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By Root 528 0

grief from her loss. He moved to the couch and sat down. Tomorrow his friends would gather at Josie’s for coffee and doughnuts, and in his absence they would talk of Evelyn in the same way they had talked of that postal worker in the gorilla suit or the fellow who killed all those children. They would not do so maliciously, but because they had thought her curious and now found her death somehow threatening. After all, she had died here, in Hopewell — not in some other town in some other state. She had died here, where they lived, and she was someone they knew. Yes, she was odd, and it wasn’t really any surprise that she had died of a heart attack blasting away at shadows with a shotgun, because Evelyn Freemark had done stranger things. But in the back of their minds was the conviction that she really wasn’t so different than they were, and that if it could happen to her, it could happen to them. Truth was, you shared an uneasy sense of kinship with even the most unfortunate, disaffected souls; you felt you had known at least a few of them during your life. You had all been children together, with children’s hopes and dreams. The dark future that had claimed those few was never more than an arm’s length away from everyone else. You knew that. You knew that a single misfortune could change your life forever, that you were vulnerable, and to protect yourself you wanted to know everything you could about why it had touched another and passed you by.

Old Bob listened to the silence and let the parade of memories march away into the darkness. My God, he was going to miss her.

After a time his thoughts wandered to the call he had received earlier from Mel Riorden. Mel and Carol had been by that morning to offer condolences, promising they would have him over for dinner after the funeral, when he was feeling up to it. Old Bob had taken their hands, an awkward ritual between long-standing friends where something profound had changed their lives and left them insufficient words to convey their understanding of what it meant. Later Mel had called on the phone, keeping his voice down, telling Old Bob that there was something he ought to know. Seemed that Derry had called him up out of the blue and apologized for scaring him with his talk about MidCon. Said he really hadn’t meant anything by it. i Said he was just blowing off steam, and that whatever the union decided was good enough for him. Said he wanted to know if he could go to the fireworks with Mel and Carol and some of the others and sit with them. Mel paused every so often to make sure Old Bob was still listening, his voice sounding hopeful. Maybe he was mistaken about his nephew, he concluded tentatively. Maybe the boy was showing some common sense after all. He just wanted Old Bob to know.

When Mel hung up, Old Bob stood looking at the phone, wondering if he believed any of it and if it made any difference if he did. Then he dropped the matter, going about the business of his own life, of finishing the funeral preparations and worrying about Nest. But now the matter surfaced anew in his thoughts, and he found himself taking a fresh look at it. Truth was, it just didn’t feel right. It didn’t sound like Derry Howe. He didn’t think that boy would change in a million years, let alone in twenty-four hours. But maybe he was being unfair. People did change — even people you didn’t think would ever be any different from what they’d been all their lives. It happened.

He drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch, staring off into space. Going to the fireworks with Mel and Carol, was he? That was a first. Where was his buddy, Junior El way, that he’d opted for an evening out with the old folks?

He got up from the sofa and went into the kitchen to fish around in the packed-out refrigerator for a can of root beer. When he found it, he popped the top and carried it back into the living room and sat down again.

Fireworks. The word kept digging at him, suggesting something different from the obvious, something he couldn’t quite grasp. Hadn’t he and Deny talked about fireworks yesterday,