No, Patrick had moved them closer. Had moved them closer by drawing them closer.
When the hand holding the eraser was almost touching the paper, she took her own hand away-this had to be all Patrick, she was somehow sure of it. She moved her fingers back and forth, miming what she wanted. He didn't get it. She did it again, then pointed to the sore beside the full lower lip.
"Make it gone, Patrick," she said, surprised by the steadiness of her own voice. "It's ugly, make it gone." Again she made that rubbing gesture in the air. "Erase it."
This time he got it. She saw the light in his eyes. He held the pink nubbin up to her. Perfectly pink it was-not a smudge of graphite on it. He looked at her, eyebrows raised, as if to ask if she was sure.
She nodded.
Patrick lowered the eraser to the sore and began to rub it on the paper, tentatively at first. Then, as he saw what was happening, he worked with more spirit.
FOURTEEN
She felt the same queer tingling sensation, but when he'd been drawing, it had been all over her. Now it was in only one place, to the right side of her mouth. As Patrick got the hang of the eraser and bore down with it, the tingling became a deep and monstrous itch. She had to clutch her hands deep into the dirt on either side of her to keep from reaching up and clawing at the sore, scratching it furiously, and never mind if she tore it wide open and sent a pint of blood gushing down her deerskin shirt.
It be over in a few more seconds, it have to be, it have to be, oh dear God please LET IT END-
Patrick, meanwhile, seemed to have forgotten all about her. He was looking down at his picture, his hair hanging to either side of his face and obscuring most of it, completely absorbed by this wonderful new toy. He erased delicately...
then a little harder (the itch intensified)... then more softly again. Susannah felt like shrieking. That itch was suddenly everywhere. It burned in her forebrain, buzzed across the wet surfaces of her eyes like twin clouds of gnats, it shivered at the very tips of her ni**les, making them hopelessly hard.
I'll scream, I can't help it, I have to scream-"
She was drawing in her breath to do just that when suddenly the itch was gone. The pain was gone, as well. She reached toward the side of her mouth, then hesitated.
I don't dare.
You better dare! Detta responded indignantly. After all you been through-allvue been through-you must have enough backbone left to touch yo' own damn face, you yella bitch).
She brought her fingers down to the skin. The smooth skin.
The sore which had so troubled her since Thunderclap was gone. She knew that when she looked in a mirror or a still pool of water, she would not even see a scar.
FIFTEEN
Patrick worked a little longer-first with the eraser, then with the pencil, then with the eraser again-but Susannah felt no itch and not even a faint tingle. It was as though, once he had passed some critical point, the sensations just ceased. She wondered how old Patrick had been when Dandelo snipped all the erasers off the pencils. Four? Six? Young, anyway. She was sure that his original look of puzzlement when she showed him one of the erasers had been unfeigned, and yet once he began, he used it like an old pro.
Maybe it's like riding a bicycle, she thought. Once you learn how, you never forget.
She waited as patiently as she could, and after five very long minutes, her patience was rewarded. Smiling, Patrick turned the pad around and showed her the picture. He had erased the blemish completely and then faintly shaded the area so that it looked like the rest of her skin. He had been careful to brush away every single crumb of rubber.
"Very nice," she said, but that was a fairly shitty compliment to offer genius, wasn't it?
So she leaned forward, put her arms around him, and kissed him firmly on the mouth. "Patrick, it's beautiful.1"
The blood rushed so quickly and so strongly into his face that she was alarmed at first, wondering if he might not have stroke in spite of his youth. But he was smiling as he held out the pad to her with one hand, making tearing gestures again with the other. Wanting her to take it. Wanting her to have it.
Susannah tore it off very carefully, wondering in a dark back corner of her mind what would happen if she tore it-tore her-right down the middle. She noted as she did that there was no amazement in his face, no astonishment, no fear. He had to have seen the sore beside her mouth, because the nasty thing had pretty much dominated her face for all the time he'd known her, and he had drawn it in near-photographic detail. Now it was gone-her exploring fingers told her so-yet Patrick wasn't registering any emotion, at least in regard to that. The conclusion seemed clear enough. When he'd erased it from his drawing, he'd also erased it from his own mind and memory.
"Patrick?"
He looked at her, smiling. Happy that she was happy. And Susannah was very happy. The fact that she was also scared to death didn't change that in the slightest.