than I do."

The angry color in Martin's face subsided. "Got me that time. All right. The agreement works both ways. You're entitled to give me your opinion and I'm entitled to blow up. But you're wrong, Andrea. Terribly, fatally wrong. Love can't be forced or mastered. Sometimes the only way you can keep it is by letting go."

"I don't remember. I guess they must have bloomed—and the others too, the dogwood and forsythia and cherry trees. I can't recall seeing them,
though."

"You had other things on your mind."

"I've never done much gardening. We lived in an apartment for so long...I remember years ago helping my mother plant bulbs. She loved flowers. There was one variety—they must have been hyacinths. Big, tall, fluffy things."

"Right." Martin's voice was very soft.

Andrea went on dreamily, "They were the prettiest shade of blue—distinct and yet pale, like a spring sky. I called them my flowers. We'd go out every year, in April, and make a big ceremony of finding the first green shoots."

"How old were you when she died?" Martin asked.

"Twelve. Jimmie was just a baby. Helen—my stepmother—poor thing, she really tried so hard; but I never told her about my flowers. I went by myself the next April. They didn't bloom that year. I thought spring would never come again."

"Years on years I but half remember... Man is a torch, then ashes soon May and June, then dead December, Dead December, then again June...

"One thing I remember; Spring came on forever...

"Vachel Lindsay," Andrea said.

"That's right. I keep forgetting you were an English major."

"Is there anything you don't know about me?" Andrea's smile was rueful but unoffended. "I'm surprised I remember that. I haven't read poetry in
years."

"How about a walk along the stream?" Martin suggested. "I'll talk poetry to you. I know lots of poetry."

"I've wasted enough time already," Andrea said.

Martin recognized the tone; with a smile and a shrug, he left her to return to her work.