American Boy - Larry Watson [37]
Eventually I settled in a parlor on the main floor, where earlier the entire family—the Dunbar family plus Matthew Garth, that is—had gathered before a small fireplace to take in the doctor’s stories of how deep the snows of his childhood had drifted, and how far into spring the lakes and rivers remained locked in ice. With the room to myself that night, I sat in the big overstuffed armchair that the doctor had occupied, and tried to situate myself in the chair such that my boy’s body could feel and fill the indentations Dr. Dunbar’s weight had made in the cushions.
I remained in that parlor for a long time, listening to the Dunbar house’s sounds—less familiar to me than my own, yet none in the least frightening. I wasn’t hungry and I wasn’t thirsty. I wasn’t cold or tired. I wanted nothing, and I wanted for nothing....
Eventually I went back up to Johnny’s room and the twin bed waiting for me. No one ever knew of my nocturnal prowl. My body’s warmth would have left that chair long before the next person sat in it. But I was there nonetheless.
And so this night, when I finally turned away from the staircase leading up to Louisa Lindahl’s bedroom, I wandered back to that same parlor. I sank into that same chair, exactly where Dr. Dunbar had been sitting in his robe and pajamas when we’d walked into the house with the injured Glen Van Dine. The book he’d been reading rested on the table, next to his ashtray and his Chesterfields. The embers of the fire that had warmed the doctor’s slippered feet glowed faintly. While I watched, the nub of a log burned through and broke in half, spraying sparks harmlessly onto the blackened bricks.
But what if a spark should fly too far and land on the rug nearby, I thought? Smoldering there unnoticed, it would soon flare into flame. Then the house would be ablaze, and everyone inside would have to flee. Louisa would run from the burning mansion ... into my rescuing arms. Try as I might, however, I couldn’t imagine the realization of this fantasy. Not least, I suppose, because it would have necessitated the destruction of the building that I loved more than any other, and in which I felt more at ease than in my own home.
Frustrated, confused, and precariously balanced between incompatible impulses, I fell asleep in the doctor’s chair.
Just as I had on the night my father died, I woke to the sound of Dr. Dunbar saying my name as he shook me awake.
“Matthew? It’s almost three o’clock. Would you like to go upstairs and lie down in Johnny’s room?”
Dr. Dunbar stood over me, smoking one of the Chesterfields from the package on the table. He was still in his pajamas, but over them he wore the white lab coat he always changed into upon entering the clinic.
I sat up straight and tried to focus. In the fireplace there were only ashes. The parlor’s chill was palpable. But I had barely registered the lack of heat when, as if it could discern my needs, the furnace clicked on with its customary thunk and sigh.
I looked past the doctor. “Where’s ... ?”
“Johnny went up to bed a while ago. Glen’s in the clinic. The heat lamp is drying the plaster of his cast. He’s in and out of sleep. He wanted to go home, but I insisted he stay here for the night. That was a nasty dislocation fracture. The ulna and the radius.”
He sat down on the footstool. “Does your mother know where you are?”
I nodded. It wasn’t a lie. If she looked in my room and saw I wasn’t in my bed, she’d assume I was