Her own bewilderment and surprise were overlaid by shock: he was going to cry. She had seen him cry before, but never since he stopped drinking... and never in those days unless he was very drunk and pathetically remorseful. He was a tight man, drum-tight, and his loss of control frightened her all over again.
He came toward her, the tears brimming over his lower lids now, his head shaking involuntarily as if in a fruitless effort to ward off this emotional storm, and his chest drew in a convulsive gasp that was expelled in a huge, racking sob. His feet, clad in Hush Puppies, stumbled over the wreck of the radio and he almost fell into her arms, making her stagger back with his weight. His breath blew into her face and there was no smell of liquor on it. Of course not; there was no liquor up here.
"What's wrong?" She held him as best she could. "Jack, what is it?"
But he could do nothing at first but sob, clinging to her, almost crushing the wind from her, his head turning on her shoulder in that helpless, shaking, warding-off gesture. His sobs were heavy and fierce. He was shuddering all over, his muscles jerking beneath his plaid shirt and jeans.
"Jack? What? Tell me what's wrong!"
At last the sobs began to change themselves into words, most of them incoherent at first, but coming clearer as his tears began to spend themselves.
"... dream, I guess it was a dream, but it was so real, I
... it was my mother saying that Daddy was going to be on the radio and I... he was... he was telling me to... I don't know, he was yelling at me... and so I broke the radio... to shut him up. To shut him up. He's dead. I don't even want to dream about him. He's dead. My God, Wendy, my God. I never had a nightmare like that. I never want to have another one. Christ! It was awful."
"You just fell asleep in the office?"
"No... not here. Downstairs." He was straightening a little now, his weight coming off her, and the steady backand-forth motion of his head first slowed and then stopped.
"I was looking through those old papers. Sitting on a chair I set up down there. Milk receipts. Dull stuff. And I guess I just drowsed off. That's when I started to dream. I must have sleepwalked up here." He essayed a shaky little laugh against her neck. "Another first."
"Where is Danny, Jack?"
"I don't know. Isn't he with you?"
"He wasn't... downstairs with you?"
He looked over his shoulder and his face tightened at what he saw on her face.
"Never going to let me forget that, are you, Wendy?"
"Jack-"
"When I'm on my deathbed you'll lean over and say, `It serves you right, remember the time you broke Danny's arm?' "
"Jack!"
"Jack what?" he asked hotly, and jumped to his feet. "Are you denying that's what you're thinking? That I hurt him? That I hurt him once before and I could hurt him again?"
"I want to know where he is, that's all!"
"Go ahead, yell your f**king head off, that'll make everything okay, won't it? "
She turned and walked out the door.
He watched her go, frozen for a moment, a blotter covered with fragments of broken glass in one hand. Then he dropped it into the wastebasket, went after her, and caught her by the lobby desk. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. Her face was carefully set.
"Wendy, I'm sorry. It was the dream. I'm upset. Forgive?"
"Of course," she said, her face not changing expression. Her wooden shoulders slipped out of his hands. She walked to the middle of the lobby and called: "Hey, doc! Where are you?"
Silence came back. She walked toward the double lobby doors opened one of them, and stepped out onto the path Jack had shoveled. It was more like a trench; the packed and drifted snow through which the path was cut came to her shoulders. She called him again, her breath coming out in a white plume. When she came back in she had begun to look scared.
Controlling his irritation with her, he said reasonably: "Are you sure he's not sleeping in his room?"
"I told you, he was playing somewhere when I was knitting. I could hear him downstairs."
"Did you fall asleep?"
"What's that got to do with it? Yes. Danny?"
"Did you look in his room when you came downstairs just now?"
"I-"She stopped.
He nodded. "I didn't really think so."
He started up the stairs without waiting for her. She followed him, halfrunning, but he was taking the risers two at a time. She almost crashed into his back when he came to a dead stop on the first-floor landing. He was rooted there, looking up, his eyes wide.
"What-?" she began, and followed his gaze.
Danny still stood there, his eyes blank, sucking his thumb. The marks on his throat were cruelly visible in the light of the hall's electric flambeaux.
"Danny!" she shrieked.
It broke Jack's paralysis and they rushed up the stairs together to where he stood. Wendy fell on her knees beside him and swept the boy into her arms. Danny came pliantly enough, but he did not hug her back. It was like hugging a padded stick, and the sweet taste of horror flooded her mouth. He only sucked his thumb and stared with indifferent blankness out into the stairwell beyond both of them.